- #1
Battlemage!
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I am neither adept at philosophy nor physics, but in the "what is spacetime" thread I got the distinct impression that some people were letting language conventions, which are human-reason based, take precedence over physics, which is experience based.
Link- https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/spacetime-what-is-it.862012/page-5
My questions can be summed up thusly: the words "past", "present", and "future" were given their meaning based on incomplete information regarding the universe. When those ideas were created, fleshed out, whatever, the notion of a four dimensional spacetime was not yet conceived. No one had yet to preform a Michaelson-Morley experiment. "Mixed coordinates" the likes of which we see in the Lorentz transformation equations had yet to be shown to be accurate. Simultaneouneity had yet to be shown to be dependent upon reference frame.
With all these completely new discoveries about the nature of space and time that were absolutely NOT part of the original formulations of the notions of past, present and future being added to our understanding because of observations we made of the universe, why do some of us insist on the primacy of the old notions of past, present and future?
Those notions were completely defined BEFORE we gained greater insight into what space and time are. Isn't it more logical to assume that the flaw in description arrives from the assumption that language that was formed in ignorance of the universe should have preeminence over observed reality? As I said above, when the notions of past, present and future were originally fleshed out, they were done so in ignorance of the world around us.
As far as I believe, if the language and the universe are in conflict, the flaw is in the language and it's time to adjust the meaning of words (or create new ones if that is too radical a thing for you).
Anyone have any thoughts on this matter?
Link- https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/spacetime-what-is-it.862012/page-5
My questions can be summed up thusly: the words "past", "present", and "future" were given their meaning based on incomplete information regarding the universe. When those ideas were created, fleshed out, whatever, the notion of a four dimensional spacetime was not yet conceived. No one had yet to preform a Michaelson-Morley experiment. "Mixed coordinates" the likes of which we see in the Lorentz transformation equations had yet to be shown to be accurate. Simultaneouneity had yet to be shown to be dependent upon reference frame.
With all these completely new discoveries about the nature of space and time that were absolutely NOT part of the original formulations of the notions of past, present and future being added to our understanding because of observations we made of the universe, why do some of us insist on the primacy of the old notions of past, present and future?
Those notions were completely defined BEFORE we gained greater insight into what space and time are. Isn't it more logical to assume that the flaw in description arrives from the assumption that language that was formed in ignorance of the universe should have preeminence over observed reality? As I said above, when the notions of past, present and future were originally fleshed out, they were done so in ignorance of the world around us.
As far as I believe, if the language and the universe are in conflict, the flaw is in the language and it's time to adjust the meaning of words (or create new ones if that is too radical a thing for you).
Anyone have any thoughts on this matter?