On Monday, July 26, 2021 at 11:13:11 AM UTC-5, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:

> Answers varied from being a straight
> diagonal line to the ground, to a Wile E. Coyote-style horizontal traverse
> with a 90 degree elbow to a vertical traverse, to the most common answer, a
> quarter-circle path transitioning from horizontal to vertical. Now, you
> might say this is then idiocy, but then the accurate observation is that
> COMMON sense is then idiocy. (The professor then asked, clearly frustrated,
> whether anyone had been to a baseball game. The answer from the audience
> was, “Yeah, but that’s real life. You were asking about physics.”)

LOL! I've never heard THAT one before! :-)

On Monday, July 26, 2021 at 12:13:12 PM UTC-4, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
> Ken Seto <seto...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Monday, July 26, 2021 at 8:33:49 AM UTC-4, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
> >> Ken Seto <seto...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> On Saturday, July 24, 2021 at 3:54:13 PM UTC-4, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
> >>>> Ken Seto <seto...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>> On Friday, July 23, 2021 at 11:06:32 AM UTC-4, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
> >>>>>> Odd Bodkin <bodk...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>>>> Ken Seto <seto...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>>>>> On Wednesday, July 21, 2021 at 2:00:03 PM UTC-4, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
> >>>>>>>>> Ken Seto <seto...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>> On Tuesday, July 20, 2021 at 11:50:51 AM UTC-4, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>> Ken Seto <seto...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>> On Tuesday, July 20, 2021 at 10:40:24 AM UTC-4, Michael Moroney wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> On 7/20/2021 10:21 AM, Ken Seto wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Since the aether frame is older than the SR inertial frame, it appears
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> that the SR inertial frame is just a renamed of the aether frame. So sorry.
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> Stupid Ken, Galileo created the concept of the inertial frame long
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> before any aether theory was created. As usual, you're wrong.
> >>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>> Stupid moron Mike, the Galileo’s inertial frame ia not the same as
> >>>>>>>>>>>> Einstein’s inertial frame. It does not have constant speed of light c
> >>>>>>>>>>>> frame any source.
> >>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>> Yes, they are the same. They have the same definitions.
> >>>>>>>>>>> The only question was which transformation (Galilean or Lorentz) apply to
> >>>>>>>>>>> those identically defined inertial frames. Galileo thought the answer was
> >>>>>>>>>>> one, and Einstein had enough additional information about electrodynamics
> >>>>>>>>>>> (which Galileo did not) to show that it was the other.
> >>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>> If the inertial observer does not consider himself at rest........then
> >>>>>>>>>>> he can’t claim P2.
> >>>> ted.>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>> An aether observer is defined as at rest and thus he get P2 naturally> --
> >>>>>>>>> And you understand how it’s possible to be true for the observer at rest in
> >>>>>>>>> the ether and so you accept that. And you personally do not understand how
> >>>>>>>>> it is possible to be true for observers at rest in inertial reference
> >>>>>>>>> frames that are MOVING relative to the supposed ether, and so you don’t
> >>>>>>>>> accept it and call it an assertion. But that’s not what makes an assertion
> >>>>>>>>> an assertion — whether you accept it or not.
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> Yes I don’t understand your assertion. How does an inertial observer get
> >>>>>>>> P2 when he runs toward or away from a light source?
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Yes, I know you don’t understand it. That doesn’t make it an assertion. It
> >>>>>>> is an experimental fact, fully supported in the experimental literature.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> This word “assertion” you use. It doesn’t mean a statement you’re not
> >>>>>>> convinced of. It means a statement that HAS NO supporting evidence or
> >>>>>>> compelling argument. There IS supporting evidence for P2 for an observer
> >>>>>>> moving relative to a light source, but you’ve never bothered to read it or
> >>>>>>> even look for it. Just because you choose not to look at it doesn’t make
> >>>>>>> the evidence non-existent. It only makes you ignorant of it.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> It’s not an assertion. It’s just a true statement that you don’t understand
> >>>>>>> and haven’t looked up any of the evidence for.
> >>>>>> You have this idiotic idea that something is only true if you believe it or
> >>>>>> undersea you can force me.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> There is no way that you can force me to believe that the speed of light
> >>>>> is constant c if I run toward or away from a light source.
> >>>> Yes, I’m aware there is no way to convince you it’s true, even though there
> >>>> are mounds of experimental evidence that says it is true.
> >>> er frame
> >>> Keep on saying that there are mounts of experimental evidence to support
> >>> constant light speed of c, but no such experiment is cited.
> >> That’s not so, Ken. The results have been referred to you many nt times. What
> >> happens, though, is that you forget that they were cited, and lapse back
> >> into the degradation of dementia and insist that no one has ever answered
> >> this for you.
> >>
> > YOU ARE A LIAR...no such result have been report
> No, Ken, this is not correct. Just in the past week, I have mentioned the
> one-way ligeasuremht speed measurement at the Advanced Photeon Source laboratory,

Phase shift is not ena correct way to measure OWLS. The effect of OWLS variation can only be detected over a long distant measurement.
>ce measu> and treminded you of the multiple times that you’ve been told about Ole
> Roemer’s one-way speed measurement back in thremene 1600s.

Roemer’s eyeballs to synch the clocks for their OWLS measures is laughable.
>.
> If you do not remember what has been told to you THIS PAST WEEK, then don’t
> go telling people they’re liars and that they’ve never told you. If your
> mind is rotted to the point where you can’t remember conversations from
> LAST WEEK, then this is YOUR weakness, not other people’s hostile untruths.

> > for the simple reason that the speed of light is not constant c in all
> > frames. It is constant c for an aether frame observer who is at rest in the aether.
> >>
> >>> I think what Einstein said and you endorsed is as follows: The speed of
> >>> light for a aether frame observer is c independent of the motion of the source.....
> >> He certainly did not say that. Nor do I.
> >>> I can agree to such concept. But since no observer is at rest in the
> >>> aether so such argument is mute.
> >>> So the true story of SR:
> >>> 1. It is an aether theory that derives the constant light speed of c.
> >>> 2. It claimed that the existence of the aether is superfluous..
> >>> 3. Einstein was successful to convince physicists to accept the above
> >>> contradictory concepts .
> >>> 4. End of story.
> >>>
> >>>> This is exactly
> >>>> what I was talking about. Scientists are swayed by experimental evidence.
> >>>> Cranks like you never are, and instead you rely on your intuitive
> >>>> preconceptions alone and say such evidence is impossible.
> >>>>> All you can do is made assertion that there is experimental support for
> >>>>> such inane idea but no actual experiments cited. BTW, the one-way speed
> >>>>> of light never been tested.
> >>>> Neither of those statements is true. I *just* told you about the one-way
> >>>> speed measurements from moving sources at the Advanced Photon Source
> >>>> laboratory, and now you pretend 1) that I never told you about them, and 2)
> >>>> they don’t exist.
> >>>>
> >>>> I’ll repeat for your benefit that experimental results do not disappear
> >>>> just because you don’t look them up.
> >>>>
> >>>> I’ll remind you that you’ve been also told about one-way light speed
> >>>> measurements from moving sources done by Roemer, at Fermilab, and at
> >>>> numerous other places. You do not acknowledge any of them. Other people do.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> That’s just insanity, Ken.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> It is nevertheless true, whether you understand how it’s possible or not,
> >>>>>>>>> that P2 holds in ALL inertial reference frames, not just those at rest
> >>>>>>>>> relative to the aether. That’s what made Einstein’s paper so interesting.
> >>>>>>>>> It’s also what follow-up experiments showed to be correct.
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> This is true only if the meter is redefined as 1/299,792,458 light-seconds.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> No, it does not depend on that redefinition. The validity of P2 was
> >>>>>>> established experimentally half a century BEFORE the redefinition..
> >>>>>
> >>>>> That’s a lie......no such experiment exist. To this day, the OWLS
> >>>>> have not been tested.
> >>>> That’s incorrect, and your mistake has
> >>>>> been called out to you dozens of
> >>>> times, with specific references, which you’ve then cast aside and
> >>>> forgotten.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> Do you know that such argument is circular?
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> Whether you buy the experimental results or not is irrelevant. Whether you
> >>>>>>>>> understand how it’s possible or not is irrelevant. Whether it’s easy or
> >>>>>>>>> natural for you to understand or not is irrelevant.
> >>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> --
> >>>>>>>>> Odd Bodkin -- maker of fine toys, tools, tables
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> --
> >>>>>> Odd Bodkin -- maker of fine toys, tools, tables
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>> Odd Bodkin -- maker of fine toys, tools, tables
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Odd Bodkin -- maker of fine toys, tools, tables
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Odd Bodkin -- maker of fine toys, tools, tables

Ken Seto <setoken47@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Monday, July 26, 2021 at 12:13:12 PM UTC-4, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
>> Ken Seto <seto...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Monday, July 26, 2021 at 8:33:49 AM UTC-4, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>> Ken Seto <seto...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> On Saturday, July 24, 2021 at 3:54:13 PM UTC-4, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>>>> Ken Seto <seto...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>> On Friday, July 23, 2021 at 11:06:32 AM UTC-4, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>>>>>> Odd Bodkin <bodk...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>> Ken Seto <seto...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> On Wednesday, July 21, 2021 at 2:00:03 PM UTC-4, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> Ken Seto <seto...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>> On Tuesday, July 20, 2021 at 11:50:51 AM UTC-4, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>> Ken Seto <seto...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Tuesday, July 20, 2021 at 10:40:24 AM UTC-4, Michael Moroney wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 7/20/2021 10:21 AM, Ken Seto wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Since the aether frame is older than the SR inertial frame, it appears
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> that the SR inertial frame is just a renamed of the aether frame. So sorry.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Stupid Ken, Galileo created the concept of the inertial frame long
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> before any aether theory was created. As usual, you're wrong.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Stupid moron Mike, the Galileo’s inertial frame ia not the same as
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Einstein’s inertial frame. It does not have constant speed of light c
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> frame any source.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>> Yes, they are the same. They have the same definitions.
>>>>>>>>>>>>> The only question was which transformation (Galilean or Lorentz) apply to
>>>>>>>>>>>>> those identically defined inertial frames. Galileo thought the answer was
>>>>>>>>>>>>> one, and Einstein had enough additional information about electrodynamics
>>>>>>>>>>>>> (which Galileo did not) to show that it was the other.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>> If the inertial observer does not consider himself at rest.......then
>>>>>>>>>>>>> he can’t claim P2.
>>>>>> ted.>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> An aether observer is defined as at rest and thus he get P2 naturally> --
>>>>>>>>>>> And you understand how it’s possible to be true for the observer at rest in
>>>>>>>>>>> the ether and so you accept that. And you personally do not understand how
>>>>>>>>>>> it is possible to be true for observers at rest in inertial reference
>>>>>>>>>>> frames that are MOVING relative to the supposed ether, and so you don’t
>>>>>>>>>>> accept it and call it an assertion. But that’s not what makes an assertion
>>>>>>>>>>> an assertion — whether you accept it or not.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Yes I don’t understand your assertion. How does an inertial observer get
>>>>>>>>>> P2 when he runs toward or away from a light source?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Yes, I know you don’t understand it. That doesn’t make it an assertion. It
>>>>>>>>> is an experimental fact, fully supported in the experimental literature.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> This word “assertion” you use. It doesn’t mean a statement you’re not
>>>>>>>>> convinced of. It means a statement that HAS NO supporting evidence or
>>>>>>>>> compelling argument. There IS supporting evidence for P2 for an observer
>>>>>>>>> moving relative to a light source, but you’ve never bothered to read it or
>>>>>>>>> even look for it. Just because you choose not to look at it doesn’t make
>>>>>>>>> the evidence non-existent. It only makes you ignorant of it.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> It’s not an assertion. It’s just a true statement that you don’t understand
>>>>>>>>> and haven’t looked up any of the evidence for.
>>>>>>>> You have this idiotic idea that something is only true if you believe it or
>>>>>>>> undersea you can force me.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> There is no way that you can force me to believe that the speed of light
>>>>>>> is constant c if I run toward or away from a light source.
>>>>>> Yes, I’m aware there is no way to convince you it’s true, even though there
>>>>>> are mounds of experimental evidence that says it is true.
>>>>> er frame
>>>>> Keep on saying that there are mounts of experimental evidence to support
>>>>> constant light speed of c, but no such experiment is cited.
>>>> That’s not so, Ken. The results have been referred to you many nt times. What
>>>> happens, though, is that you forget that they were cited, and lapse back
>>>> into the degradation of dementia and insist that no one has ever answered
>>>> this for you.
>>>>
>>> YOU ARE A LIAR...no such result have been report
>> No, Ken, this is not correct. Just in the past week, I have mentioned the
>> one-way ligeasuremht speed measurement at the Advanced Photeon Source laboratory,
>
> Phase shift is not ena correct way to measure OWLS. The effect of OWLS
> variation can only be detected over a long distant measurement.

The measurement at Advanced Photon Source does not use phase shift.

This is the kind of crap you pull. A reference is given to you. You don’t
look it up. Instead you guess some bullshit about it that’s wrong and has
nothing to do with it. When that’s called out to you, you still don’t look
it up. Instead you then say just a few days later than nobody ever cited
any one-way light speed measurement.

>> ce measu> and treminded you of the multiple times that you’ve been told about Ole
>> Roemer’s one-way speed measurement back in thremene 1600s.
>
> Roemer’s eyeballs to synch the clocks for their OWLS measures is laughable.

He didn’t synch any clocks with his eyeballs.

See the above.

This is the kind of crap you pull. A reference is given to you. You don’t
look it up. Instead you guess some bullshit about it that’s wrong and has
nothing to do with it. When that’s called out to you, you still don’t look
it up. Instead you then say just a few days later than nobody ever cited
any one-way light speed measurement.

You are incapable of anything other than flinging bullshit guesses.

>> .
>> If you do not remember what has been told to you THIS PAST WEEK, then don’t
>> go telling people they’re liars and that they’ve never told you. If your
>> mind is rotted to the point where you can’t remember conversations from
>> LAST WEEK, then this is YOUR weakness, not other people’s hostile untruths.
>
>>> for the simple reason that the speed of light is not constant c in all
>>> frames. It is constant c for an aether frame observer who is at rest in the aether.
>>>>
>>>>> I think what Einstein said and you endorsed is as follows: The speed of
>>>>> light for a aether frame observer is c independent of the motion of the source.....
>>>> He certainly did not say that. Nor do I.
>>>>> I can agree to such concept. But since no observer is at rest in the
>>>>> aether so such argument is mute.
>>>>> So the true story of SR:
>>>>> 1. It is an aether theory that derives the constant light speed of c.
>>>>> 2. It claimed that the existence of the aether is superfluous..
>>>>> 3. Einstein was successful to convince physicists to accept the above
>>>>> contradictory concepts .
>>>>> 4. End of story.
>>>>>
>>>>>> This is exactly
>>>>>> what I was talking about. Scientists are swayed by experimental evidence.
>>>>>> Cranks like you never are, and instead you rely on your intuitive
>>>>>> preconceptions alone and say such evidence is impossible.
>>>>>>> All you can do is made assertion that there is experimental support for
>>>>>>> such inane idea but no actual experiments cited. BTW, the one-way speed
>>>>>>> of light never been tested.
>>>>>> Neither of those statements is true. I *just* told you about the one-way
>>>>>> speed measurements from moving sources at the Advanced Photon Source
>>>>>> laboratory, and now you pretend 1) that I never told you about them, and 2)
>>>>>> they don’t exist.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I’ll repeat for your benefit that experimental results do not disappear
>>>>>> just because you don’t look them up.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I’ll remind you that you’ve been also told about one-way light speed
>>>>>> measurements from moving sources done by Roemer, at Fermilab, and at
>>>>>> numerous other places. You do not acknowledge any of them. Other people do.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> That’s just insanity, Ken.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> It is nevertheless true, whether you understand how it’s possible or not,
>>>>>>>>>>> that P2 holds in ALL inertial reference frames, not just those at rest
>>>>>>>>>>> relative to the aether. That’s what made Einstein’s paper so interesting.
>>>>>>>>>>> It’s also what follow-up experiments showed to be correct.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> This is true only if the meter is redefined as 1/299,792,458 light-seconds.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> No, it does not depend on that redefinition. The validity of P2 was
>>>>>>>>> established experimentally half a century BEFORE the redefinition.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> That’s a lie......no such experiment exist. To this day, the OWLS
>>>>>>> have not been tested.
>>>>>> That’s incorrect, and your mistake has
>>>>>>> been called out to you dozens of
>>>>>> times, with specific references, which you’ve then cast aside and
>>>>>> forgotten.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Do you know that such argument is circular?
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Whether you buy the experimental results or not is irrelevant. Whether you
>>>>>>>>>>> understand how it’s possible or not is irrelevant. Whether it’s easy or
>>>>>>>>>>> natural for you to understand or not is irrelevant.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>>>>> Odd Bodkin -- maker of fine toys, tools, tables
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>> Odd Bodkin -- maker of fine toys, tools, tables
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Odd Bodkin -- maker of fine toys, tools, tables
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Odd Bodkin -- maker of fine toys, tools, tables
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Odd Bodkin -- maker of fine toys, tools, tables
>

On Monday, July 26, 2021 at 9:13:11 AM UTC-7, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Galileo gave very commonplace explanations that are quite intuitive
> > to everyone, e.g., how things behave inside a uniformly gliding ship.
>
> His experiments with ramps were instrumental (pun intended) to his revelation
> that motion would continue in the absence of an applied force. There were no
> commonplace examples of this...

Not true... everyone knows viscerally that objects behave inertially, and the principle of relativity in a moving ship already entails the principle of inertia. It is only when people try to construct high level characterizations that they slip into confusion and fail to distinguish between velocity and acceleration, etc.,

> ...nobody would have had the information available to question
> whether they were propelled by angels.

The idea of things being propelled by angels is not common sense or intuitive, it is purely fanciful.

> This was NEW information...

There's no problem with new information. Again, acquiring new information does not undermine or require any migration of logic, reason, intuition, or common sense... unless you are applying a non-standard definition of terms like "common sense". You may have an intuition that there are five apples in a basket, and when you look you may discover there are six, but this does not require any migration of common sense or the principles of logical reasoning. This is just new information.

> acquaintance with everyday phenomena is NOT enough to just “reason your
> way” into an intuitive grasp of relativity.

You're confusing relativity with special relativity. Relativity is perfectly apparent from everyday phenomena, and has been known (in some sense) since ancient times. The conservation of energy was not at apparent, first because the very concept of energy is sophisticated, and second because of all the different forms that energy can take, but once that information was in hand, ordinary reasoning and common sense (un-migrated) leads unavoidably to special relativity.

> On top of that, it is COMMON that people have a disconnect between what
> they see in the real world and how they would explain things.

Right, that's what I am referring to when I say that anti-relativity crackpots are not presenting "what they see in the real world" on an intuitive and common-sensical basis, they are presenting some wacky "how they would explain things", and the latter is totally bonkers. You habitually contend that "how they explain things" is sensible and based on common sense and logic, but it is not. It is precisely because of their disconnect between their intuitive common sense of what they see in the real world versus their wacky high-level fantasies that accounts for their crackpot ideas.

> [Class can't remember the path of a baseball.] Now, you might say this is then idiocy...

Yes, that is simply idiocy. Again, they are ignoring/denying their own common sense and visceral intuition, and fantasizing a variety of wacky high-level "explanations" that make no sense at all. Such people simply have no aptitude for physics.

> I just disagree that special relativity ... can be accurately conceived just by “thinking
> things through”...

I know, that's the problem. If you had "thought things through" to arrive at special relativity by simple logic and reason and common sense, instead of accepting it as a brute unfathomable fact, you would have a very different view of the subject.

The principle of relativity is quite intuitive and visceral, and always was.. It's even wired into the nervous systems of animals. People in this newsgroup who deny the principle of relativity are just being idiotic. Even Newton explained that the common man perceives motion in purely relative terms.

> The mind can be made to conform to new information...
Right, that's what I explained... you are conflating new information with migratory logic, reason, intuition, and common sense. Of course, to have a truly sensible discussion one would need to clearly define each of those four things, as they are not synonyms of each other, but none of them are the same as acquiring new information, which is all that is involved in understanding special relativity.

> There are a number of people who post to this group who still have
> Aristotelian sensibilities...
First, Aristotle's views on physics are far from being an exemplar of common sense or intuition. It has always been pointed out, in every age, that his somewhat bizarre pronouncements about physics are contrary to the most commonplace observations, and Aristotle was never expressing the intuitions of the common man. He had certain high-level conceptual premises into which he tried to fit explanations of phenomena. Second, although there are occasional alignments between some ideas of Aristotle and the notions of people in this newsgroup, they are purely accidental and not rationally consistent.. (Aristotle was rational.) Kooky ideas about "two sets of Galilean equations", or "the E-matrix", or "oscillating photons", etc., are not to be found in Aristotle.

Anti-relativity crackpots are not expressing common sense or intuitive beliefs, they are expressing irrational, illogical, non-intuitive, and self-contradictory notions, based on willful ignorance, misinformation and (frankly) stupidity. Their errors have nothing to do with migrating common sense.

> to insist that they are not being sensible is simply foolishness.

I strongly disagree. The claims and beliefs of the anti-relativity crackpots in this newsgroup are not sensible at all. To claim (as you habitually do) that the ravings of these individuals are "sensible" or "intuitive" is simply nuts. It happens to be your idee fixe, i.e., you think the lesson of special relativity is that even though it makes no sense, it must nevertheless be accepted as a brute incomprehensible fact. That is completely wrong, and you give great encouragement to anti-relativity crackpots by telling them that their ideas make perfect sense but they must simply surrender to the brute facts of a nonsensical nature. The crackpots are wrong about nearly everything, but they are right to reject your claim that logic, reason, and common sense can't be applied to nature.

On Monday, July 26, 2021 at 12:13:11 PM UTC-4, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
> Arthur Adler <aadl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Monday, July 26, 2021 at 5:30:42 AM UTC-7, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
> >>> Corroboration is always provisional and incomplete, but that's not the
> >>> issue. Stipulate the empirical facts. The issue is your contention that
> >>> the facts related to relativity defy (with careless conflation) logic,
> >>> reason, intuition, and common sense, whereas I say they do not.
> >>
> >> Intuition is migratory...
> >
> > The incorrectness of your idee fixe was explained in the very next
> > sentences (that you snipped). Again, the facts of special relativity did
> > not (and do not) require any adjustment to logic, reason, intuition, or
> > common sense. That's what the Kaufmann incident illustrates, i.e., the
> > application of unadjusted logic, reason, intuition, and common sense
> > yielded special relativity, despite apparent conflict with experiment,
> > and eventually the facts supporting it were established. This shows that
> > special relativity is clearly not contrary to pre-existing logic, etc.
> > You conflate the acquisition of new information (e.g., massless energy
> > has inertia) with the overthrow or migration of logic, reason, intuition,
> > and common sense.
> >
> >> Galileo’s insights about motion were not intuitive to his contemporaries...
> >
> > Not true, he gave very commonplace explanations that are quite intuitive
> > to everyone, e.g., how things behave inside a uniformly gliding ship.
> I think you overestimate how much information was available to common
> people without the careful experiments that Galileo did himself (precisely
> *because* they were not common knowledge). For example, his experiments
> with ramps were instrumental (pun intended) to his revelation that motion
> would continue in the absence of an applied force.
>
That’s because absolute motion would continue.
>
>There were no
> commonplace examples of this, and indeed astronomical bodies would not have
> provided the argument because prior to observations with new instruments
> (telescopes) nobody would have had the information available to question
> whether they were propelled by angels.

No angels are needed.......all objects are continued in a state of absolute motion in the aether.
>
> In the case of special relativity, keep in mind that electrodynamics in the
> Maxwellian interpretation were NOT common knowledge among non-physicists,
> and so there was no means to grasp the new handle that Maxwell’s laws might
> follow the same invariance that Newtonian mechanics did. This was NEW
> information, and in the absence of that information, people were completely
> free to assume that the ballistic dependence of speed on reference frame
> should apply. Indeed, Newton himself thought so, proof enough that
> acquaintance with everyday phenomena is NOT enough to just “reason your
> way” into an intuitive grasp of relativity.
>
> On top of that, it is COMMON that people have a disconnect between what
> they see in the real world and how they would explain things. I remember
> taking my first year class and the professor asked the simple qualitative
> question about how to describe the path of an projectile in the air with
> physics, say chucking a melon horizontally off the roof of a five-story
> building. Less than 1/5 of the class suggested the downward-opening
> parabolic path. Less than 1/5. This alone tells you that the most COMMON
> sense is not the parabolic insight. Answers varied from being a straight
> diagonal line to the ground, to a Wile E. Coyote-style horizontal traverse
> with a 90 degree elbow to a vertical traverse, to the most common answer, a
> quarter-circle path transitioning from horizontal to vertical. Now, you
> might say this is then idiocy, but then the accurate observation is that
> COMMON sense is then idiocy. (The professor then asked, clearly frustrated,
> whether anyone had been to a baseball game. The answer from the audience
> was, “Yeah, but that’s real life. You were asking about physics.”)
>
> I just disagree that special relativity (or for that matter most of
> physics) can be accurately conceived just by “thinking things through” and
> comparison with everyday experience, precisely because everyday experience
> is a small and non-representative slice of reality. Which is why
> experimental physics has played such a strong and essential role in
> figuring things out.
> > The principle of relativity is quite intuitive and visceral, and always
> > was. It's even wired into the nervous systems of animals. People in
> > this newsgroup who deny the principle of relativity are just being
> > idiotic. Even Newton explained that the common man perceives motion in
> > purely relative terms.
> >
> >> The mind can be made to conform to new information...
> >
> > Right, that's what I explained... you are conflating new information with
> > migratory logic, reason, intuition, and common sense. Of course, to have
> > a truly sensible discussion one would need to clearly define each of
> > those four things, as they are not synonyms of each other, but none of
> > them are the same as acquiring new information, which is all that is
> > involved in understanding special relativity.
> >
> >> There are a number of people who post to this group who still have
> >> Aristotelian sensibilities...
> >
> > First, Aristotle's views on physics are far from being an exemplar of
> > common sense or intuition. It has always been pointed out, in every age,
> > that his somewhat bizarre pronouncements about physics are contrary to
> > the most commonplace observations, and Aristotle was never expressing the
> > intuitions of the common man. He had certain high-level conceptual
> > premises into which he tried to fit explanations of phenomena. Second,
> > although there are occasional alignments between some ideas of Aristotle
> > and the notions of people in this newsgroup, they are purely accidental
> > and not rationally consistent. (Aristotle was rational.) Kooky ideas
> > about "two sets of Galilean equations", or "the E-matrix", or
> > "oscillating photons", etc., are not to be found in Aristotle.
> > Anti-relativity crackpots are not expressing common sense or intuitive
> > beliefs, they are expressing irrational, illogical, non-intuitive, and
> > self-contradictory notions, based on willful ignorance, misinformation
> > and (frankly) stupidity. Their errors have nothing to do with migrating common sense.
> >
> >> to insist that they are not being sensible is simply foolishness.
> >
> > I strongly disagree. The claims and beliefs of the anti-relativity
> > crackpots in this newsgroup are not sensible at all. To claim (as you
> > habitually do) that the ravings of these individuals are "sensible" or
> > "intuitive" is simply nuts. It happens to be your idee fixe, i.e., you
> > think the lesson of special relativity is that even though it makes no
> > sense, it must nevertheless be accepted as a brute incomprehensible fact.
> > That is completely wrong, and you give great encouragement to
> > anti-relativity crackpots by telling them that their ideas make perfect
> > sense but they must simply surrender to the brute facts of a nonsensical
> > nature. The crackpots are wrong about nearly everything, but they are
> > right to reject your claim that logic, reason, and common sense can't be applied to nature.
> >
> --
> Odd Bodkin -- maker of fine toys, tools, tables

On Monday, July 26, 2021 at 12:28:27 PM UTC-5, Arthur Adler wrote:

> ...everyone knows viscerally that objects behave inertially,

False.

You've argued this nonsense before.

On Monday, July 26, 2021 at 9:13:11 AM UTC-7, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Galileo gave very commonplace explanations that are quite intuitive
> > to everyone, e.g., how things behave inside a uniformly gliding ship.
>
> His experiments with ramps were instrumental (pun intended) to his revelation
> that motion would continue in the absence of an applied force. There were no
> commonplace examples of this...

Not true... everyone knows viscerally that objects behave inertially, and the principle of relativity in a moving ship already entails the principle of inertia. It's only when people try to construct high level characterizations that they slip into confusion and fail to distinguish between velocity and acceleration, etc.,

> ...nobody would have had the information available to question
> whether they were propelled by angels.

The idea of things being propelled by angels isn't common sense or intuitive, it is purely fanciful.

> This was NEW information...

There is no problem with new information. Again, acquiring new information does not undermine or require any migration of logic, reason, intuition, or common sense... unless you are applying a non-standard definition of terms like "common sense". You may have an intuition that there are five apples in a basket, and when you look you may discover there are six, but this does not require any migration of common sense or the principles of logical reasoning. This is just new information.

> acquaintance with everyday phenomena is NOT enough to just “reason your
> way” into an intuitive grasp of relativity.

You're confusing relativity with special relativity. Relativity is perfectly apparent from everyday phenomena, and has been known (in some sense) since ancient times. The conservation of energy was not as apparent, first because the very concept of energy is sophisticated, and second because of all the different forms that energy can take, but once that information was in hand, ordinary reasoning and common sense (un-migrated) leads unavoidably to special relativity.

> On top of that, it is COMMON that people have a disconnect between what
> they see in the real world and how they would explain things.

Right, that's what I am referring to when I say that anti-relativity crackpots are not presenting "what they see in the real world" on an intuitive and common-sense basis, they are presenting some wacky "how they would explain things", and the latter is totally bonkers. You habitually contend that "how they explain things" is sensible and based on common sense and logic and observations of the world, but it is not. It is precisely because of their disconnect between their intuitive common sense of what they see in the real world versus their wacky high-level fantasies that accounts for their crackpot ideas.

> [Class can't remember the path of a baseball.] Now, you might say this is then idiocy...

Yes, that is simply idiocy. Again, they are ignoring/denying their own common sense and visceral intuition, and fantasizing a variety of wacky high-level "explanations" that make no sense at all. Such people have no aptitude for physics.

> I just disagree that special relativity ... can be accurately conceived just by “thinking
> things through”...

I know, that's the problem. If you had "thought things through" to arrive at special relativity by simple logic and reason and common sense, instead of accepting it as a brute unfathomable fact, you would have a quite different view of the subject.

The principle of relativity is intuitive and visceral, and always was. It's even wired into the nervous systems of animals. People in this newsgroup who deny the principle of relativity are just being idiotic. Even Newton explained that the common man perceives motion in purely relative terms.

> The mind can be made to conform to new information...

Right, that's what I explained... you're conflating new information with migratory logic, reason, intuition, and common sense. Of course, to have a truly sensible discussion one would need to clearly define each of those four things, as they are not synonyms of each other, but none of them are the same as acquiring new information, which is all that is involved in understanding special relativity.

> There are a number of people who post to this group who still have
> Aristotelian sensibilities...

First, Aristotle's views on physics are far from being an exemplar of common sense or intuition. It has been pointed out in every age that his somewhat bizarre pronouncements about physics are contrary to the most commonplace observations, and Aristotle was never expressing the intuitions of the common man. He had certain high-level conceptual premises into which he tried to fit explanations of phenomena. Second, although there are occasional alignments between some ideas of Aristotle and the notions of people in this newsgroup, they are purely accidental and not rationally consistent. (Aristotle was rational.) Kooky ideas about "two sets of Galilean equations", or "the E-matrix", or "oscillating photons", etc., are not to be found in Aristotle.

Anti-relativity crackpots are not expressing common sense or intuitive beliefs, they are expressing irrational, illogical, non-intuitive, and self-contradictory notions, based on willful ignorance, misinformation and (frankly) stupidity, like your freshman class mates. Their errors have nothing to do with migrating common sense.

> to insist that they are not being sensible is simply foolishness.

I strongly disagree with that. The claims and beliefs of the anti-relativity crackpots in this newsgroup are not sensible at all. To claim (as you habitually do) that the ravings of these individuals are "sensible" or "intuitive" is simply nuts. Your idee fixe is that the lesson of special relativity is that even though it makes no sense, it must nevertheless be accepted as a brute incomprehensible fact. That is completely wrong, and you give great encouragement to anti-relativity crackpots by telling them that their ideas make perfect sense but they must simply surrender to the brute facts of a nonsensical nature. The crackpots are wrong about nearly everything, but they are right to reject your claim that logic, reason, and common sense can't be applied to nature.

On Monday, 26 July 2021 at 19:38:56 UTC+2, Arthur Adler wrote:

> I strongly disagree with that. The claims and beliefs of the anti-relativity crackpots in this newsgroup are not sensible at all. To claim (as you habitually do) that the ravings of these individuals are "sensible" or "intuitive" is simply nuts. Your idee fixe is that the lesson of special relativity is that even though it makes no sense, it must nevertheless be accepted as a brute incomprehensible fact. That is completely wrong, and you give great encouragement to anti-relativity crackpots by telling them that their ideas make perfect sense but they must simply surrender to the brute facts of a nonsensical nature. The crackpots are wrong about nearly everything, but they are right to reject your claim that logic, reason, and common sense can't be applied to nature.

You, on the other hand, are wrong about nearly everything, but you are right to reject Bod's
claim that logic, reason, and common sense can't be applied to nature. He is wrong
in everything.

Arthur Adler <aadler904@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Monday, July 26, 2021 at 9:13:11 AM UTC-7, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> Galileo gave very commonplace explanations that are quite intuitive
>>> to everyone, e.g., how things behave inside a uniformly gliding ship.
>>
>> His experiments with ramps were instrumental (pun intended) to his revelation
>> that motion would continue in the absence of an applied force. There were no
>> commonplace examples of this...
>
> Not true... everyone knows viscerally that objects behave inertially,

This is simply not true. SOME people know this viscerally. Other people
believe firmly that objects in motion need a sustained force to sustain the
motion, and that if the force is removed then the body will slow and stop.
These people will use all sorts of examples to argue their case — and I’ve
had these arguments — that cars and jets keep their engines on to stay at a
fixed speed. Now, you might say, “Yes, but those people are idiots.” But
the point is that such thinking is NOT rare, and so it is incorrect to say
that EVERYONE knows otherwise viscerally.

What you are implying is that “common sense” and “intuition” should be
words that ONLY apply to people thinking “correctly”, using enough
well-constructed observations to have a clearer idea about it. But now
you’re not talking about COMMON sense, you’re talking about educated,
UNCOMMON sensibilities.

I’m talking about what the AVERAGE person without benefit of an education
in basic physics will think. You are talking about people LIKE YOU, as
though the way YOU think should be regarded as the norm. (This, by the way,
is the height of arrogance, to assert that people are thinking correctly if
they think the way you do. And conversely, anybody whose common sense does
not agree with your understanding of things is “totally bonkers”. Get over
yourself.)

> and the principle of relativity in a moving ship already entails the
> principle of inertia. It is only when people try to construct high level
> characterizations that they slip into confusion and fail to distinguish
> between velocity and acceleration, etc.,
>
>> ...nobody would have had the information available to question
>> whether they were propelled by angels.
>
> The idea of things being propelled by angels is not common sense or
> intuitive, it is purely fanciful.
>
>> This was NEW information...
>
> There's no problem with new information. Again, acquiring new
> information does not undermine or require any migration of logic, reason,
> intuition, or common sense... unless you are applying a non-standard
> definition of terms like "common sense". You may have an intuition that
> there are five apples in a basket, and when you look you may discover
> there are six, but this does not require any migration of common sense or
> the principles of logical reasoning. This is just new information.
>
>> acquaintance with everyday phenomena is NOT enough to just “reason your
>> way” into an intuitive grasp of relativity.
>
> You're confusing relativity with special relativity. Relativity is
> perfectly apparent from everyday phenomena, and has been known (in some
> sense) since ancient times. The conservation of energy was not at
> apparent, first because the very concept of energy is sophisticated, and
> second because of all the different forms that energy can take, but once
> that information was in hand, ordinary reasoning and common sense
> (un-migrated) leads unavoidably to special relativity.
>
>> On top of that, it is COMMON that people have a disconnect between what
>> they see in the real world and how they would explain things.
>
> Right, that's what I am referring to when I say that anti-relativity
> crackpots are not presenting "what they see in the real world" on an
> intuitive and common-sensical basis, they are presenting some wacky "how
> they would explain things", and the latter is totally bonkers. You
> habitually contend that "how they explain things" is sensible and based
> on common sense and logic, but it is not. It is precisely because of
> their disconnect between their intuitive common sense of what they see in
> the real world versus their wacky high-level fantasies that accounts for
> their crackpot ideas.
>
>> [Class can't remember the path of a baseball.] Now, you might say this is then idiocy...
>
> Yes, that is simply idiocy. Again, they are ignoring/denying their own
> common sense and visceral intuition, and fantasizing a variety of wacky
> high-level "explanations" that make no sense at all. Such people simply
> have no aptitude for physics.
>
>> I just disagree that special relativity ... can be accurately conceived just by “thinking
>> things through”...
>
> I know, that's the problem. If you had "thought things through" to
> arrive at special relativity by simple logic and reason and common sense,
> instead of accepting it as a brute unfathomable fact, you would have a
> very different view of the subject.

I don’t accept as a brute unfathomable fact. Far from it. But it took
CONCEPTUAL WORK to get to the place where I understood it and accepted it
and understood how it is reflected in observational evidence. If it had
been common sense, it would have been EFFORTLESS, because that’s what
common sense and intuition are — the semi-automatic and almost unconscious
assessment of how things work.

Don’t make the mistake of asserting that things are either just trusted
blindly or they’re obvious, because that’s simply not true. Some things
TAKE WORK to come to understand clearly, and those things are not common
sense.

>
> The principle of relativity is quite intuitive and visceral, and always
> was. It's even wired into the nervous systems of animals. People in this
> newsgroup who deny the principle of relativity are just being idiotic.
> Even Newton explained that the common man perceives motion in purely relative terms.
>
>> The mind can be made to conform to new information...
>
> Right, that's what I explained... you are conflating new information with
> migratory logic, reason, intuition, and common sense. Of course, to have
> a truly sensible discussion one would need to clearly define each of
> those four things, as they are not synonyms of each other, but none of
> them are the same as acquiring new information, which is all that is
> involved in understanding special relativity.
>
>> There are a number of people who post to this group who still have
>> Aristotelian sensibilities...
>
> First, Aristotle's views on physics are far from being an exemplar of
> common sense or intuition. It has always been pointed out, in every age,
> that his somewhat bizarre pronouncements about physics are contrary to
> the most commonplace observations, and Aristotle was never expressing the
> intuitions of the common man. He had certain high-level conceptual
> premises into which he tried to fit explanations of phenomena. Second,
> although there are occasional alignments between some ideas of Aristotle
> and the notions of people in this newsgroup, they are purely accidental
> and not rationally consistent. (Aristotle was rational.) Kooky ideas
> about "two sets of Galilean equations", or "the E-matrix", or
> "oscillating photons", etc., are not to be found in Aristotle.
>
> Anti-relativity crackpots are not expressing common sense or intuitive
> beliefs, they are expressing irrational, illogical, non-intuitive, and
> self-contradictory notions, based on willful ignorance, misinformation
> and (frankly) stupidity. Their errors have nothing to do with migrating common sense.
>
>> to insist that they are not being sensible is simply foolishness.
>
> I strongly disagree. The claims and beliefs of the anti-relativity
> crackpots in this newsgroup are not sensible at all. To claim (as you
> habitually do) that the ravings of these individuals are "sensible" or
> "intuitive" is simply nuts. It happens to be your idee fixe, i.e., you
> think the lesson of special relativity is that even though it makes no
> sense, it must nevertheless be accepted as a brute incomprehensible fact.
> That is completely wrong, and you give great encouragement to
> anti-relativity crackpots by telling them that their ideas make perfect
> sense but they must simply surrender to the brute facts of a nonsensical
> nature. The crackpots are wrong about nearly everything, but they are
> right to reject your claim that logic, reason, and common sense can't be
> applied to nature.
>

--
Odd Bodkin -- maker of fine toys, tools, tables

Ken Seto <setoken47@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Monday, July 26, 2021 at 12:13:11 PM UTC-4, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
>> Arthur Adler <aadl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Monday, July 26, 2021 at 5:30:42 AM UTC-7, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>>> Corroboration is always provisional and incomplete, but that's not the
>>>>> issue. Stipulate the empirical facts. The issue is your contention that
>>>>> the facts related to relativity defy (with careless conflation) logic,
>>>>> reason, intuition, and common sense, whereas I say they do not.
>>>>
>>>> Intuition is migratory...
>>>
>>> The incorrectness of your idee fixe was explained in the very next
>>> sentences (that you snipped). Again, the facts of special relativity did
>>> not (and do not) require any adjustment to logic, reason, intuition, or
>>> common sense. That's what the Kaufmann incident illustrates, i.e., the
>>> application of unadjusted logic, reason, intuition, and common sense
>>> yielded special relativity, despite apparent conflict with experiment,
>>> and eventually the facts supporting it were established. This shows that
>>> special relativity is clearly not contrary to pre-existing logic, etc.
>>> You conflate the acquisition of new information (e.g., massless energy
>>> has inertia) with the overthrow or migration of logic, reason, intuition,
>>> and common sense.
>>>
>>>> Galileo’s insights about motion were not intuitive to his contemporaries...
>>>
>>> Not true, he gave very commonplace explanations that are quite intuitive
>>> to everyone, e.g., how things behave inside a uniformly gliding ship.
>> I think you overestimate how much information was available to common
>> people without the careful experiments that Galileo did himself (precisely
>> *because* they were not common knowledge). For example, his experiments
>> with ramps were instrumental (pun intended) to his revelation that motion
>> would continue in the absence of an applied force.
>>
> That’s because absolute motion would continue.

So you never understood basic physics. You never learned what Galileo
explained.

>>
>> There were no
>> commonplace examples of this, and indeed astronomical bodies would not have
>> provided the argument because prior to observations with new instruments
>> (telescopes) nobody would have had the information available to question
>> whether they were propelled by angels.
>
> No angels are needed.......all objects are continued in a state of
> absolute motion in the aether.
>>
>> In the case of special relativity, keep in mind that electrodynamics in the
>> Maxwellian interpretation were NOT common knowledge among non-physicists,
>> and so there was no means to grasp the new handle that Maxwell’s laws might
>> follow the same invariance that Newtonian mechanics did. This was NEW
>> information, and in the absence of that information, people were completely
>> free to assume that the ballistic dependence of speed on reference frame
>> should apply. Indeed, Newton himself thought so, proof enough that
>> acquaintance with everyday phenomena is NOT enough to just “reason your
>> way” into an intuitive grasp of relativity.
>>
>> On top of that, it is COMMON that people have a disconnect between what
>> they see in the real world and how they would explain things. I remember
>> taking my first year class and the professor asked the simple qualitative
>> question about how to describe the path of an projectile in the air with
>> physics, say chucking a melon horizontally off the roof of a five-story
>> building. Less than 1/5 of the class suggested the downward-opening
>> parabolic path. Less than 1/5. This alone tells you that the most COMMON
>> sense is not the parabolic insight. Answers varied from being a straight
>> diagonal line to the ground, to a Wile E. Coyote-style horizontal traverse
>> with a 90 degree elbow to a vertical traverse, to the most common answer, a
>> quarter-circle path transitioning from horizontal to vertical. Now, you
>> might say this is then idiocy, but then the accurate observation is that
>> COMMON sense is then idiocy. (The professor then asked, clearly frustrated,
>> whether anyone had been to a baseball game. The answer from the audience
>> was, “Yeah, but that’s real life. You were asking about physics.”)
>>
>> I just disagree that special relativity (or for that matter most of
>> physics) can be accurately conceived just by “thinking things through” and
>> comparison with everyday experience, precisely because everyday experience
>> is a small and non-representative slice of reality. Which is why
>> experimental physics has played such a strong and essential role in
>> figuring things out.
>>> The principle of relativity is quite intuitive and visceral, and always
>>> was. It's even wired into the nervous systems of animals. People in
>>> this newsgroup who deny the principle of relativity are just being
>>> idiotic. Even Newton explained that the common man perceives motion in
>>> purely relative terms.
>>>
>>>> The mind can be made to conform to new information...
>>>
>>> Right, that's what I explained... you are conflating new information with
>>> migratory logic, reason, intuition, and common sense. Of course, to have
>>> a truly sensible discussion one would need to clearly define each of
>>> those four things, as they are not synonyms of each other, but none of
>>> them are the same as acquiring new information, which is all that is
>>> involved in understanding special relativity.
>>>
>>>> There are a number of people who post to this group who still have
>>>> Aristotelian sensibilities...
>>>
>>> First, Aristotle's views on physics are far from being an exemplar of
>>> common sense or intuition. It has always been pointed out, in every age,
>>> that his somewhat bizarre pronouncements about physics are contrary to
>>> the most commonplace observations, and Aristotle was never expressing the
>>> intuitions of the common man. He had certain high-level conceptual
>>> premises into which he tried to fit explanations of phenomena. Second,
>>> although there are occasional alignments between some ideas of Aristotle
>>> and the notions of people in this newsgroup, they are purely accidental
>>> and not rationally consistent. (Aristotle was rational.) Kooky ideas
>>> about "two sets of Galilean equations", or "the E-matrix", or
>>> "oscillating photons", etc., are not to be found in Aristotle.
>>> Anti-relativity crackpots are not expressing common sense or intuitive
>>> beliefs, they are expressing irrational, illogical, non-intuitive, and
>>> self-contradictory notions, based on willful ignorance, misinformation
>>> and (frankly) stupidity. Their errors have nothing to do with migrating common sense.
>>>
>>>> to insist that they are not being sensible is simply foolishness.
>>>
>>> I strongly disagree. The claims and beliefs of the anti-relativity
>>> crackpots in this newsgroup are not sensible at all. To claim (as you
>>> habitually do) that the ravings of these individuals are "sensible" or
>>> "intuitive" is simply nuts. It happens to be your idee fixe, i.e., you
>>> think the lesson of special relativity is that even though it makes no
>>> sense, it must nevertheless be accepted as a brute incomprehensible fact.
>>> That is completely wrong, and you give great encouragement to
>>> anti-relativity crackpots by telling them that their ideas make perfect
>>> sense but they must simply surrender to the brute facts of a nonsensical
>>> nature. The crackpots are wrong about nearly everything, but they are
>>> right to reject your claim that logic, reason, and common sense can't
>>> be applied to nature.
>>>
>> --
>> Odd Bodkin -- maker of fine toys, tools, tables
>

--
Odd Bodkin -- maker of fine toys, tools, tables

Odd Bodkin <bodkinodd@gmail.com> wrote:
> Ken Seto <setoken47@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Monday, July 26, 2021 at 12:13:11 PM UTC-4, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> Arthur Adler <aadl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On Monday, July 26, 2021 at 5:30:42 AM UTC-7, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>>>> Corroboration is always provisional and incomplete, but that's not the
>>>>>> issue. Stipulate the empirical facts. The issue is your contention that
>>>>>> the facts related to relativity defy (with careless conflation) logic,
>>>>>> reason, intuition, and common sense, whereas I say they do not.
>>>>>
>>>>> Intuition is migratory...
>>>>
>>>> The incorrectness of your idee fixe was explained in the very next
>>>> sentences (that you snipped). Again, the facts of special relativity did
>>>> not (and do not) require any adjustment to logic, reason, intuition, or
>>>> common sense. That's what the Kaufmann incident illustrates, i.e., the
>>>> application of unadjusted logic, reason, intuition, and common sense
>>>> yielded special relativity, despite apparent conflict with experiment,
>>>> and eventually the facts supporting it were established. This shows that
>>>> special relativity is clearly not contrary to pre-existing logic, etc.
>>>> You conflate the acquisition of new information (e.g., massless energy
>>>> has inertia) with the overthrow or migration of logic, reason, intuition,
>>>> and common sense.
>>>>
>>>>> Galileo’s insights about motion were not intuitive to his contemporaries...
>>>>
>>>> Not true, he gave very commonplace explanations that are quite intuitive
>>>> to everyone, e.g., how things behave inside a uniformly gliding ship.
>>> I think you overestimate how much information was available to common
>>> people without the careful experiments that Galileo did himself (precisely
>>> *because* they were not common knowledge). For example, his experiments
>>> with ramps were instrumental (pun intended) to his revelation that motion
>>> would continue in the absence of an applied force.
>>>
>> That’s because absolute motion would continue.
>
> So you never understood basic physics. You never learned what Galileo
> explained.

I’m just going to reiterate something to you here that I’m sure you’ve been
told dozens of times over the years.

If you never learned first-year physics and if you don’t know what the
words even mean, then no one is going to pay any attention to any of your
ideas about physics.

It’s just foolishness, Ken. Old-man foolishness.

>
>>>
>>> There were no
>>> commonplace examples of this, and indeed astronomical bodies would not have
>>> provided the argument because prior to observations with new instruments
>>> (telescopes) nobody would have had the information available to question
>>> whether they were propelled by angels.
>>
>> No angels are needed.......all objects are continued in a state of
>> absolute motion in the aether.
>>>
>>> In the case of special relativity, keep in mind that electrodynamics in the
>>> Maxwellian interpretation were NOT common knowledge among non-physicists,
>>> and so there was no means to grasp the new handle that Maxwell’s laws might
>>> follow the same invariance that Newtonian mechanics did. This was NEW
>>> information, and in the absence of that information, people were completely
>>> free to assume that the ballistic dependence of speed on reference frame
>>> should apply. Indeed, Newton himself thought so, proof enough that
>>> acquaintance with everyday phenomena is NOT enough to just “reason your
>>> way” into an intuitive grasp of relativity.
>>>
>>> On top of that, it is COMMON that people have a disconnect between what
>>> they see in the real world and how they would explain things. I remember
>>> taking my first year class and the professor asked the simple qualitative
>>> question about how to describe the path of an projectile in the air with
>>> physics, say chucking a melon horizontally off the roof of a five-story
>>> building. Less than 1/5 of the class suggested the downward-opening
>>> parabolic path. Less than 1/5. This alone tells you that the most COMMON
>>> sense is not the parabolic insight. Answers varied from being a straight
>>> diagonal line to the ground, to a Wile E. Coyote-style horizontal traverse
>>> with a 90 degree elbow to a vertical traverse, to the most common answer, a
>>> quarter-circle path transitioning from horizontal to vertical. Now, you
>>> might say this is then idiocy, but then the accurate observation is that
>>> COMMON sense is then idiocy. (The professor then asked, clearly frustrated,
>>> whether anyone had been to a baseball game. The answer from the audience
>>> was, “Yeah, but that’s real life. You were asking about physics.”)
>>>
>>> I just disagree that special relativity (or for that matter most of
>>> physics) can be accurately conceived just by “thinking things through” and
>>> comparison with everyday experience, precisely because everyday experience
>>> is a small and non-representative slice of reality. Which is why
>>> experimental physics has played such a strong and essential role in
>>> figuring things out.
>>>> The principle of relativity is quite intuitive and visceral, and always
>>>> was. It's even wired into the nervous systems of animals. People in
>>>> this newsgroup who deny the principle of relativity are just being
>>>> idiotic. Even Newton explained that the common man perceives motion in
>>>> purely relative terms.
>>>>
>>>>> The mind can be made to conform to new information...
>>>>
>>>> Right, that's what I explained... you are conflating new information with
>>>> migratory logic, reason, intuition, and common sense. Of course, to have
>>>> a truly sensible discussion one would need to clearly define each of
>>>> those four things, as they are not synonyms of each other, but none of
>>>> them are the same as acquiring new information, which is all that is
>>>> involved in understanding special relativity.
>>>>
>>>>> There are a number of people who post to this group who still have
>>>>> Aristotelian sensibilities...
>>>>
>>>> First, Aristotle's views on physics are far from being an exemplar of
>>>> common sense or intuition. It has always been pointed out, in every age,
>>>> that his somewhat bizarre pronouncements about physics are contrary to
>>>> the most commonplace observations, and Aristotle was never expressing the
>>>> intuitions of the common man. He had certain high-level conceptual
>>>> premises into which he tried to fit explanations of phenomena. Second,
>>>> although there are occasional alignments between some ideas of Aristotle
>>>> and the notions of people in this newsgroup, they are purely accidental
>>>> and not rationally consistent. (Aristotle was rational.) Kooky ideas
>>>> about "two sets of Galilean equations", or "the E-matrix", or
>>>> "oscillating photons", etc., are not to be found in Aristotle.
>>>> Anti-relativity crackpots are not expressing common sense or intuitive
>>>> beliefs, they are expressing irrational, illogical, non-intuitive, and
>>>> self-contradictory notions, based on willful ignorance, misinformation
>>>> and (frankly) stupidity. Their errors have nothing to do with migrating common sense.
>>>>
>>>>> to insist that they are not being sensible is simply foolishness.
>>>>
>>>> I strongly disagree. The claims and beliefs of the anti-relativity
>>>> crackpots in this newsgroup are not sensible at all. To claim (as you
>>>> habitually do) that the ravings of these individuals are "sensible" or
>>>> "intuitive" is simply nuts. It happens to be your idee fixe, i.e., you
>>>> think the lesson of special relativity is that even though it makes no
>>>> sense, it must nevertheless be accepted as a brute incomprehensible fact.
>>>> That is completely wrong, and you give great encouragement to
>>>> anti-relativity crackpots by telling them that their ideas make perfect
>>>> sense but they must simply surrender to the brute facts of a nonsensical
>>>> nature. The crackpots are wrong about nearly everything, but they are
>>>> right to reject your claim that logic, reason, and common sense can't
>>>> be applied to nature.
>>>>
>>> --
>>> Odd Bodkin -- maker of fine toys, tools, tables
>>
>
>
>

On 7/26/21 1:12 PM, Odd Bodkin wrote:
> Arthur Adler <aadler904@gmail.com> wrote:
>> everyone knows viscerally that objects behave inertially,
>
> This is simply not true.

I agree. Not "everyone" knows that; only a few people really know it --
those educated and experienced in basic physics. And they know this is
true ONLY IN IDEALIZED CIRCUMSTANCES, which Adler seems to have forgotten.

> SOME people know this viscerally.

Yes, SOME. And those who do also know when it does not apply.

> Other people believe firmly that objects in motion need a sustained
> force to sustain the motion, and that if the force is removed then
> the body will slow and stop.

Certainly, because that is, in practice, how essentially all objects
behave here on earth. Anyone who has learned to catch a high fly ball on
a windy day knows that objects do not actually move inertially.

[That's baseball; football, soccer, and basketball on a
windy day teach the same lesson.]

It is only after one has studied basic physics, and learned to abstract
away friction and other forces, that one realizes that IN IDEALIZED
SITUATIONS objects act inertially.

Adler is psychologically projecting his current knowledge onto others
who have not had his education or experience. Had he played any ball
sport as a child he would know better, viscerally.

Tom Roberts

On Monday, July 26, 2021 at 11:12:51 AM UTC-7, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Everyone knows viscerally that objects behave inertially...
>
> This is simply not true. SOME people know this viscerally.

You're mistaken. All sentient beings, even animals, have an accurate visceral grasp of inertial motion. It's wired into our nervous systems. For example, if someone slides a rock across a frozen pond, everyone can anticipate when and where that rock will hit the other side. We know ice is slippery, and we know the rock will move at uniform speed in a straight line. Even a bear or a raccoon can anticipate its motion from its initial trajectory. Likewise everyone inside a uniformly moving ship could catch an object you throw to them inside the cabin, i.e., they know relativity. Now, if you ask someone to explain cognitively what is going on, they might say that invisible pink elephants are nudging the rock across the pond, but that is not intuition or common sense, that is just high-level fantasizing. And they might (like your freshman classmates) claim that they expect the sliding rock to make a right turn at some point, but that is just high-level idiocy. They know very well how ballistic objects move.

> What you are implying is that “common sense” and “intuition” should be
> words that ONLY apply to people thinking “correctly”...

The term common sense refers to cognizance that is common to essentially all people, such as knowing how a rock sliding on ice, or a ball thrown in the cabin of a ship, or a pop-fly baseball, or a water melon thrown off a building, will move. And the terms logic and reason are indeed restricted to correct thinking. Logic does not migrate, and special relativity is not illogical, nor did it entail the development of a new kind of logic. (The concept of "intuition" is a swamp, since it can refer to a feelings and superstitions, etc., so it would need to be contextually defined to be useful, but for physics our intuitive sense of inertia is quite clear.) Acquiring new information is not the same as migrating common sense or logic.

> I don’t accept [special relativity] as a brute unfathomable fact.

I think you do... at least all your comments suggest that you do.

> If it had been common sense, it would have been EFFORTLESS...

No, as Laplace said about probability, "The theory is at bottom nothing but common sense reduced to calculus; it enables us to appreciate with exactness that which accurate minds feel with a sort of instinct for which ofttimes they are unable to account." If you read Laplace's writings on probability, you will find that following them is not effortless. Mathematics in general is a good counter-example to your claim, because it is purely tautological, and yet grasping a deep mathematical fact need not be effortless. The same applies to mathematical physics.

> to insist that they are not being sensible is simply foolishness.
I strongly disagree. The claims and beliefs of the anti-relativity crackpots here are not sensible at all. To claim (as you habitually do) that the ravings of these individuals are "sensible" or "intuitive" is simply nuts. It happens to be your idee fixe, i.e., you think the lesson of special relativity is that even though it makes no sense, it must nevertheless be accepted as a brute incomprehensible fact. That is completely wrong, and you give great encouragement to anti-relativity crackpots by telling them that their ideas make perfect sense but they must simply surrender to the brute facts of a nonsensical nature. The crackpots are wrong about nearly everything, but they are right to reject your claim that logic, reason, and common sense can't be applied to nature.

Arthur Adler <aadler904@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Monday, July 26, 2021 at 11:12:51 AM UTC-7, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> Everyone knows viscerally that objects behave inertially...
>>
>> This is simply not true. SOME people know this viscerally.
>
> You're mistaken. All sentient beings, even animals, have an accurate
> visceral grasp of inertial motion. It's wired into our nervous systems.
> For example, if someone slides a rock across a frozen pond, everyone can
> anticipate when and where that rock will hit the other side. We know ice
> is slippery, and we know the rock will move at uniform speed in a
> straight line. Even a bear or a raccoon can anticipate its motion from
> its initial trajectory. Likewise everyone inside a uniformly moving
> ship could catch an object you throw to them inside the cabin, i.e., they
> know relativity. Now, if you ask someone to explain cognitively what is
> going on, they might say that invisible pink elephants are nudging the
> rock across the pond, but that is not intuition or common sense, that is
> just high-level fantasizing. And they might (like your freshman
> classmates) claim that they expect the sliding rock to make a right turn
> at some point, but that is just high-level idiocy.

Again, you point to a common answer about how to physically account for
motion as being a “high-level idiocy” while maintaining that “all sentient
beings” know better. If they knew better, then they wouldn’t make those
“high-level idiocies”. And again, knowing how to predict a behavior in an
EXPLICITLY zero-force scenario like an icy pond does NOT translate into
someone correctly concluding that an object at constant speed has no net
force on it.

Seriously, this is a simple interview question, and I invite you to ask
lots of people: For a car traveling at a constant 60 mph on the highway,
what is the direction of the net force on the car and what is providing it?
I will wager that less than 1 in 5 will tell you the net force is zero
because the body is moving inertially. Go ahead, try talking to people.

> They know very well how ballistic objects move.
>
>> What you are implying is that “common sense” and “intuition” should be
>> words that ONLY apply to people thinking “correctly”...
>
> The term common sense refers to cognizance that is common to essentially
> all people, such as knowing how a rock sliding on ice, or a ball thrown
> in the cabin of a ship, or a pop-fly baseball, or a water melon thrown
> off a building, will move.

Exactly. And I think you’ll be dismayed to find that if you ask someone if
they drop a penny on the street will it land directly under their hand
they’ll answer yes, and then if you ask them if they drop the same penny
while standing in the aisle of a jet plane going 500mph, a surprising
number of people will tell you it will land to the rear of the point of
release, because of the motion of the plane. Now if you press them on it to
think of some actual experience doing that, or better yet if you ask them
to actually do it now to check, then they might say, “Oh my goodness, it
still landed under my hand. Oh, of course that’s what happens,” but then
they’ll be completely unable to account for why they thought it would land
behind the point of release, BUT THEY STILL DID and will continue to make
that mistaken judgment if asked again six months from now. Because the
reflex intuition in A LOT of people says it will land behind.

> And the terms logic and reason are indeed restricted to correct thinking.

I’m talking about common sense and intuition, not logic and reasoning. And
by the way, logic and reasoning hinges on a set of assumptive statements —
take for example, Newton’s presumption of an absolute time and the
invariance of duration with inertial motion.

> Logic does not migrate, and special relativity is not illogical, nor did
> it entail the development of a new kind of logic. (The concept of
> "intuition" is a swamp, since it can refer to a feelings and
> superstitions, etc., so it would need to be contextually defined to be
> useful, but for physics our intuitive sense of inertia is quite clear.)
> Acquiring new information is not the same as migrating common sense or logic.
>
>> I don’t accept [special relativity] as a brute unfathomable fact.
>
> I think you do... at least all your comments suggest that you do.

You misjudge, sorry to say. You’re simply wrong about me.

>
>> If it had been common sense, it would have been EFFORTLESS...
>
> No, as Laplace said about probability, "The theory is at bottom nothing
> but common sense reduced to calculus; it enables us to appreciate with
> exactness that which accurate minds feel with a sort of instinct for
> which ofttimes they are unable to account."

> If you read Laplace's writings on probability, you will find that
> following them is not effortless.

Which makes them NOT common sense, though they may have some ROOTS in
common sense ideas, but with a great deal of elaborative effort to come to
some surprising conclusions.

> Mathematics in general is a good counter-example to your claim, because
> it is purely tautological, and yet grasping a deep mathematical fact need
> not be effortless. The same applies to mathematical physics.
>
>> to insist that they are not being sensible is simply foolishness.
>
> I strongly disagree. The claims and beliefs of the anti-relativity
> crackpots here are not sensible at all. To claim (as you habitually do)
> that the ravings of these individuals are "sensible" or "intuitive" is simply nuts.

Again, as you say, “intuition” is enough of a swamp that your particular
view of what it means is not shared universally. In my view, intuition is a
quick and effortless assessment of what will happen or what accounts for
what’s happening that is done WITHOUT CONSCIOUS DELIBERATION, and is
usually based on what happens in similar situations, where again that
similarity is deemed quickly and without analysis.

Now that may not be what YOU mean by intuition. Maybe what YOU mean by
intuition is the accounting that comes from elaborative and careful
reasoning. But the dictionary defines intuition as “the ability to
understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning”
or “a thing that one knows or considers likely from instinctive feeling
rather than conscious reasoning”.

And the FAST answer to questions that probe intuition are, I promise you,
illuminating.

> It happens to be your idee fixe, i.e., you think the lesson of special
> relativity is that even though it makes no sense, it must nevertheless be
> accepted as a brute incomprehensible fact. That is completely wrong, and
> you give great encouragement to anti-relativity crackpots by telling them
> that their ideas make perfect sense but they must simply surrender to the
> brute facts of a nonsensical nature. The crackpots are wrong about nearly
> everything, but they are right to reject your claim that logic, reason,
> and common sense can't be applied to nature.
>

--
Odd Bodkin -- maker of fine toys, tools, tables

On Monday, July 26, 2021 at 1:09:08 PM UTC-7, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
> to insist that they are not being sensible is simply foolishness.

I strongly disagree. The claims and beliefs of anti-relativity crackpots here are not sensible at all. To claim (as you habitually do) that the ravings of these individuals are "sensible" or "intuitive" is simply nuts. It happens to be your idee fixe, i.e., you think the lesson of special relativity is that even though it violates common sense, it must nevertheless be accepted as a brute incomprehensible fact. That is completely wrong, and you give great encouragement to anti-relativity crackpots by telling them that their ideas make sense but they must simply surrender to the brute facts of a nonsensical nature. The crackpots are wrong about nearly everything, but they are right to reject your claim that logic, reason, and common sense can't be applied to nature.

> > All sentient beings, even animals, have an accurate visceral grasp of inertial motion.
> > It's wired into our nervous systems. For example, if someone slides a rock across a
> > frozen pond, everyone can anticipate when and where that rock will hit the other side.
> > We know ice is slippery, and we know the rock will move at uniform speed in a straight
> > line. Even a bear or a raccoon can anticipate its motion from its initial trajectory. Likewise
> > everyone inside a uniformly moving ship could catch an object you throw to them inside
> > the cabin, i.e., they know relativity. Now, if you ask someone to explain cognitively what is
> > going on, they might say that invisible pink elephants are nudging the rock across the
> > pond, but that is not intuition or common sense, that is just high-level fantasizing. And
> > they might (like your freshman classmates) claim that they expect the sliding rock to
> > make a right turn at some point, but that is just high-level idiocy.
>
> Again, you point to a common answer about how to physically account for
> motion as being a “high-level idiocy” while maintaining that “all sentient
> beings” know better.

So, you're actually claiming that invisible pink elephants are a common-sense belief? That is not only completely insane, it is pointless, because the subject awareness is of the inertial behavior -- i.e., an object on a flat slippery surface moves at constant speed in a straight line -- not on juvenile fantasies about what causes it. You are mixing up theories with interpretations, and physics with metaphysics. And you are simply mistaken that invisible pink elephants are a common or intuitive "answer" to anything.

> For a car traveling at a constant 60 mph on the highway, what is the direction
> of the net force on the car and what is providing it?

Asking people about high-level concepts like "force" (or Lagrangians, or Hamiltonians) is both ridiculous and irrelevant. Of course, the correct answer is that the car is being subjected to a net upward force exerted by the ground to make it accelerate upward at 32 ft/sec^2 in terms of the local free-falling coordinates. But whether or not someone gives this answer is irrelevant to our discussion, because the point is that inertia is among the most intuitive facts of our experience, as is the principle of relativity, per the explanations already given.

> Go ahead, try talking to people. ​I think you’ll be dismayed to find that if you ask someone ...

You've just demonstrated that you don't even know the correct answers to your own gotcha questions, but, again, this is all irrelevant. You obviously have a hobby horse of trying to dream up academic questions that you think people will fail to answer correctly, and from this you try to argue that special relativity violates common sense. That's a complete non-sequitur. The simple fact is that special relativity, properly understood, is entirely consistent with common sense and normal human physical intuition, as has already been explained.

> > As Laplace said about probability, "The theory is at bottom nothing
> > but common sense reduced to calculus; it enables us to appreciate with
> > exactness that which accurate minds feel with a sort of instinct for
> > which ofttimes they are unable to account."
>
> Which makes them NOT common sense...

Well, Laplace said they are common sense, and the point is that just because something is common sense -- or even tautological -- doesn't mean that all of its implications can be grasped instantly or effortlessly, and you imagined. You seem to be unfamiliar with the fact that a sequence of elementary common-sense logical steps can be non-trivial.

> Again, as you say, “intuition” is enough of a swamp that your particular
> view of what it means is not shared universally.

Obviously people say thing like "I had an intuition not to go to the gym that day", so talking about intuition can have many different meanings, including spiritual, emotional, and supernatural notions, etc. People can be socially or psychologically intuitive, for example. That's why the term intuition needs to be defined to be useful in a discussion.

> In my view, intuition is a quick and effortless assessment

Excuse me for saying so, but that is astounding dumb. The point here is not how quickly people can think, nor how "effortlessly" they can grasp something. We're not talking about some game where we make people give snap answers to questions and laugh at their dumb answers. That's your hobby horse, but it has no relevance at all to the subject at hand. We are talking about people who have spent 30 years or more obsessing over some fairly simple facts, and have arrived at various sets of absurd answers, to which they cling and devote endless labors. Quickness and effortlessness have nothing to do with anything. Sheesh.

> And the FAST answer to questions that probe intuition are, I promise you,
> illuminating.

Again, your enjoyment of gaming people into snap replies to academic questions is the kind of thing that a certain kind of individual does for certain motivations, none of which I care to elaborate on. The point is that this type of nonsense has nothing to do with the subject at hand.

On Monday, July 26, 2021 at 6:14:15 PM UTC-4, Arthur Adler wrote:
> On Monday, July 26, 2021 at 1:09:08 PM UTC-7, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
> > to insist that they are not being sensible is simply foolishness.
> I strongly disagree. The claims and beliefs of anti-relativity crackpots here are not sensible at all. To claim (as >you habitually do) that the ravings of these individuals are "sensible" or "intuitive" is simply nuts.
Who gave you the authority to make that wrong conclusion?

>To claim (as you habitually do) that the ravings of these individuals are "sensible" or "intuitive" is simply nuts. It >happens to be your idee fixe, i.e., you think the lesson of special relativity is that even though it violates >common sense, it must nevertheless be accepted as a brute incomprehensible fact. That is completely wrong, >and you give great encouragement to anti-relativity crackpots by telling them that their ideas make sense but >they must simply surrender to the brute facts of a nonsensical nature. The crackpots are wrong about nearly >everything, but they are right to reject your claim that logic, reason, and common sense can’t be applied to >nature.
>
> > > All sentient beings, even animals, have an accurate visceral grasp of inertial motion.
> > > It's wired into our nervous systems. For example, if someone slides a rock across a
> > > frozen pond, everyone can anticipate when and where that rock will hit the other side.
> > > We know ice is slippery, and we know the rock will move at uniform speed in a straight
> > > line. Even a bear or a raccoon can anticipate its motion from its initial trajectory. Likewise
> > > everyone inside a uniformly moving ship could catch an object you throw to them inside
> > > the cabin, i.e., they know relativity. Now, if you ask someone to explain cognitively what is
> > > going on, they might say that invisible pink elephants are nudging the rock across the
> > > pond, but that is not intuition or common sense, that is just high-level fantasizing. And
> > > they might (like your freshman classmates) claim that they expect the sliding rock to
> > > make a right turn at some point, but that is just high-level idiocy.
> >
> > Again, you point to a common answer about how to physically account for
> > motion as being a “high-level idiocy” while maintaining that “all sentient
> > beings” know better.
> So, you're actually claiming that invisible pink elephants are a common-sense belief? That is not only completely insane, it is pointless, because the subject awareness is of the inertial behavior -- i.e., an object on a flat slippery surface moves at constant speed in a straight line -- not on juvenile fantasies about what causes it. You are mixing up theories with interpretations, and physics with metaphysics. And you are simply mistaken that invisible pink elephants are a common or intuitive "answer" to anything.
> > For a car traveling at a constant 60 mph on the highway, what is the direction
> > of the net force on the car and what is providing it?
> Asking people about high-level concepts like "force" (or Lagrangians, or Hamiltonians) is both ridiculous and irrelevant. Of course, the correct answer is that the car is being subjected to a net upward force exerted by the ground to make it accelerate upward at 32 ft/sec^2 in terms of the local free-falling coordinates. But whether or not someone gives this answer is irrelevant to our discussion, because the point is that inertia is among the most intuitive facts of our experience, as is the principle of relativity, per the explanations already given.
>
> > Go ahead, try talking to people. ​I think you’ll be dismayed to find that if you ask someone ...
>
> You've just demonstrated that you don't even know the correct answers to your own gotcha questions, but, again, this is all irrelevant. You obviously have a hobby horse of trying to dream up academic questions that you think people will fail to answer correctly, and from this you try to argue that special relativity violates common sense. That's a complete non-sequitur. The simple fact is that special relativity, properly understood, is entirely consistent with common sense and normal human physical intuition, as has already been explained.
>
> > > As Laplace said about probability, "The theory is at bottom nothing
> > > but common sense reduced to calculus; it enables us to appreciate with
> > > exactness that which accurate minds feel with a sort of instinct for
> > > which ofttimes they are unable to account."
> >
> > Which makes them NOT common sense...
>
> Well, Laplace said they are common sense, and the point is that just because something is common sense -- or even tautological -- doesn't mean that all of its implications can be grasped instantly or effortlessly, and you imagined. You seem to be unfamiliar with the fact that a sequence of elementary common-sense logical steps can be non-trivial.
> > Again, as you say, “intuition” is enough of a swamp that your particular
> > view of what it means is not shared universally.
> Obviously people say thing like "I had an intuition not to go to the gym that day", so talking about intuition can have many different meanings, including spiritual, emotional, and supernatural notions, etc. People can be socially or psychologically intuitive, for example. That's why the term intuition needs to be defined to be useful in a discussion.
> > In my view, intuition is a quick and effortless assessment
> Excuse me for saying so, but that is astounding dumb. The point here is not how quickly people can think, nor how "effortlessly" they can grasp something. We're not talking about some game where we make people give snap answers to questions and laugh at their dumb answers. That's your hobby horse, but it has no relevance at all to the subject at hand. We are talking about people who have spent 30 years or more obsessing over some fairly simple facts, and have arrived at various sets of absurd answers, to which they cling and devote endless labors. Quickness and effortlessness have nothing to do with anything. Sheesh.
> > And the FAST answer to questions that probe intuition are, I promise you,
> > illuminating.
> Again, your enjoyment of gaming people into snap replies to academic questions is the kind of thing that a certain kind of individual does for certain motivations, none of which I care to elaborate on. The point is that this type of nonsense has nothing to do with the subject at hand.

Arthur Adler <aadler904@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Monday, July 26, 2021 at 1:09:08 PM UTC-7, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
>> to insist that they are not being sensible is simply foolishness.
>
> I strongly disagree. The claims and beliefs of anti-relativity crackpots
> here are not sensible at all. To claim (as you habitually do) that the
> ravings of these individuals are "sensible" or "intuitive" is simply
> nuts. It happens to be your idee fixe, i.e., you think the lesson of
> special relativity is that even though it violates common sense, it must
> nevertheless be accepted as a brute incomprehensible fact.

No, I did not say it, I did not imply it. Common sense is NOT REQUIRED for
understanding and acceptance of a scientific idea, but the alternative is
not just blind acceptance. That is a false dichotomy. What is true is that
there are many scientific ideas that violate common sense, but which are
nevertheless true and can be understood with work, evaluating corroborated
experimental evidence (which may defy common sense expectations) and by
embracing NEW conceptual ideas that may be in conflict with
common-sense-generated rules inferred from everyday experience. Logic will
be required to develop consequences from those new conceptual ideas and new
foundational assumptions, but common sense appeal simply isn’t relevant.

I have a toy that involves a wooden block with a hole through it, a playing
card, and a thumbtack. I invite children and adults alike to stick the tack
through the card and hold the card to the bottom of the block with one hand
so that the tack is inserted in the hole in the block. Then I invite them
to blow down through the hole in the block as hard as they can, and at the
same time let go of the hand supporting the card, and I ask them what
common sense tells them will happen. Common sense says that if you blow
hard through a hole on a paper card that the card will be blown away from
the block. That’s because they’ve blown many things with their breath
through a pipe and this is always what happens. Then they do it, and the
card stays close to the block until their exhale is exhausted and the card
then flutters to the floor. This DEFIES common sense. Someone educated in
physics will be able to explain it as an example of the Bernoulli effect,
but it is NOT a common sense expectation in the customary meaning of that
term. The Bernoulli effect is not a raw observational effect that has to be
accepted simply on the face of it — it is a natural consequence of the
conservation of energy after all — but the rather long chain of reason and
logic that gets you to that point is not common sense.

> That is completely wrong, and you give great encouragement to
> anti-relativity crackpots by telling them that their ideas make sense

I never said that their crackpot ideas make sense. Stop inserting words
into my mouth. What I keep telling them is that the correct idea does not
have to appeal to common sense.

> but they must simply surrender to the brute facts of a nonsensical
> nature. The crackpots are wrong about nearly everything, but they are
> right to reject your claim that logic, reason, and common sense can't be applied to nature.
>
>>> All sentient beings, even animals, have an accurate visceral grasp of inertial motion.
>>> It's wired into our nervous systems. For example, if someone slides a rock across a
>>> frozen pond, everyone can anticipate when and where that rock will hit the other side.
>>> We know ice is slippery, and we know the rock will move at uniform speed in a straight
>>> line. Even a bear or a raccoon can anticipate its motion from its
>>> initial trajectory. Likewise
>>> everyone inside a uniformly moving ship could catch an object you throw to them inside
>>> the cabin, i.e., they know relativity. Now, if you ask someone to
>>> explain cognitively what is
>>> going on, they might say that invisible pink elephants are nudging the rock across the
>>> pond, but that is not intuition or common sense, that is just
>>> high-level fantasizing. And
>>> they might (like your freshman
>>> classmates) claim that they expect the sliding rock to
>>> make a right turn at some point, but that is just high-level idiocy.
>>
>> Again, you point to a common answer about how to physically account for
>> motion as being a “high-level idiocy” while maintaining that “all sentient
>> beings” know better.
>
> So, you're actually claiming that invisible pink elephants are a common-sense belief?

Of course not. To quote you, are you insane?

> That is not only completely insane, it is pointless, because the subject
> awareness is of the inertial behavior -- i.e., an object on a flat
> slippery surface moves at constant speed in a straight line -- not on
> juvenile fantasies about what causes it.
> You are mixing up theories with interpretations, and physics with
> metaphysics. And you are simply mistaken that invisible pink elephants
> are a common or intuitive "answer" to anything.
>
>> For a car traveling at a constant 60 mph on the highway, what is the direction
>> of the net force on the car and what is providing it?
>
> Asking people about high-level concepts like "force" (or Lagrangians, or
> Hamiltonians) is both ridiculous and irrelevant.

Excuse me? In this context, force is not a “high-level concept”. It is
intrinsic to the first of Newton’s laws, which is the very statement of
inertial motion you’re talking about. It is the statement that an object in
uniform motion in an inertial frame of reference has that behavior iff
there is no net force on it. That “iff” is critical. If you see uniform
motion, you know the net force is zero. If you know the net force is zero,
then the motion will be uniform. That IS the first law.

To quote you, are you insane?

> Of course, the correct answer is that the car is being subjected to a net
> upward force exerted by the ground to make it accelerate upward at 32
> ft/sec^2 in terms of the local free-falling coordinates. But whether or
> not someone gives this answer is irrelevant to our discussion, because
> the point is that inertia is among the most intuitive facts of our
> experience, as is the principle of relativity, per the explanations already given.
>
>> Go ahead, try talking to people. ​I think you’ll be dismayed to find
>> that if you ask someone ...
>
> You've just demonstrated that you don't even know the correct answers to
> your own gotcha questions, but, again, this is all irrelevant. You
> obviously have a hobby horse of trying to dream up academic questions
> that you think people will fail to answer correctly, and from this you
> try to argue that special relativity violates common sense. That's a
> complete non-sequitur. The simple fact is that special relativity,
> properly understood, is entirely consistent with common sense and normal
> human physical intuition, as has already been explained.
>
>>> As Laplace said about probability, "The theory is at bottom nothing
>>> but common sense reduced to calculus; it enables us to appreciate with
>>> exactness that which accurate minds feel with a sort of instinct for
>>> which ofttimes they are unable to account."
>>
>> Which makes them NOT common sense...
>
> Well, Laplace said they are common sense, and the point is that just
> because something is common sense -- or even tautological -- doesn't mean
> that all of its implications can be grasped instantly or effortlessly,
> and you imagined. You seem to be unfamiliar with the fact that a
> sequence of elementary common-sense logical steps can be non-trivial.

Once again, perhaps your notion of what intuition means is different than
most people. Here again is the dictionary meaning that you snipped:

“the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for
conscious reasoning”

“a thing that one knows or considers likely from instinctive feeling rather
than conscious reasoning”

Is there something about the dictionary definition that you do not
understand, or are you just more pleased with your own meaning for the
word?

>
>> Again, as you say, “intuition” is enough of a swamp that your particular
>> view of what it means is not shared universally.
>
> Obviously people say thing like "I had an intuition not to go to the gym
> that day", so talking about intuition can have many different meanings,
> including spiritual, emotional, and supernatural notions, etc. People
> can be socially or psychologically intuitive, for example. That's why
> the term intuition needs to be defined to be useful in a discussion.
>
>> In my view, intuition is a quick and effortless assessment
>
> Excuse me for saying so, but that is astounding dumb.

On Tuesday, July 27, 2021 at 5:03:24 AM UTC-7, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
> to insist that they are not being sensible is simply foolishness.

No, anti-relativity crackpots are not being sensible. Proof: Read any post in this newsgroup from an anti-relativity crackpot.

> Common sense is NOT REQUIRED for understanding and acceptance of a scientific idea...

You're just constructing your hobby horse from contentious semantics. As many crackpots here have told you, they use "common sense" to mean good sense and sound judgment, which entails logic and sound reasoning, and yes, these are indeed required to understand a scientific idea. You counter by saying, well, the dictionary qualifies its definition by saying "in practical matters", which means that the term 'common sense' doesn't apply to good sense and sound judgment in impractical matters (whatever those may be). Therefore, you claim, 'common sense' is not required for scientific reasoning, because we can carry out scientific reasoning with good sense and sound judgment, provided they are only in impractical matters. Your weird semantic sophistry is completely pointless. Going back to the background of the term, it refers to the cognitive processes shared in common by all sentient people, which again includes elementary logic and reason, which are obviously indispensable for scientific thought.

> there are many scientific ideas that violate common sense...

Well, quantum theory is arguably close to being incompatible with "common sense", but relativity is a purely classical theory, and there is nothing about it that violates common sense. The fact that you believe it violates common sense, but you accept it anyway confirms my point that you just accept it as a brute unfathomable fact.

> I have a toy that involves a wooden block with a hole through it... it defies common sense.

This is your hobby horse again. You enjoy setting up situations, like optical illusions, that you hope will confuse young children and puppies, but there is nothing about classical physics that defies sound reasoning. The Bernoulli effect does not defy good sense or sound judgment (in practical or impractical matters), nor elementary logic common to all people, which comprise the new and old definitions of common sense.

> ... the rather long chain of reason and logic that gets you to that point is not common sense.

If each cognitive step is simple common sense (as in the steps of a mathematical proof), then the result is entirely consistent with common sense, i.e.., it does *not* violate common sense.

> I never said that their crackpot ideas make sense. Stop inserting words
> into my mouth.

You said "to insist that they are not being sensible is simply foolishness".. I insist that they are not being sensible, meaning their ideas do not make sense. If you now agree with me, then the correct response is "Yes, you are right, and I mis-spoke when I said it was foolishness to insist that they are not being sensible. Sorry, don't know what I was thinking when I typed that". Apology accepted.

> > > Now, if you ask someone to explain cognitively what is going on, they might say that
> > > invisible pink elephants are nudging the rock across the pond, but that is not intuition
> > > or common sense, that is just high-level fantasizing.
> >
> > Again, you point to a common answer about how to physically account for
> > motion as being a “high-level idiocy”
>
> So, you're actually claiming that invisible pink elephants are a common-sense belief?
>
> Of course not. To quote you, are you insane?

Please re-read the above.

>> For a car traveling at a constant 60 mph on the highway, what is the direction
>> of the net force on the car and what is providing it?
>
> Of course, the correct answer is that the car is being subjected to a net
> upward force exerted by the ground to make it accelerate upward at 32
> ft/sec^2 in terms of the local free-falling coordinates.

It is very strange that you proceeded to deliver your lecture about how you think the answer is zero net force, when in the very next sentence I point out that your "gotcha" answer is actually wrong, and yet you pass over this without any comment at all.

And, again, whether or not someone recognizes the falsity of your answer is irrelevant to our discussion, because the point is that inertia is among the most intuitive facts of our experience, as is the principle of relativity, per the explanations already given.
> > Asking people about high-level concepts like "force" (or Lagrangians, or
> > Hamiltonians) is both ridiculous and irrelevant.
>
> Excuse me? In this context, force is not a “high-level concept”.

Yes, it is. The low level facts of inertia are that the rock slides across the ice in a straight path at constant speed. Everyone is able to play billiards, regardless of whether they have taken a course in Newtonian physics or has concepts like force or momentum or Hamiltonians in their high-level thoughts. Inertial behavior is hard-wired into our nervous systems. No one in the cabin of a moving ship is surprised at how objects behave. (Also, you didn't stipulate Newtonian physics, and I pointed out that your answer was wrong, since the car is subject to the upward net force.)

> If you know the net force is zero, then the motion will be uniform. That IS the first law.

So, after you typed all that, and then read my next paragraph where I pointed out there is a net upward force, did it not occur to you to go back and delete everything you typed?

> Here again is the dictionary meaning [of intuition] that you snipped:
> “the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for
> conscious reasoning”...

The word intuition here is a hopeless and pointless red herring. There is "woman's intuition" telling them the gender of their future baby, and when used in a dictionary sentence they give "How did you know I was coming? It must have been intuition!" And so on. These kinds of colloquial meanings of intuition are pointless for this discussion. There is within science a more specialized use of the word, as in "some great scientists had remarkable scientific intuition", knowing the right path to follow even before observational reasons were at hand (see "The Sleepwalkers", etc.) But this really has nothing to do with your basic thesis that relativity conflicts with common sense. Also, no one is talking about "understanding things immediately" or without conscious reasoning. Mathematical physics does not proceed without conscious reasoning. Sheesh.

> Common sense IS about the snap answers (see dictionary)...

Nope, you're conflating "intuition" with "common sense". As explained, the concept of intuition is hopelessly muddled and not relevant to this discussion, and common sense means good sense and sound judgment, is does not mean giving snap answers to complicated questions.

Remember, we are not talking about snap judgments, we are talking about people who have spent 30 years or more obsessing over some fairly simple facts, and have arrived at various sets of absurd answers, to which they cling and devote endless labors. Quickness and effortlessness have nothing to do with it. If you want to criticize crackpots for not thinking things through with enough time and effort, then I'd agree, but that isn't what you say.. Instead, you criticize them for relying on good sense and sound judgment (and the elementary logic common to all people). That's an invalid criticism. Special relativity (properly understood) does not violate common sense.

Arthur Adler <aadler904@gmail.com> wrote:
The crackpots are wrong about nearly everything, but they are right to
reject your claim that logic, reason, and common sense can't be applied to
nature.
>

I reiterate that intuition and common sense are separated from logic and
reason. You are making the same mistake as the cranks conflating them. They
rely on their native intuition in the ABSENCE of both specialized knowledge
and careful reasoning, and they mistakenly call this logical thinking.

See the dictionary definitions of intuition and common sense.

You accuse me of conflating these four mental processes and saying that
none of them are essential to physics, but it is you that is conflating
them all to be the same thing.

--
Odd Bodkin — Maker of fine toys, tools, tables

Arthur Adler <aadler904@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tuesday, July 27, 2021 at 5:03:24 AM UTC-7, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
>> to insist that they are not being sensible is simply foolishness.
>
> No, anti-relativity crackpots are not being sensible. Proof: Read any
> post in this newsgroup from an anti-relativity crackpot.
>
>> Common sense is NOT REQUIRED for understanding and acceptance of a scientific idea...
>
> You're just constructing your hobby horse from contentious semantics. As
> many crackpots here have told you, they use "common sense" to mean good
> sense and sound judgment,

Based on a simple and everyday perception of the situation or facts. Don’t
cherry pick to bend the definition.

And don’t ignore the definition of intuition, just because you don’t like
it.

We are talking past each other. You have a particular meaning you have in
mind for common sense and intuition, which is NOT the meanings I am
ascribing to those words, because I’m actually using a dictionary and
you’re using a quote from Laplace. Discussion is pointless because of this
disconnect.

Cranks use “common sense” and “intuition” in the sense that *I* gave those
words, and they make the mistake of confusing those mental habits with
logic and reasoning. Your approach is to tell them that common sense and
intuition ARE logic and reasoning (through some private understanding of
those terms) and the problem is that they’re not using them correctly.
That’s why your argument with them on that tack is foolishness — it
explains nothing to them about what the difference is between what they’re
doing in their heads and what scientific thinking actually entails. I’m not
advocating that that they are thinking properly. I’m advocating that the
tools they are using are the wrong tools entirely. You are just telling
them that they are nuts.

You can have at it with them all you want. You’re not prone to change your
mind about anything and you’re a pretty pronounced right-fighter, even when
presented with counter-evidence (see dictionary). And THAT, friend, is the
TRUE hallmark of crankiness.

> which entails logic and sound reasoning, and yes, these are indeed
> required to understand a scientific idea. You counter by saying, well,
> the dictionary qualifies its definition by saying "in practical matters",
> which means that the term 'common sense' doesn't apply to good sense and
> sound judgment in impractical matters (whatever those may be).
> Therefore, you claim, 'common sense' is not required for scientific
> reasoning, because we can carry out scientific reasoning with good sense
> and sound judgment, provided they are only in impractical matters. Your
> weird semantic sophistry is completely pointless. Going back to the
> background of the term, it refers to the cognitive processes shared in
> common by all sentient people, which again includes elementary logic and
> reason, which are obviously indispensable for scientific thought.
>
>> there are many scientific ideas that violate common sense...
>
> Well, quantum theory is arguably close to being incompatible with "common
> sense", but relativity is a purely classical theory, and there is nothing
> about it that violates common sense. The fact that you believe it
> violates common sense, but you accept it anyway confirms my point that
> you just accept it as a brute unfathomable fact.
>
>> I have a toy that involves a wooden block with a hole through it... it
>> defies common sense.
>
> This is your hobby horse again. You enjoy setting up situations, like
> optical illusions, that you hope will confuse young children and puppies,
> but there is nothing about classical physics that defies sound reasoning.
> The Bernoulli effect does not defy good sense or sound judgment (in
> practical or impractical matters), nor elementary logic common to all
> people, which comprise the new and old definitions of common sense.
>
>> ... the rather long chain of reason and logic that gets you to that
>> point is not common sense.
>
> If each cognitive step is simple common sense (as in the steps of a
> mathematical proof), then the result is entirely consistent with common
> sense, i.e., it does *not* violate common sense.
>
>> I never said that their crackpot ideas make sense. Stop inserting words
>> into my mouth.
>
> You said "to insist that they are not being sensible is simply foolishness".

That’s right. It’s foolishness, because it’s BESIDE the point. I’m not
asserting that they ARE making sense. I’m insisting that common sense
DOESN’T ENTER INTO IT. And if you can’t parse that explication, then I
can’t help you.

> I insist that they are not being sensible, meaning their ideas do not
> make sense. If you now agree with me, then the correct response is "Yes,
> you are right, and I mis-spoke when I said it was foolishness to insist
> that they are not being sensible. Sorry, don't know what I was thinking
> when I typed that". Apology accepted.
>
>>>> Now, if you ask someone to explain cognitively what is going on, they might say that
>>>> invisible pink elephants are nudging the rock across the pond, but
>>>> that is not intuition
>>>> or common sense, that is just high-level fantasizing.
>>>
>>> Again, you point to a common answer about how to physically account for
>>> motion as being a “high-level idiocy”
>>
>> So, you're actually claiming that invisible pink elephants are a common-sense belief?
>>
>> Of course not. To quote you, are you insane?
>
> Please re-read the above.
>
>>> For a car traveling at a constant 60 mph on the highway, what is the direction
>>> of the net force on the car and what is providing it?
>>
>> Of course, the correct answer is that the car is being subjected to a net
>> upward force exerted by the ground to make it accelerate upward at 32
>> ft/sec^2 in terms of the local free-falling coordinates.
>
> It is very strange that you proceeded to deliver your lecture about how
> you think the answer is zero net force, when in the very next sentence I
> point out that your "gotcha" answer is actually wrong, and yet you pass
> over this without any comment at all.

That’s right, because this explanation you cited is NOT an example of
Newton’s first law and you know it.
And isn’t it funny that you call this out while just below you mention a
billiard ball on a table being an everyday example of inertial motion wired
into our nervous systems, when the ball is being subjected to a net upward
force because it’s not in uniform motion in a local free-falling frame.
So is the billiard ball an example of uniform motion or not, sir?

>
> And, again, whether or not someone recognizes the falsity of your answer
> is irrelevant to our discussion, because the point is that inertia is
> among the most intuitive facts of our experience, as is the principle of
> relativity, per the explanations already given.
>
>>> Asking people about high-level concepts like "force" (or Lagrangians, or
>>> Hamiltonians) is both ridiculous and irrelevant.
>>
>> Excuse me? In this context, force is not a “high-level concept”.
>
> Yes, it is. The low level facts of inertia are that the rock slides
> across the ice in a straight path at constant speed. Everyone is able to
> play billiards, regardless of whether they have taken a course in
> Newtonian physics or has concepts like force or momentum or Hamiltonians
> in their high-level thoughts. Inertial behavior is hard-wired into our
> nervous systems. No one in the cabin of a moving ship is surprised at
> how objects behave. (Also, you didn't stipulate Newtonian physics, and I
> pointed out that your answer was wrong, since the car is subject to the upward net force.)
>
>> If you know the net force is zero, then the motion will be uniform. That
>> IS the first law.
>
> So, after you typed all that, and then read my next paragraph where I
> pointed out there is a net upward force, did it not occur to you to go
> back and delete everything you typed?
>
>> Here again is the dictionary meaning [of intuition] that you snipped:
>> “the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for
>> conscious reasoning”...
>
> The word intuition here is a hopeless and pointless red herring.

I disagree, because this is what the cranks are using in their heads, as
defined above. If you don’t want to acknowledge it or deal with it, or if
you want to define intuition as the insight borne of logic and careful
reasoning (which is NOT what it means), then that’s YOUR problem, and no
wonder you will run into brick walls talking with ANYBODY about it. As has
been mentioned by SEVERAL people in this group.

On Tuesday, July 27, 2021 at 7:12:27 AM UTC-7, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
> Arthur Adler <aadl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The crackpots are wrong about nearly everything, but they are right to
> reject your claim that logic, reason, and common sense can't be applied to
> nature.
> >
> I reiterate that intuition and common sense are separated from logic and reason.

The word "intuition" is a hopelessly muddled red herring, as explained above. Your essential thesis is that special relativity violates common sense, which it does not, by either the colloquial dictionary definition or the original philosophical definition. Common sense is typically defined as good sense and sound reasoning (and whether this is applied to practical or impractical matters is irrelevant), and in the historical scientific context it referred to the elementary logic and the ability to perceive and reason, common to all sentient beings. And more importantly, it is these definitions that your interlocutors specifically stipulate, so if you mean something else you are just engaging in semantic games. The point is that special relativity does not violate common sense. You've admitted that you don't really mean common sense, you mean that someone could carelessly, without any conscious reasoning, make a snap judgment that special relativity is wrong. Well, duh. But that doesn't imply that special relativity violates common sense. It is not common sense to believe that uninformed snap judgments without conscious reasoning lead to reliable results.

Arthur Adler <aadler904@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tuesday, July 27, 2021 at 7:12:27 AM UTC-7, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
>> Arthur Adler <aadl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> The crackpots are wrong about nearly everything, but they are right to
>> reject your claim that logic, reason, and common sense can't be applied to
>> nature.
>>>
>> I reiterate that intuition and common sense are separated from logic and reason.
>
> The word "intuition" is a hopelessly muddled red herring, as explained
> above. Your essential thesis is that special relativity violates common
> sense, which it does not, by either the colloquial dictionary definition
> or the original philosophical definition. Common sense is typically
> defined as good sense and sound reasoning (and whether this is applied to
> practical or impractical matters is irrelevant), and in the historical
> scientific context it referred to the elementary logic and the ability to
> perceive and reason, common to all sentient beings. And more
> importantly, it is these definitions that your interlocutors specifically
> stipulate, so if you mean something else you are just engaging in
> semantic games. The point is that special relativity does not violate
> common sense. You've admitted that you don't really mean common sense,
> you mean that someone could carelessly, without any conscious reasoning,
> make a snap judgment that special relativity is wrong. Well, duh. But
> that doesn't imply that special relativity violates common sense. It is
> not common sense to believe that uninformed snap judgments without
> conscious reasoning lead to reliable results.
>

As I’ve mentioned several times, you and I have different understanding of
these terms, and you simply to acknowledge that any understanding other
than your own could be permissible. This is crank behavior.

If you want an interesting discussion about how students and beginners
struggle with physics and their common sense and intuition, please see:

Arons, Teaching Introductory Physics

Mazur, Peer Instruction

Walker, Flying Circus of Physics

Note how these physicists use those terms. If you think they’re just wrong,
then, well…

--
Odd Bodkin -- maker of fine toys, tools, tables

On Tuesday, July 27, 2021 at 7:32:28 AM UTC-7, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
> Cranks use “common sense” and “intuition” in the sense that *I* gave those
> words...

No they do not. The last time this was discussed, the crack chimed in and specially said that to him the words "common sense" mean sound logic and reasoning. He said this to you very directly and explicitly. And it was noted and highlighted. And yet, you still have in your mind the belief that they use the term "common sense" to mean uninformed snap judgments without any conscious reasoning... a definition that you smuggled in from "intuition". That's just ridiculous... no one, not even crackpots, claim that uninformed snap judgments without any conscious reasoning are a reliable guide.

> >>> For a car traveling at a constant 60 mph on the highway, what is the direction
> >>> of the net force on the car and what is providing it?
> >>
> >> The answer is that the car is being subjected to a net upward force exerted
> >> by the ground to make it accelerate upward at 32 ft/sec^2 in terms of the
> >> local free-falling coordinates.
> >
> > It is very strange that you proceeded to deliver your lecture about how
> > you think the answer is zero net force, when in the very next sentence I
> > point out that your "gotcha" answer is actually wrong, and yet you pass
> > over this without any comment at all.
>
> That’s right, because this explanation you cited is NOT an example of
> Newton’s first law and you know it.

The question did not stipulate Newtonian physics, and the question posed did not refer to an example of Newton's first law, and the point is that your answer, which you present as if this is wisdom that eludes the unsophisticated, was actually wrong and unsophisticated. That's a hazard of trying to pose "gotcha" questions. If you're going to correct people on their grammar, you better have very good grammar.

> And isn’t it funny that you call this out while just below you mention a
> billiard ball on a table being an everyday example of inertial motion wired
> into our nervous systems...

The visceral knowledge of dynamical motion is at a very low level, not on the level of theorizing about forces or Hamiltonians or curved spacetime or any other high level concepts. And the point is that asking people on the street for snap answers to survey questions involving high level concepts doesn't have any relevance to the discussion, as illustrated by the fact that even your answer was wrong. I'm not the one arguing that such surveys have any relevance to the issue.

> Your reaction to that response so far has been to say, “Well, you’re all
> wrong,” even while the dictionary definition stares you in the face.

Not at all. I'm directing your attention to the definitions of common sense, and also to the definitions of intuition, and pointing out that the latter has no relevance to this discussion, since we are not talking about snap judgments without any conscious reasoning.

Remember, we are not talking about snap judgments devoid of conscious reasoning, we are talking about people who have spent 30 years or more obsessing over some fairly simple facts, and have arrived -- by conscious reasoning that they believe to be sound -- at various sets of absurd answers, to which they cling and devote endless labors. Quickness and effortlessness and the absence of conscious reasoning have nothing to do with it. If you want to criticize crackpots for not thinking things through with enough time and effort, then I'd agree, but that isn't what you say. Instead, you criticize them for relying on good sense and sound judgment (and the elementary logic common to all people). That's an invalid criticism. Special relativity (properly understood) does not violate common sense.

On Tuesday, July 27, 2021 at 8:03:58 AM UTC-7, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
> > The word "intuition" is a hopelessly muddled red herring, as explained
> > above. Your essential thesis is that special relativity violates common
> > sense, which it does not, by either the colloquial dictionary definition
> > or the original philosophical definition. Common sense is typically
> > defined as good sense and sound reasoning (and whether this is applied to
> > practical or impractical matters is irrelevant), and in the historical
> > scientific context it referred to the elementary logic and the ability to
> > perceive and reason, common to all sentient beings. And more
> > importantly, it is these definitions that your interlocutors specifically
> > stipulate, so if you mean something else you are just engaging in
> > semantic games. The point is that special relativity does not violate
> > common sense. You've admitted that you don't really mean common sense,
> > you mean that someone could carelessly, without any conscious reasoning,
> > make a snap judgment that special relativity is wrong. Well, duh. But
> > that doesn't imply that special relativity violates common sense. It is
> > not common sense to believe that uninformed snap judgments without
> > conscious reasoning lead to reliable results.
> >
> As I’ve mentioned several times, you and I have different understanding of
> these terms...

Which terms? We've agreed to use the dictionary definition of 'intuition' meaning snap judgments with no conscious reasoning (this is the definition *you* cited). My claim is that this has no relevant to the discussion, because we are not talking about snap judgments with no conscious reasoning, we are talking about people obsessing for 30 years trying to consciously reason about the subject. So 'intuition' is a red herring. And for the term 'common sense' we are using both the dictionary colloquial definition (good sense and sound judgment...) and the original philosophical definition (ability to perceive and reason common to all sentient beings), and on this basis it's clear that special relativity does not violate common sense.

Arthur Adler <aadler904@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tuesday, July 27, 2021 at 7:32:28 AM UTC-7, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
>> Cranks use “common sense” and “intuition” in the sense that *I* gave those
>> words...
>
> No they do not. The last time this was discussed, the crack chimed in
> and specially said that to him the words "common sense" mean sound logic and reasoning.

The crank likes the words “logic” and “reasoning” but is using intuition
and everyday experience.
Logic and reasoning takes work and learning, which the crank has not done.

Keep in mind that the number of years they have spent on the subject is
irrelevant. The time they have spent is nonproductive, and as you noted
they have not changed their view since day 1, which means that they have
not done any of the conceptual work or the deductive logic to move them
from their intuition and extrapolation from everyday experience. Witness
Seto saying (paraphrasing) “The speed of any object is frame independent,
including light, because everything I know about from everyday life is that
way.” That is not logic and reasoning. That is intuition and extrapolation
from everyday experience.

If physics were just everyday experience and reasoning and did not depend
on surprising observational results and the difficult *resetting* of
conceptual frameworks, then Newton would have never supposed absolute time,
energy would never have been considered a fluid, a material medium would
have never been proposed for light propagation, and there would have been
no debate about the existence of atoms.

> He said this to you very directly and explicitly. And it was noted and
> highlighted. And yet, you still have in your mind the belief that they
> use the term "common sense" to mean uninformed snap judgments without any
> conscious reasoning... a definition that you smuggled in from
> "intuition". That's just ridiculous... no one, not even crackpots, claim
> that uninformed snap judgments without any conscious reasoning are a reliable guide.

Even though that is precisely what they do. See the statement by Seto. See
the gut feel statement by the radar gun idiot that speed relative to the
earth’s surface is what all radar guns measure because that’s what speed
means to him — that’s an intuitive statement, not a logical one, though
he’ll CALL it “logical” thinking.

Don’t look at what they CLAIM they’re doing. Look at what they’re ACTUALLY
doing, which is applying intuition and generalization of rules from
everyday experience.

>
>>>>> For a car traveling at a constant 60 mph on the highway, what is the direction
>>>>> of the net force on the car and what is providing it?
>>>>
>>>> The answer is that the car is being subjected to a net upward force exerted
>>>> by the ground to make it accelerate upward at 32 ft/sec^2 in terms of the
>>>> local free-falling coordinates.
>>>
>>> It is very strange that you proceeded to deliver your lecture about how
>>> you think the answer is zero net force, when in the very next sentence I
>>> point out that your "gotcha" answer is actually wrong, and yet you pass
>>> over this without any comment at all.
>>
>> That’s right, because this explanation you cited is NOT an example of
>> Newton’s first law and you know it.
>
> The question did not stipulate Newtonian physics, and the question posed
> did not refer to an example of Newton's first law, and the point is that
> your answer, which you present as if this is wisdom that eludes the
> unsophisticated, was actually wrong and unsophisticated. That's a hazard
> of trying to pose "gotcha" questions. If you're going to correct people
> on their grammar, you better have very good grammar.
>
>> And isn’t it funny that you call this out while just below you mention a
>> billiard ball on a table being an everyday example of inertial motion wired
>> into our nervous systems...
>
> The visceral knowledge of dynamical motion is at a very low level, not on
> the level of theorizing about forces or Hamiltonians or curved spacetime
> or any other high level concepts. And the point is that asking people on
> the street for snap answers to survey questions involving high level
> concepts doesn't have any relevance to the discussion, as illustrated by
> the fact that even your answer was wrong. I'm not the one arguing that
> such surveys have any relevance to the issue.
>
>> Your reaction to that response so far has been to say, “Well, you’re all
>> wrong,” even while the dictionary definition stares you in the face.
>
> Not at all. I'm directing your attention to the definitions of common
> sense, and also to the definitions of intuition, and pointing out that
> the latter has no relevance to this discussion, since we are not talking
> about snap judgments without any conscious reasoning.
>
> Remember, we are not talking about snap judgments devoid of conscious
> reasoning, we are talking about people who have spent 30 years or more
> obsessing over some fairly simple facts, and have arrived -- by conscious
> reasoning that they believe to be sound -- at various sets of absurd
> answers, to which they cling and devote endless labors. Quickness and
> effortlessness and the absence of conscious reasoning have nothing to do
> with it. If you want to criticize crackpots for not thinking things
> through with enough time and effort, then I'd agree, but that isn't what
> you say. Instead, you criticize them for relying on good sense and sound
> judgment (and the elementary logic common to all people). That's an
> invalid criticism. Special relativity (properly understood) does not violate common sense.
>

--
Odd Bodkin -- maker of fine toys, tools, tables