Einstein's Relativity and Quantum Physics

I consider both theories to be false. Einstein's metaphysics assigns existence to empty space, because he claims that space bends. Quantum Physics denies that things have a particular identity, contradicting "The Law of Identity" of metaphysics as well.

However, the formulas that they use are probably right. Relativity formulas, such as the Laurent'z Transformations were invented before Einstein, by Laurentz (who disagreed with Relativity). They describe apparent changes, not actual metaphysical changes.

Also, Heisenberg's uncertainty equation represents a statistical approach, not unlike the theory of gases.

Both Einstein and Heisenberg lived in time heavily influenced by ideas of Kant and Hume, however not directly, but brought Ernst Mach, who brought those ideas from philosophy into science.

I am not the originator of these ideas. I got them from "The Logical Leap", by David Harriman. Also, here are some more links that I collected on what's wrong with Relativity:

https://sites.google.com/site/borisbookshelf/science/relativity

One of the links describes that analysis of the orbit of Mercury, which was the primary evidence in support of Relativity, is in fact logically flawed.

boris7698: So, you disagree with the metaphysics behind it, but not the science?

Science is not primary. All science is built on the foundation of philosophy. To give a clearer example, take Ptolemaic astronomy, that was based Earth-centric model of the universe (everything rotates around the Earth). The formulas were accurate within 2 degrees, and were used for ship navigation. Is there any value this "science", now that we know it had the whole thing confused metaphysically?

boris7698: To quote an Al Jazeera headline I liked recently, "science doesn't care if you believe in it or not." Whether you deny climate change or not the ice caps are melting, whether you deny that the earth goes around the sun or not the earth will still do that, and whether you think the earth is flat or round, the earth will be round.

These are theories. They are not perfect. But they are the best descriptions for describing scientific observations that have been repeated countless times in precise laboratory conditions. If other experiments show the theories lack accuracy in some respect, then they can be revised. Science is self correcting.

However, the theories not fitting with the rest of your worldview is, in and of itself, not enough to reject them. I think it's important to be open to ideas that contradict your own. At the time Einstein and Heisenberg wrote their papers, they faced tough academic scrutiny. Yet they convinced their peers not with philosophy, but with evidence.

The clock thing on your website is only absurd if you deny relativity first.
I should add that none of your links deny relativity either and seem mostly bent on a character assassination of Einstein.
To answer the links:
1. Gravity does have a speed and it has been measured: https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/what-is-the-speed-of-gravity-8ada2eb08430
No light-carrying medium exists, and in fact this was proven before Einstein (the idea was called "ether").
The whole thing about Geber is literally irrelevant to the scientific principle.
2. Completely agrees with Einstein. Corrects some maths mistakes Einstein supposedly made (some of which seem dubious to me but NVM). Completely irrelevant to the scientific principle.
3. Let's say I have a square meter of "empty space". How do I know it is a square meter? Because it has dimensions right? Even "nothing" has a particular x,y,z position and a particular time associated with it.

admin: Thanks for taking the time to go through the links. I didn't mean to detract you from our capitalism debate. I will only now answer one point shortly: "they convinced their peers with philosophy, not evidence". Evidence can be only interpreted using philosophy. For instance, let's say it is raining. Then you say: this is evidence that there are clouds. Really, how so? Think about it. I can write more about this later.

boris7698: It is a generally established principle that effects have causes. Certainly clouds are one explanation for the cause of rain. There might be others. Once the cloud theory starts having more evidence for it, and other theories begin to be discounted, deductively, one can make a probable case that clouds are a likely cause.

I don't have a positivist view either, so I don't presume to be absolutely sure about everything in science. That's the reason why science is self-correcting.

That "effects have causes" is a view not shared by many philosophers. See David Hume.

boris7698: Anything can be reduced to assumption of some kind or circular reasoning. Science is, as I say, just our "best fit" models.

boris7698: Physics and metaphysics are not the same disciplines though. Science is the most reliable measure for determining objective truths. Its assumptions are the most consistent with our objective world as we know it.

They are not the same disciplines. But all disciplines (from science, math, and physics to literature and history) rely on metaphysics, and epistemology. Remove that foundation under them, and they all collapse.

Science as we know it was formulated by Newton in physics, and Lavoisier in chemistry. The contemporaries of Newton criticized him on the grounds that induction is a form of faith. They said: "Your 'universal' laws were derived from N experiments, but there is no guarantee that they would work in the next experiment." (This is basically, the "black swan" or "black crow" problem)

admin: My point is that you are assuming a whole lot when you are making a conclusion that if it is raining, there must be clouds. You are assuming cause-and-effect, and the law of excluded middle (that logic is black and white), and a principle of certainty. You are also assuming the principle of experimental method of Newtown: induction. (if it rained from clouds before, it will rain again from clouds). All these are non-trivial assumptions. They are correct, but many philosophers disputed them.

For instance, if you held that your knowledge is only 99% certain, then you can have to admit that there is 1% chance of Biblical miracles. It could have been raining because God caused it to rain without any clouds.

boris7698: Oh I see. Yes, I agree with you that science relies on metaphysics and epistemology.

boris7698: Sorry, only just noticed this. You know how to at-tag right?

One of the big ironies in your position is that the biggest defender of that particular method of scientific reasoning in history was Aristotle. Since I don't believe in objectivity much I fail to see why need be about half of those assumptions since I'm not making an observation of cause and effect. Instead I'm providing a paradigm for what is most likely (from my subjective position) to have happened in relation to my observation.

admin: If you only go by "most likely" you don't really know any thing, and can have no convictions.

For instance, if you held that your knowledge is only 99% certain, then you can have to admit that there is 1% chance of Biblical miracles. It could have been raining because God caused it to rain without any clouds.

Consequently, you don't even know at 100% that it is likely to be true at probability 99%. So, you get an infinite regress of probabilities, ending at 0% confidence.

boris7698: Sure I can have convictions. I'm convinced that I exist, but I'm open to changing that opinion in light of new evidence. Therefore I'm not 100% certain. A conviction is just a paradigm we create in our minds - a physical structure of neurons which frames truth through which we see the world. But it is not absolute. Example: suppose there's a kid with a pet husky. They know it's a dog because it has 4 legs, fur and a tail. Then they go out and see a chihuahua. It has 4 legs, fur and a tail. Not a lot like a husky so the kid might ask to be sure - "dog?" - and their parents nod approvingly. Then they see a rat. It has 4 legs (sorta), fur and a tail. Again this fits the kid's idea of a "dog" so that's their paradigm. They ask to be sure - "dog?" - and probably their parents run away screaming. THIS is science at the most basic level. We build these paradigms and construct investigations to understand the world. Science requires us to be unsure - the kid needs to be able to construct a whole new paradigm if need be to fit with this new data.

I'm not sure why there's an infinite regress. Even if there were infinite alternate possibilities I am perfectly justified in valuing the sum of all the alternative options at 1% likely and my preferred option as 99% likely. Minds don't tend to quantify these things anyway. Saying "this is the current paradigm I use to understand this concept" both doesn't exclude alternative paradigms and allows for our own paradigm to be the one we know works best for us.

admin: The child was in fact sure that each case was a dog, until he was corrected. He never doubted that he was seeing a dog, because his mind has classified it as a dog. By the way, he wouldn't ask his parents. He would be calling it dog, until his parents correct him.

The infinite regress of probabilities arises from the fact that you can't be certain even of your estimations. Suppose you only think its 99% likely to be a dog. Are you certain of this estimation? Or maybe it should be only 98%. So let's say you are 99% confident that it is 99% likely to be a dog. The combined probability that it is a dog becomes 0.99 times 0.99, which equals less than 0.99. However, are you certain that "you have a 99% confidence that the animal is 99% likely to be a dog"? Again, since you can't be certain about anything, you are 99% confident of this statement. The combined probability becomes 0.99 times 0.99 times 0.99, which is even less. And so, on, until you get a combined probability of zero.

boris7698: That's where I disagree. The child's uncertainty allowed them to have curiosity, and their willingness to change their paradigm or create a new one proves uncertainty. If you actually observe children (and I do, every day haha) you'll find this is exactly how they approach the world, building these paradigms by inquiry and through socially constructed threads of relational learning. If somebody is entirely sure of something, they cannot be corrected. This also ties in to knowledge not being objective - "facts" don't exist and are simple heuristics for us to understand the world. All of reality is socially constructed through democratic dialogues, whether that be with other people or the environment.

With respect to the "regress", I'd first respond by saying that confidence is not assessed numerically. It is possible for a weather forecaster to use a combination of models with a combined "high validity" to forecast "chance showers", and there to be an actual non-zero basis for this observation based on their paradigms. The actual evidence for the possibility of showers does not exclude alternative views, but presents a likely case based on what the forecaster knows - after all, it is impossible to predict weather 100% accurately anyway, as should be obvious to anyone who has ever seen a weather forecast. Secondly, I'd answer that statistically there are degrees of freedom. You don't have absolutes like "this is your cut-off point for what paradigm you accept" but instead you accept confidence intervals. So if I have a strongly held paradigm, I'd have a higher range of confidence for that. The actual evidence required to change my belief is greater, compared to paradigms I am still developing or have assigned few degrees of freedom to. So you can actually express confidence in confidence mathematically without requiring a regression.

admin: It is not the uncertainty that is the reason for curiosity in a child. The curiosity arises from the fun in the experience of understanding the world. When a child (or an adult) understands something he experiences a feeling of success. Our desire to understand the world is drive of the faculty of reason to actualize itself. Similarly, our muscles drive us to exercise them. Every potential biological ability strives to actualize itself. The faculty of reason is no different in this respect no any other faculty a child possesses.

A child is also able quickly change his model of understanding (what you called a "paradigm"), because he knows so little that he only has few pieces of data that clash with new information. An adult, however, must integrate new information into his vast structure of knowledge, so if the new data doesn't fit, he must do much more reorganization. He therefore concludes that he must see more evidence (from another angle) before he would attempt such reorganization.

You say that facts don't really exist, but are made up by democratic dialog. Why would then one man have a different view than the rest of the people? (Take Gallileo's insistence on helio-centrism, for instance.) Clearly, there is something in reality that is objective, which gives people like Gallieo the reason to assert another view despite what was accepted by democratic dialog. This is the source of objective facts.

About the weather reports. The weather reporter predicts with 100% confidence that there will be chance showers. The issue I am raising that you can't deny existence of 100% confidence. Even if you are uncertain, you must be certain about the degree of your uncertainty. This degree of uncertainty can be expressed however you want, for instance with a statistical bell curve. But the bell curve has a precise shape and parameters. It is a specific thing that you are stating, with confidence. If you deny the ability to have confidence in anything at all, then you get the infinite regress I described.

boris7698: That certainly assumes a lot, including that reason is individual and that "actualization" has a certain end. Some people want to be fat, for example. Will you tell them they're not living up to their own self-actualization? Likewise some of the wisest like to not know, instead of to know. Overall it's a very western and closed-minded view in my honest opinion. My point was that certainty is perennial, so learning implies that people are to some degree uncertain. I feel like, although I enjoy discussing learning theory, we're veering a little off track from that.

Just remind me what happened to Galileo again? Did people say "oh right, here's his proof, I guess the facts are on his side?" No! People literally said he was obviously telling lies inspired by the devil. Gaileo reached different conclusions of what is factual based on exactly the same observations. And this is not to say "well Galileo was right and they were wrong" because that's just our modern-day interpretation. The reason why Galileo reached a different conclusion is because a democracy is not an echo chamber - people disagree with each other all the time. For Galileo, if you read his diary, you see a very strong internal dialogue where he himself is unsure about some things. Same with the church etc. Everyone's trying to figure everything out. So between Galileo's personal parliament of selves and the social context in which he lived, he constructed his own interpretation (in his particular case, making certain observations first probably helped).

Sure you can because the weather report isn't 100% confident. Do you honestly believe every weather forecaster is certain everything they say will come true? The whole point about a bell curve is that it denotes a range of margins, which themselves might have margins. Nothing is fixed in the universe. That doesn't imply a regression, as I explained before. It's perfectly ok to say you're unconfident about how confident you are without specifying exactly how unconfident. It's a premise, not a regression. Likewise that you're 100% confident is a premise. In statistics a confidence interval can model the sum of regressions without needing to calculate them. It's sort of like how Pi, sin/cos/tan, the square root of 2 or anything else in maths can exist.