Rational Metaphysics

In response to all this, please see my previous two posts, which came after this one you quote.

It seems that what an observer percieves as time space dilation in relativistic considerations are the active perception of kinetic force. That is, when you travel through time relative to a differentially moving reference point, it is rather material space-time (lol, what other kind can there be?) propelling you out of your inertia by taking energy out of itself.

Like an intestine contracting and dilating to move food along, except the diameter from inside might seem constant to the food as it is not still relative to the dilation or contraction but having its time-spacial center being determined by it. Like movement is experienced as travelling through the parameters of space-time for the mover and as contraction or dilation of space-time around the movement for the observer, and, in the end, it is as much the universe moving away from you as it is you moving away from it, the splitting of inertia being the digestive system of movement and matter resulting in a potential understanding of it (among other things).

In terms of affectance, this is a way in which material as a consequence of it can fall back into that within traditional continuum science that is relevant. It is not matter that moves, but affectance that produces it already in movement from its own energy.

This suggests that unity in AO cannot be a still or originating element, like a sword of God, but must be an ever-shifting pattern of movement that produces diferentiation, is itself the principle of diferentiation even as it is a second part of all movement, always a consequence.

This leads back to one of VO's fundamental assumptions, that what be is in terms of what it cannot be as the initial point before which no understanding has place.

Capable wrote:

I see the error more clearly now. It just occurred to me that this is the same perceived problem as what you get when an astronaut rockets off into distant space at high velocity relative to c, then comes back; according to Relativity the astronaut should be much younger than his twin who remained on earth, because the astronaut has been traveling at near-c and thus his own time experience has been slowed relative to the stationary Earth. HOWEVER, from the perspective of the astronaut, the EARTH is the one that moved away at high speeds, then returned, therefore the twin on earth should be the one who aged younger, while the astronaut aged normal.

Clearly the astronaut and the twin are not both younger and not younger than each other after the space journey.

So where is the error? Relativity draws a distinction between the frame which is accelerating and the frame that is not accelerating; the key here is that acceleration means that the frame is NOT STATIONARY TO ITSELF any longer. There is a difference between acceleration and constant movement.

So is the train A) moving at a constant speed or B) moving at an accelerating (non-constant) speed?

Acceleration has nothing to do with this issue. Nothing is proposed as accelerating. I agree with your analysis of the twins though. ref:Resolve to the Twins Paradox

Capable wrote:

A)
If the train is not accelerating (its movement is constant velocity) then it remains stationary to itself at all times. Likewise the frame of the station is experienced by the train-perspective as also moving at a constant (non-accelerating) speed relative to the train. If this is the case, the train-perspective observer will calculate (PREDICT) (assuming he has knowledge of Relativity) that the clock on the station will shut off because he knows that a) the station clock is actually at rest with respect to itself and b) the photons started at an equal distance from the clock and travel at constant c. In this case, both clocks DO turn off.

Seriously? Doesn't that seem a bit Catholic to you?

"I know it looks and tastes like a cracker, but in REALITY is is the body of Christ."
"I know that it looks like a pig, but because this is a holiday, it is REALLY a cow."
"I know that you prayed for a Rolls Royce and it appears as though you got a Volkswagen, but in REALITY you actually got that Rolls Royce. It is just a matter of perspective."

You seem to be accepting a theory as if ordained by God and thus ignoring direct observation. "He will know that the other clock will see it differently therefore in REALITY it is different than what I directly observe."

Why are you really accepting that theory? Because someone told you that it was right in such a way as to convince you? You haven't "heard" anyone say that it was wrong who also represented higher authority, so of course, the higher sounding authority must be right, "else I would have heard someone saying that they are wrong and they would of course correct their error, because they NEVER lie."

Consider just for a moment that the current dominater of the world, including the media, has tricked both you and a great many others into supporting your own domination. What they had to do is convince you to ignore what you directly see and accept their word concerning "proven" theories (and what you are shown through a media). Have you actually ever directly seen any such proof?

You keep saying that one must ignore what he sees directly (the other guy moving out of center) because "they say" otherwise. The theory itself requires that one to ignore his own perspective as a part of his own perspective. You seriously buy that?

Come on now.

You see the train moving out from center and thus cannot get light from both sides simultaneously. But a theory that someone gave you says that the train will see it differently so you are to ignore what you directly, empirically observe and go with what the train theoretically would see as "truth"/"reality".

But of course you don't do that concerning what he would see of you. He mistakenly thinks that you are moving and obviously you are not, so you can ignore what he thinks concerning that issue and only accept what he is going to think concerning the light, even though you can see that he couldn't be right about that either.

I hadn't thought of you as being religiously fanatical, a "fundamentalist". Have I been wrong about that? What do you call your Faith? Perhaps RM is going to be too heretical for your church.

Actually, it's like when you look into clear water and see the distorted view of the rocks underneath. They appear to be larger than they actually are, their color is slightly skewed, and they seem to ripple and shift. Of course, using the application of knowledge/reason, you KNOW that the rocks are in fact not that large, that the color is changed in appearance by looking through water, and that the rocks are not in fact rippling. And then imagine someone comes along and says, "hey you just believe that about the rocks because some High and Mighty Expert told you! Well use your own eyes, look, the rock are MOVING! and theyre so BIG!"

Er... I am not claiming anything like "Believe what authorities tell you", rather I am just saying: Use your own reason. And this includes learning about science.



...In your example, and since you have defined that the train is NOT accelerating, the station observer will see the clock on the train stop, because it DOES stop. He sees the clock stop because it does stop. Aand how do we know that it does stop? Because the train is at rest relative to itself, ergo the distances which the photons must travel to the clock do not change.

Constant velocity = stationary frame of reference with respect to itself. Movements do not add where c is concerned. It isn't like someone on the train threw a baseball toward the front of the train and you add the velocity of the ball + the velocity of the train to = the speed at which the station observer measures the ball moving. No, it does not work that way with light. That is what makes light "special".

Pezer, I'd like to know more about your perspective on this, as you wrote.. it is hard for me to grasp. But you are saying something similar to what someone else was saying earlier at CC, about how energy is taken from itself in order to push a thing out of its own inertia. He was saying it's like the photon moves on the x axis of acceleration while humans move on the y axis of space and time.. I need a better way to conceptualize this. Please write more about how you see it.

EDITED°

I'm  not surprised, derivative science is true science.

The key is in the concept of energy. What is it? This is a classic physics philosophy question: where is force? Energy is what potential leads to movement, we are told. The more energy a thing has, it means it has more points of affect that can unleash movement. So speed, the dimension of light, is (being the constant) the ontological basis for matter, light° is manifested as affectances so discreet and directional that they result in light. Licke a sissor closing, the point where they cross moves at the speed of light.

Matter is characterized, made up of inertia. It is there because it can affect and be affectd, be the result of energy. We now know this because we know that matter approaching light speed in a sense augments matter, it climbs the moments of affectance and takes them up like CPU space.

When you are in a train and see a fox moving on the forest outside your window, the light goes through the rungs of affectance that traverse all space-time between you and the fox, thus the information is accurate.

James is a genius because affect is truly then the basic ontological moment, that which results in matter or energy and which light traverses at its un-inertia limit.

If we forget affect, we have that the reason for there to be traversability between my movement and the foxes' in some way is that the accelerations in inertia are what result in matter or energy. Inertia is broken by other inertia, via energy, and creates the necessity for continuity of information that is shared by me and the fox, respected by light, and thus in a way the inertia of the movement of whatever light shows that me and the fox share the need of. The universe is proven as having a logic through fluctuations of time-space out of the shared necessities of diferential inertias within that shifting pool of space time. This gives us that the reason for moving, as this reason shifts, is the breaking of that inertia and a constant (even when it is not constant, as shown by the continuity of light).

"The theory itself requires that one to ignore his own perspective as a part of his own perspective."

What appears to the observer from his perspective is not ignored at all, but is notated with great exactitude before it can be put through a transform, whereby next to ones own, also the others perspective becomes known.

This is how value ontology defines "reality" (the one that you say can not be broken down) - as never really existing in the first place. Not with exactitude. What is exact is only local, requires a perspective, something relative to c.

Theory of relativity describes reality not as perspective relative to each other, but as perspectives relative to the speed of light. C is the new zero. It's reversed - Einstein got it right, the beginning value of an argument is not 'zero' but the ultimate positive, the limit of positivity. There is the real world.

By analogy (and do take this as a metaphor) - we could see that there never was a big bang, but a big crash, like the pulverizing of a glass plate. In the beginning there wasn't nothing (nor virtually nothing) but the ultimate maximum of cohesion by value-symmetry, and thus, because nothing that is what it is can also continue to be what it is, after an instant of perfection, there was too much reality for it to contain itself, and it broke down in "a million" pieces. In all of which there was the memory of being part of perfection, and so the quest for valuing in terms of this perfection begins anew.

Yes, light itself is a dimensionality - so is gravity.

Gravity comprises three dimensions and moves in either of these dimensions relative to other bits of gravity. Light comprises two dimensions and moves in a third dimension relative to itself.

Lights position relative to itself is what makes absolute time and space, which are opposites.

Time and space diverge toward the speed of light. That is: if a gravity attains the speed of light it ceases to take up space to its observer, but a moment within it lasts infinitely long to the observer, as it has 'objectively' become infinitely heavy.

Where light speed and gravity are starkly mutually exclusive with the exception of infinites and infinitesimals, time and space are 'vaguer' opposites, change and constancy.

Lightspeed and gravity 'meet' to form the conditions of the cosmos (force and form), time and space meet to form the actual substance of the cosmos (change and consistency - accelerating and constant reference frames). Then on an even more crystalized level the opposition is even less stark; diversity and repetition, between which the actual construction of the cosmos occurs.

Pure diversity precludes repetition, just as pure change precludes constancy, as pure  (unaltered) space precludes time (why churches are built as spaces to make man feel timelessness) and just as pure (all encompassing) lightspeed precludes gravity.

We can think of 'nothingness' as a black void, where at most infinitesimals exist, or as a white void, an absolute space of zero-time where there is only light. As soon as this light gets 'entangled' into itself, gravity ensues, space becomes relative and time is born.

Nothingness as the impossibility of something? Thus it is quantifiable as the amounts of impossibilities gathered from the imagination as reflection of what is.

Capable wrote:

Actually, it's like when you look into clear water and see the distorted view of the rocks underneath. They appear to be larger than they actually are, their color is slightly skewed, and they seem to ripple and shift. Of course, using the application of knowledge/reason, you KNOW that the rocks are in fact not that large, that the color is changed in appearance by looking through water, and that the rocks are not in fact rippling. And then imagine someone comes along and says, "hey you just believe that about the rocks because some High and Mighty Expert told you! Well use your own eyes, look, the rock are MOVING! and theyre so BIG!"

Er... I am not claiming anything like "Believe what authorities tell you", rather I am just saying: Use your own reason. And this includes learning about science.



...In your example, and since you have defined that the train is NOT accelerating, the station observer will see the clock on the train stop, because it DOES stop. He sees the clock stop because it does stop. Aand how do we know that it does stop? Because the train is at rest relative to itself, ergo the distances which the photons must travel to the clock do not change.

Constant velocity = stationary frame of reference with respect to itself. Movements do not add where c is concerned. It isn't like someone on the train threw a baseball toward the front of the train and you add the velocity of the ball + the velocity of the train to = the speed at which the station observer measures the ball moving. No, it does not work that way with light. That is what makes light "special".

I fully agree that one should use their own reasoning . But I don't believe for a second that the theory of relativity is Your reasoning. But since you still aren't seeing it, let's bump this up a level...

The front flasher is called "F" (front) and the back flasher is called "B" (back).
The moment of flash for F is called "Ft".
The location in space where F flashes is called "Fp".
The station clock is called "Sc"
The Train clock is called "Tc"

If you were at the station, would you agree that;

P1) There is a fixed, non-zero distance between the Sc and Fp?

P2) During the time taken for the light to get to Sc, Tc moved closer to Fp?

P3) During the time taken for the light to get to Sc, Sc did not move closer to Fp?

P4) The light that travels to Sc travels at the same speed as the light that travels to Tc?

Despite the temptation, there is no need to give additional rhetoric based upon speculated further reasoning until such reasoning is given.

No, this, "P2) During the time taken for the light to get to Sc, Tc moved closer to Fp?" must be incorrect because the train clock does not move closer to or further away from Fp at all, they are part of the same constant velocity frame of reference. Even from the perspective of the station, this holds true. It is like the light dispersion through water when you view the rocks... the perspective causes a distortion of appearance. From the station perspective, Fp will appear to move closer to the train clock, because as the train moves away from the station the two points, train clock and Fp, seem to be converging. Of course that appearance is only an illusion due to distance, and in fact they are not converging at all. Tc and Fp occupy fixed positions in a common frame of reference that is stationary with respect to itself.

Capable wrote:

No, this, "P2) During the time taken for the light to get to Sc, Tc moved closer to Fp?" must be incorrect because the train clock does not move closer to or further away from Fp at all

"The location in space where F flashes is called "Fp"."

And we are only talking about one perspective right now, the station. Alternative perspectives are irrelevant to these premises. We are at the station only.

Fp is merely a position in space where F was when it flashed, perhaps 10 meters from the station clock. It doesn't matter what the train does after F flashes. That 10 meters to the left of Sc doesn't change from being 10 meters away does it? The train could blowup, fly away or anything. 10 meters to the left is 10 meters to the left, isn't it?

James S Saint wrote:

Capable wrote:

No, this, "P2) During the time taken for the light to get to Sc, Tc moved closer to Fp?" must be incorrect because the train clock does not move closer to or further away from Fp at all

"The location in space where F flashes is called "Fp"."

And we are only talking about one perspective right now, the station. Alternative perspectives are irrelevant to these premises. We are at the station only.

Fp is merely a position in space where F was when it flashed, perhaps 10 meters from the station clock. It doesn't matter what the train does after F flashes. That 10 meters to the left of Sc doesn't change from being 10 meters away does it? The train could blowup, fly away or anything. 10 meters to the left is 10 meters to the left, isn't it?

That is irrelevant, because the light flash occurred not at some stationary point "in space" but from a point on the train, which is part of the exact same frame of reference as the clock. Let me use an analogy to what you are saying: Me and a friend stand exactly 500 meters from each other in a field, facing each other. In the exact center of us is a large rock. We each begin running toward the rock at the same time, and as it happens we both run at the exact same speed. However, according to you, if I happen to be running in the same direction as Earth happens to be moving at that moment, my friend will reach the rock first because I had more distance to run than he did. That is clearly false. It does not matter what direction Earth is moving, we are both part of that same frame of reference and we will reach the rock at exactly the same moment.

We are talking about rather or not the clock shuts off, in the case of your example. Rather or not there are other frames of reference beyond the train itself which measure relative distances crossed differently than what is measured on the train (and of course there are an innumerable number of possible different relative frames of reference, for any movement), the clock still shuts off, because TO THE TRAIN'S frame of reference an equal distance has been crossed in the case of both flashes of light. If the observer at the station concludes that the clock SHOULDN'T HAVE shut off, because he sees light (or anything else) crossing more distance moving toward the front of the train than moving toward the back of it with respect to the direction of the train's motion, that just means that the station observer is talking about HIS OWN perspective and not that of the train. The clock on the train doesn't care one bit about the station observer's perspective, it is not bound by the station's perspective but by its own perspective.

The observer at the station does not see the light cross more distance in the one case and not the other, when looking at the flashes moving in the train. The observer will see, seemingly paradoxically to him if he thinks as you do, that the flashes of light stay at uniform symmetrical position to each other as they converge on and strike the clock at the exact same time, and the clock shuts off. If the observer then states, "Hey that doesn't make sense, there was more distance in the case of the flash moving forward!" that only means that the observer is ignorant about what frames of reference are, and also would mean that the observer is substituting his presumption for his actual observation, something that you would seemingly have a huge problem with.

You seem to be stuck in your natural mind, much like FC was.

We are talking about a single frame of reference. There is no "center of the universe" from which we are flying away. The station isn't "flying through space". "Space" is measured strictly from the stand point of the station. That is the entire point of relativity, "no absolute frame of reference".

So no, I am not talking about the station flying through "space" when F flashes. I am saying that from the perspective of the station, 10 meters to the left is always 10 meters to the left and that is where F flashed. I am saying that the light is "coming from 10 meters away". We don't care about any train right now. The train could be going in any direction. We don't care at this point. The issue is "how far from the station was F when it flashed? ... as measured by anyone in the station frame of reference" (the only frame of reference at the moment).

If you deny that, then you have already denied relativity and there is no need to go further.

You seem to be saying that if the prosecution states that the gun was fired 5 feet from the victim, the defense can claim that because the gun wasn't found 5 feet away from the body, then obviously it was in motion and thus that "5 feet" point isn't there but instead it followed the gun or the center of the universe or something. Why do I suspect that the judge or jury isn't going to buy that one?

Is the speed of light relative to p and t? This seems to be James' assumption. Would anybody elaborate? That confuses me.

Pezer wrote:

Is the speed of light relative to p and t? This seems to be James' assumption. Would anybody elaborate? That confuses me.

The speed of light never changes for anyone, no matter what perspective, frame of reference, no matter who, what, when, where, or why. As FC pointed out, in SR, the speed of light, "c" is the anchor upon which all else is measured.

In RM:AO that statement is also true but meant a little differently. But right now, we are talking about SR and in SR, "c" is the same number for all observes always regardless of anything.

But having said that, I have asked 4 question, none of which have anything at all to do with the speed of light.

Quote :

The front flasher is called "F" (front) and the back flasher is called "B" (back).
The moment of flash for F is called "Ft".
The location in space where F flashes is called "Fp".
The station clock is called "Sc"
The Train clock is called "Tc"

If you were at the station, would you agree that;

P1) There is a fixed, non-zero distance between the Sc and Fp?

P2) During the time taken for the light to get to Sc, Tc moved closer to Fp?

P3) During the time taken for the light to get to Sc, Sc did not move closer to Fp?

P4) The light that travels to Sc travels at the same speed as the light that travels to Tc?

Despite the temptation, there is no need to give additional rhetoric based upon speculated further reasoning until such reasoning is given.

Right now, we don't care what the speed of light might be as long as it is consistent throughout.

Call the photon that starts at F and heads toward Sc "A",
And the photon that starts at F heads toward the train clock "B".

P4 is asking if A and B are traveling at the same speed. The obvious answer, and demanded by SR (regardless of any frame of reference, is simply "YES".

The issue with P1 is also demanded by SR. SR demands that all measurements are made with regard to the observer (that was the whole point of SR). F flashed at a particular time when it was a particular distance from Sc. All P1 ia asking is if that was a "non-zero distance". Again, the obvious answer is "YES". That is why these are labeled "Pn" because they should be more than obvious regardless of which side of the debate you are on.


Something else that you might want to note is that Einstein didn't come up with the "light is always observed to be measured the same for all observers" bit. He began his SR thesis with "If what I have been told is correct [referring to the consistency of the measuring of the speed of light] then the following must also be true...". I can't argue with him on that issue. He properly stated the premise as being that light is ALWAYS measured to be the same by all observers. The truth of that premise is in question.

But in addition, long afterwards, he still claimed that he couldn't really get general relativity to work out (based upon SR). Einstein knew it was all dubious. Concerning QM, he flat out stated that he didn't like what they were doing to Science (obscuring it).

Physicists are technicians who are given metaphysical thoughts with which to work and try to measure things. They are the lower priests being directed by a higher Vatican of thinkers playing in the field of metaphysics and social domination.

"That is the entire point of relativity, 'no absolute frame of reference.'" We can now correct this to read "That is the entire point of relativity, 'the speed of light is the absolute frame of reference?'"

Unfortunately I am now totally at loss. I can't see through the abbreviations, I can't place it in context, I'm no longer sure what is even being said, what is being disagreed upon. Sorry about that. If any of you (Capable or James) could explain to me in concise but non abbreviated terms what the difference of opinion here is and how that fits in the context of the problem, that would be great. I have weaknesses, this sort of text is one of them.

Pezer -  I agree with your statement. Or I see you agree with mine - either way.

Pezer wrote:

"That is the entire point of relativity, 'no absolute frame of reference.'" We can now correct this to read "That is the entire point of relativity, 'the speed of light is the absolute frame of reference?'"

James agrees as well, at least that this is the point of Special Relativity.

JSS wrote:

As FC pointed out, in SR, the speed of light, "c" is the anchor upon which all else is measured.

James, you say that in RM, this is slightly different. I'm interested in that, but perhaps we won't get the chance of arriving there. It seems we got stuck here. I don't want to keep anyone from doing what they'd rather be doing. If this is the end of this thread, then my sincere thanks to every one, and I'll go over it some quiet morning and see if I get what the hell started this Babylonian confusion. If not, I suggest a summary of where we are from the ground up, and please, without abbreviating the objects I have to imagine.

Sorry for the abbreviations. I didn't think they would be an issue. What causes that as a problem is a short term memory dysfunction. You need to do the water thing, increase blood circulation, and visit an oxygen bar regularly, if they even have such a thing over there.

I don't understand the time limit issue. Has something been going on without me being informed? It takes me hours just to make a few posts on this site.

I wanted to divert into this particular debate merely to emphasis the use of definitions, as such is required in RM. But the premise of this particular debate seems to have been false, which that the participants actually understood the definitions within Relativity. It is a bit pointless to debate a theory when one side doesn't actually understand the theory.

If there is some time limit concern, I need to reassess my strategy for conveying essential concepts.

Realize that RM:AO is an entire college curriculum, not merely a course. The introduction, "RM:AO 101", is a single course involving the essentials of epistemology and constructing an ontology. It involves the use of definitions, consistency, coherency, comprehensiveness, completeness (Gogel), and relevance (purpose). But it doesn't require mathematics until you get into higher level concerns which in some cases are "deeper" concerns rather than the more complex concerns of higher structures.

Imagine trying to convince someone of the viability of something called "Chemistry" in just a few posts if they had never heard of such a thing and their church didn't really approve of it. RM is not "an idea". It is an entire field of related ideas that relate to all fields of Science, ontology and epistemology. It isn't for high schoolers, house wives, or beginners in philosophy or social life. RM is for designers and architects.

I will give my summary.

Affect as the base level of ontology is an insight. This insight could yeild kilometers of theory, but only if one is wise enough to understand that one found something instead of havingdecided it.

James, you have studied long and hard to become impervious to honesty, so as to protect what was genius in your insight. I dedicate this poem to you:

The Wood-Pile

by Robert Frost

Out walking in the frozen swamp one gray day,
I paused and said, 'I will turn back from here.
No, I will go on farther—and we shall see.'
The hard snow held me, save where now and then
One foot went through. The view was all in lines
Straight up and down of tall slim trees
Too much alike to mark or name a place by
So as to say for certain I was here
Or somewhere else: I was just far from home.
A small bird flew before me. He was careful
To put a tree between us when he lighted,
And say no word to tell me who he was
Who was so foolish as to think what he thought.
He thought that I was after him for a feather—
The white one in his tail; like one who takes
Everything said as personal to himself.
One flight out sideways would have undeceived him.
And then there was a pile of wood for which
I forgot him and let his little fear
Carry him off the way I might have gone,
Without so much as wishing him good-night.
He went behind it to make his last stand.
It was a cord of maple, cut and split
And piled—and measured, four by four by eight.
And not another like it could I see.
No runner tracks in this year's snow looped near it.
And it was older sure than this year's cutting,
Or even last year's or the year's before.
The wood was gray and the bark warping off it
And the pile somewhat sunken. Clematis
Had wound strings round and round it like a bundle.
What held it though on one side was a tree
Still growing, and on one a stake and prop,
These latter about to fall. I thought that only
Someone who lived in turning to fresh tasks
Could so forget his handiwork on which
He spent himself, the labor of his ax,
And leave it there far from a useful fireplace
To warm the frozen swamp as best it could
With the slow smokeless burning of decay.

The time limit simply has to do with the inescapable reality that anyone would have to be convinced that RM is going to be of interest to him, before he would commit to a lengthy curriculum. Using VO you can easily deduce that as an ontological necessity, not a changeable attitude.

My interest in RM was not spawned by the clock paradox, but by the concept of self-harmony-momentum, which is closely related to VO. In other words, not by the objectivist-absolutist epistemological claims of RM, but by the local and concrete descriptions of how affect turns into form, and  how form keeps itself in form.

Maybe I was fortunate to encounter RM before it had attained its full form.

That is: I could assess value in RM on my own terms, I did not have its value dictated to me as "this is Gods truth, take it as I give it to you" but as a set of particular insights about the world as I know it.  

The truth of your theory of self-harmony and its momentum generated my will, later on, to engage RM's epistemological methods.

On that note: I think what the clock paradox does is to model an event such that regardless of the difference in the reference frames, from a third reference frame (the meta-perspective from which the situation is described) both frames come together in the crucial moment of measurement.

The key being that there is a third reference frame, from which the other two frames are seen to develop through a singular spacetime continuum.

I got to judge your rationale first by its fruits before I was asked to examine its roots. That was a strong motivation. I think that is how you should always teach.

But indeed, you did not ask for this thread, so reasonably I can only thank you for your work here. I happen to have gained a lot of insight because of it.

James, I am interested to continue but would like clarity on two points before we can proceed. These are important logical issues to work to an agreement on.

1) Do you think that, in my example below*, we actually do NOT reach the center point at the same time?

2) Do you or do you not think that the clocks, either on the train or at the station or both, shut off?



*You and I stand on the deck of an aircraft carrier, at opposite ends. We run at exactly the same speed toward each other, to a point in the exact center of us. The aircraft carrier is moving at an arbitrarily fast speed (you pick the speed, the actual speed itself seems irrelevant) and as it happens I am running in the direction that the aircraft carrier is moving, you are running in the opposite direction of its movement. Will we reach the exact center point between us at the exact same time, or will you reach it first because I have more distance to cover than you?