SO, if a tree fell in the woods...

[Tarantism]

:evil: looks like pyrotex knows what he is talking about

[EWright]

If all life on earth were to perish... and there were no other life in the universe to perceive the universe.. and there never will be again... would the universe have ever existed? And if so, to whom???

[Tarantism]

If all life on earth were to perish... and there were no other life in the universe to perceive the universe.. and there never will be again... would the universe have ever existed? And if so, to whom???

 

uh-oh. :evil:

[Pyrotex]

Do not mistake a lucky guess for wisdom, little grasshopper. Actually, I forgot to look at my LPs this weekend. Thanksgiving happened. Oh, my aching body. Oh, my aching wallet.

[Pyrotex]

If all life on earth were to perish... and there were no other life in the universe to perceive the universe.. and there never will be again... would the universe have ever existed? And if so, to whom???

 

Well, for starters, you wouldn't be there to receive my answer. I wouldn't be there to give you that answer. And there would be no one to chuckle at the absurdity of the situation. This is a question which totally nullifies even the concept of 'answer'. It even nullifies itself.

 

What question????? :)

[Pyrotex]

"There are simply no physical properties of light that cause clocks of faster moving objects to run slower."

 

It is not light that >causes< clocks to run slower. Special Relativity basically describes the geometry of a viewer observing a clock, with light as the medium of observation. To avoid self-contradictions, the geometry insists that (under certain high-speed conditions) the clock must be >observed< to run slower. That is what the viewer must see.

[Tarantism]

"There are simply no physical properties of light that cause clocks of faster moving objects to run slower."

 

It is not light that >causes< clocks to run slower. Special Relativity basically describes the geometry of a viewer observing a clock, with light as the medium of observation. To avoid self-contradictions, the geometry insists that (under certain high-speed conditions) the clock must be >observed< to run slower. That is what the viewer must see.

 

does that mean that if sound is observed it is there?

 

ummagumma? great album, well my favorite.:)

[Pyrotex]

does that mean that if sound is observed it is there?

 

ummagumma? great album, well my favorite.:)

 

Hi!

Is that how it is spelled? Gosh, has it been THAT long since I have played it and looked at that neat album cover? I am getting old.

 

To answer your question: no. If it is observed, then it is observed. The English language has defects; this is one of them. The use of "it" as a pointer implies that the pointed-at does in fact have physical existance. In truth, the pointed-at does not HAVE to exist merely because you have referenced the purported or conjectural entity with the pronoun "it".

 

Hell, that even confuses ME, and I KNOW it is correct!! ;)

 

For example, have you ever experienced left-brain speaking? You are half asleep, dozing, and suddenly you hear your mother shout your name. You wake totally up and look around for your mother. As your heart stops beating so fast, you remember that your mother is 2000 miles away. Or maybe even that she passed away 5 years ago. Yet the voice was perfect, you "HEARD" it, there was no mistake. It was real and in the room with you.

 

About once every coupla years, I'll have a dream or doze-state where I am awakened by a voice in the room. Half the time, I recognize the voice as one of my parents. (And they are usually upset!!!) Is the sound "REAL"? In a physical sense, no. Absolutely not. The remembered sound of the voice is channeled from the "wrong" side of the brain to the speech/hearing center on the "right" side of the brain and interpreted as a real, present, physical voice.

 

This is not an uncommon phenomenon.

[Tarantism]

pardon me for being a bit confused as well, but are you talking about hearing things subconsiously? erm...B)

[Pyrotex]

pardon me for being a bit confused as well, but are you talking about hearing things subconsiously? erm...B)

 

What is "subconsiously"?

Read Julian Jaynes' "The Origin of Conciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Brain".

He discusses the affect that left-brain voices would have had on ancient (Stone/Bronze Ages) folks. We have TWO speech centers. Correct me if I have my directions wrong. The one on the right side of the brain does all our interpretation of sounds into speech/words/meanings.

 

The one the left side mostly just sits there and does nothing. But every now and then, usually when half asleep, it attempts to pull down a voice from memory and pass it over to the one on the right. The result is as I described.

 

The experience is very much like being awakened by a living voice in the room with you, only the direction information that usually results when a real voice hits your ears at slightly different times -- is totally missing. So, it's like the voice comes from directly behind, above or sometimes within your skull.

 

Panic city B)

[Tarantism]

wow, sounds interesting, and i will definatley check out that book.

 

and btw i believe that the song "bike" was on "relics" as well as "the piper at the gates of dawn". i stand corrected!B)

[EWright]

"There are simply no physical properties of light that cause clocks of faster moving objects to run slower."

 

It is not light that >causes< clocks to run slower. Special Relativity basically describes the geometry of a viewer observing a clock, with light as the medium of observation. To avoid self-contradictions, the geometry insists that (under certain high-speed conditions) the clock must be >observed< to run slower. That is what the viewer must see.

 

Try explaining that to anyone else here. Also, you say the clock will only be 'observed' as running slower, but tests confirm that they actually DO run slower. I'm sure you know this; just trying to clarify your position. Also, please define "self-contradictions" as they relate to this context.

[Tarantism]

So, i researched this a bit and i found some info, things that you may already know but worthwhile to me.

 

http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/cosmo/lectures/lec06.html

 

there it is. enjoy!

[lindagarrette]

So, i researched this a bit and i found some info, things that you may already know but worthwhile to me.

 

http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/cosmo/lectures/lec06.html

 

there it is. enjoy!

Yes!!! "The idea that spacetime is distorted by motion, as in special relativity, is extended to gravity by the equivalence principle. Gravity comes from matter, so the presence of matter causes distortions or warps in spacetime. Matter tells spacetime how to curve, and spacetime tells matter how to move."

[Tarantism]

Yes!!! "The idea that spacetime is distorted by motion, as in special relativity, is extended to gravity by the equivalence principle. Gravity comes from matter, so the presence of matter causes distortions or warps in spacetime. Matter tells spacetime how to curve, and spacetime tells matter how to move."

 

ok, so let me try to make sense of this and tell me if i am mistaken, but spacetime tells the clock how to "move" (or work?) and the clock constantly is telling spacetime (and gravity?) where to go around it? hm, not sure i totally understand...

[Pyrotex]

Try explaining that to anyone else here. Also, you say the clock will only be 'observed' as running slower, but tests confirm that they actually DO run slower. I'm sure you know this; just trying to clarify your position. Also, please define "self-contradictions" as they relate to this context.

 

I was afraid of this. It has been 33 years since I took advanced Relativity in grad school. I will try for the short explanation, and if'n that don't work, I will try the traditional explanation.

 

The difficulty for most people in understanding Relativity is what grad student's call the "God's Eye Paradox".

 

[stop whatever you are doing. Take a deep breath. Hold it while reading slowly.]

 

The average folk assumes they have God's Eye, that is, they can see or visualize what is actually going on RIGHT NOW. They assume that if they were just in the right place at the right time they could see what is REALLY going on, in spite of all that Relativity stuff. This implies that information can be somehow transferred instantly from the clock to the scientist.

 

But this cannot happen. We do not live in a Universe where this is possible. The fact is, you DON'T have God's Eye. No one does. It is not even conceivable in principle. (It is however, easy to imagine that you do.)

 

As a demonstration of this assumption, may I direct your attention to your own words: "..clock will only be 'observed' as running slower, but tests confirm that they actually DO run slower".

 

What do you mean by 'DO run slower'? You mean that scientists have a way of actually or virtually knowing what the clock is REALLY doing in its own rest frame. They do not. They can only "observe" the clock from their rest frame. That is all any of us can ever do, PERIOD. We can NEVER, ever, no kidding, not ever-ever know what is actually happening at a distance in another rest frame.

 

We can only observe from our own. And the fastest way to observe is by using light as a medium of information transfer between the clock and the scientist. And light has a finite speed. Therefore, if the clock is hauling ***, Relativity describes the geometry of how that light is going to reach us from the clock and what we will observe.

 

So the statements "we observe clocks to run slower" AND "clocks actually DO run slower" are... [drum roll, professor] ... B)

 

ENTIRELY AND TOTALLY EQUIVALENT.

 

[End of Short Explanation -- you may now release the breath you were holding.]

[Tarantism]

aha! ah, the fruitfullness of understanding.

 

ah, the clocks.