Saturday, February 6, 2016

Does Special Relativity Entail Eternalism?


One of the most fascinating concepts in all of science and philosophy is the idea of eternalism. Eternalism is "a philosophical approach to the ontological nature of time, which takes the view that all points in time are equally "real", as opposed to the presentist idea that only the present is real." This view on time can be traced back to Herman Minkowski who took Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity (STR) to its logical conclusion. STR entailed that there cannot be a universal present—a "now" which all observers can agree upon that's simultaneous. Instead, two events that are simultaneous to you, might not be for me depending on our motion relative to one another. It utterly destroyed Newton's notion absolute simultaneity.

For over a hundred years this has been debated by scientists, philosophers, and theologians alike. One common view against eternalism is the idea that the relativity of simultaneity isn't ontologically real, but is actually just an illusion resulting from the amount of time it takes it light to reach an observer. So is this the case? Is the relativity of simultaneity just a subjective illusion?

Well no, it isn't. Here is a scenario that can show that the relativity of simultaneity must be ontic and not just an illusion resulting from the time it takes light to reach you from different events. That scenrio is show in this video here:



The person on the train is equidistant from the front and back of the train. If the two flashes were objectively simultaneous, for her the light would reach her at the same time. The light in the back wouldn't take longer because the train is moving — the train's movement is relative. That's why it's called relativity. All movement is relative to other things. In the woman on the train's reference frame, she is still and the man on the platform is moving. So it would be incorrect to think that the person on the ground's view is somehow the "correct" one.

Consider this. If you were on a spaceship travelling at 1 million miles an hour and you measure light in any direction, you would always measure it at the same speed. If the ship was 100 feet long and you were sitting at the 50 foot mark, two lights flashing simultaneous in the front and back of ship would hit you at the same time, regardless of the ship's movement or speed relative to other things. The light from the front wouldn't hit you first and light from the back wouldn't hit you latter due to the ship's motion. So the person on the train must conclude that the two lights happened at a different time ontologically in her reference frame, disagreeing with the person on the platform. This is a true ontic relativity of simultaneity. 

Friday, February 5, 2016

I Took A Short (Unintended) Break From Blogging


I took a short break from blogging recently. This wasn't exactly a planned event. It kind of just happened. It's mainly due to two reasons. The most important one is that I've been immersed in debates on various different platforms. One of them is via email. I'm currently debating someone on theories of time and whether Special Relativity entails eternalism. It's a fascinating debate to have, especially if you're into the science and the philosophical implications of it. I'm an ardent eternalist. I want to spread the word on the truth of eternalism in much the same way many people want to spread the word on the truth that evolution is true, or that libertarian free will is false. And as such, I love defending it. The debate did produce some nice emails that I think I can reblog in the future. The other reason is that I've been hanging out a lot more and when I'm out I can't blog. It's that simple. And I've also been following the election very closely of late. I LOVE presidential politics and every election year is an exciting time for me because the issues are rigorously debated. Plus there's antics. I love antics.

So, I plan on blogging again. This time, about science and why it entails eternalism. I took a break from reading and reviewing Feser's book The Last Superstition. I got busy with lots of stuff and time hasn't been on my side. I always need more of it. Reading his book also gets so irritating. Feser's cocky prose on the "truth" of his version of theism via A-T metaphysics gets tiresome because he's so wrong on so much. But, I do enjoy reading his criticism of secularism and liberalism because it does make you reflect, even though much of it is such utter bullshit. We all must seek out the best criticism of our views in order to be well educated people. I'm told that his best argument is near the end, and that's his argument regarding the aboutness of conscious experience. So I will eventually continue.

For now I'm going to prepare some posts about eternalism, and maybe squeeze in some politics as well. Most will be short rants. Damn if only I didn't have a job or a social life, I'd have so much more time to blog about what I'm obsessed with.

Saturday, January 23, 2016

Quote Of The Day: Weak Emergentism


Many naturalists and materialists (not the same thing) favor reductionism over emergentism. Emergentism, some of them say, is a like having a magic wand that can simply declare higher levels of phenomena without having to really explain them; they just "emerge." But just like with scientism, there are strong and weak versions of emergentism. The quote below is from Sean Carroll in a Q & A he did with 3 AM magazine on what weak emergentism is, and why naturalists shouldn't fear it.


I think emergence is absolutely central to how naturalists should think about the world, and how we should find room for higher-level concepts from tables to free will in a way compatible with the scientific image. But “weak” emergence, not strong emergence. That is simply the idea that there are multiple theories/languages/vocabularies/ontologies that we can use to usefully describe the world, each appropriate at different levels of coarse-graining and precision. I always return to the example of thermodynamics (fluids, energy, pressure, entropy) and kinetic theory (collections of atoms and molecules with individual positions and momenta). Here we have two ways of talking, each perfectly valid within a domain of applicability, but with the domain of one theory (thermodynamics) living strictly inside the domain of the other (kinetic theory). Crucially, the “emergent” higher-level theory can exhibit features that you might naively think are ruled out by the lower-level rules; in particular, thermodynamics famously has an arrow of time defined by the Second Law (entropy increases in isolated systems), whereas the microscopic rules of the lower-level theory are completely time-symmetric and arrowless.

Thursday, January 21, 2016

A Question To Pro-life Conservatives


Hypothetical:

If every illegal immigrant female in the US became pregnant right now, what would you choose given only these two options:

(1) would you rather have 7 or 8 million more anchor babies born in the US nine months from now; or
(2) would you rather have all of them have an abortion

?

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Questions No One Knows the Answers to (Full Version)


This is a nice little video with animation asking some of the deepest questions in philosophy that we do not have definitive answers on, and frighteningly, for some at least, we might not ever.




Ted Cruz Is Wrong On "New York Values"


Presidential candidate and former Canadian national Ted Cruz recently said that his rival Donald Trump embodies "New York values" as a way to insinuate that Trump is out of line with most of America. When pressed on exactly what he meant by New York values Cruz said that it refers to liberal values like abortion and same sex marriage.

"[E]veryone understands that the values in New York City are socially liberal or pro-abortion or pro-gay-marriage, focus around money and the media," Cruz said in last week's Republican debate.

"They're not Iowa values," he said on Fox News, "and they're not New Hampshire values."

Oh really?

Are liberal "New York values" on abortion and gay marriage really all that different from the rest of the country? Actually, no. They're not.

Pew recently conducted a poll where 55% of Americans "Favor allowing gays and lesbains to marry legally."And Gallup conducted a poll where 60% of Americans said same sex marriage "Should be valid." This number is only going to get bigger and bigger given current demographic trends. Interestingly, New Hampshire was one of the earliest states to legalize gay marriage and did so even before New York.

On abortion, Gallup conducted a poll that showed 50% of Americans identify as pro-choice and 44% identify as pro-life. A Quinnipiac poll in late 2015 showed that 57% of Americans think abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and 40% think it should be illegal in most or all cases.

Most Americans favor legal abortion and gay marriage. New York values are American values, Ted.

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Free Will, Science, and Religion Podcast - Ranting On Politics


On this episode of the Free Will, Science, and Religion podcast I rant and rave about the upcoming election and some of the problems with the republican field. This is what we call an "impersonal opinion" episode where we stray from the main topics that the podcast is about.




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