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RE: Is truth relative?
January 25, 2015 at 12:18 pm
(January 25, 2015 at 11:26 am)Alex K Wrote: My two cents about the relativity example: while the amount of time that passes depends on the reference frame, one can know the time that passes as seen from another reference frame. There are then "absolute" truths in relativity, you simply have to ask the right question. How much times passes: wrong question. How much time passes in the reference frame A? Well-defined question with a universal answer that is true in every other reference frame. Are you sure? In the hypothetical example that you were a photon, would there be any way to determine the lengths/time rates of anyone in any other reference frame? How about if you were in a black hole?
Quote:In a similar vein, I wonder whether you don't automatically recover universal truth again simply by acknowledging the "frame" dependence of certain truths in the widest sense, and by asking the correct question.
Okay, let's take the desk example. What is the universal truth: that it is mostly empty space, or that it is a solid object which completely fills a given volume? Should I say the QM level is the "real" level, and that my desk experience is a supervenient property? Or that it's an illusion based on the course observational capacity of the human senses?
How would you go about extracting universal truth from these perspectives? What is the key to relativity if scale is considered an axis or dimension?
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RE: Is truth relative?
January 25, 2015 at 1:16 pm
(January 24, 2015 at 8:56 pm)bennyboy Wrote: Is it always true, for example, that x + x = 2x? Yes. It could not be other wise.
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RE: Is truth relative?
January 25, 2015 at 1:17 pm
(January 25, 2015 at 8:19 am)bennyboy Wrote: I can imagine one. c + c != 2c
Hey are you using my avatar? 
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RE: Is truth relative?
January 25, 2015 at 8:17 pm
(This post was last modified: January 25, 2015 at 8:18 pm by bennyboy.)
(January 25, 2015 at 1:16 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: (January 24, 2015 at 8:56 pm)bennyboy Wrote: Is it always true, for example, that x + x = 2x? Yes. It could not be other wise.
What if x = c?
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RE: Is truth relative?
January 25, 2015 at 10:39 pm
(This post was last modified: January 25, 2015 at 10:40 pm by Alex K.)
(January 25, 2015 at 8:17 pm)bennyboy Wrote: (January 25, 2015 at 1:16 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: Yes. It could not be other wise.
What if x = c?
The formula for relativistic addition of velocities v1, v2 is iirc
v = (v1 + v2)/(1+v1 v2/c^2)
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RE: Is truth relative?
January 25, 2015 at 10:52 pm
(January 25, 2015 at 1:17 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote: (January 25, 2015 at 8:19 am)bennyboy Wrote: I can imagine one. c + c != 2c
Hey are you using my avatar?
I got confused myself.
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RE: Is truth relative?
January 25, 2015 at 10:54 pm
(January 25, 2015 at 12:18 pm)bennyboy Wrote: (January 25, 2015 at 11:26 am)Alex K Wrote: My two cents about the relativity example: while the amount of time that passes depends on the reference frame, one can know the time that passes as seen from another reference frame. There are then "absolute" truths in relativity, you simply have to ask the right question. How much times passes: wrong question. How much time passes in the reference frame A? Well-defined question with a universal answer that is true in every other reference frame. Are you sure? In the hypothetical example that you were a photon, would there be any way to determine the lengths/time rates of anyone in any other reference frame? How about if you were in a black hole? The reference frame of a photon is not a well defined observer rest frame (see the other thread). But for all others, it is a straightforward exercise to calculate how much time passes for another observer moving relative to you in an arbitrary fashion.
Quote:Quote:In a similar vein, I wonder whether you don't automatically recover universal truth again simply by acknowledging the "frame" dependence of certain truths in the widest sense, and by asking the correct question.
Okay, let's take the desk example. What is the universal truth: that it is mostly empty space, or that it is a solid object which completely fills a given volume? Should I say the QM level is the "real" level, and that my desk experience is a supervenient property? Or that it's an illusion based on the course observational capacity of the human senses?
How would you go about extracting universal truth from these perspectives? What is the key to relativity if scale is considered an axis or dimension?
While I find your example statements to be too simplistic to serve as giid examples (filling the volume?) I think you have a good point about the dependence of any statement on the underlying theory framework in which it is formulated. Is this analogous in a very loose sense to different reference frames?
But of course independent of this discussion science never deals in final truths, so I may have to backpedal a bit with my earlier statement
The fool hath said in his heart, There is a God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
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RE: Is truth relative?
January 25, 2015 at 11:10 pm
(January 25, 2015 at 10:54 pm)Alex K Wrote: The reference frame of a photon is not a well defined observer rest frame (see the other thread). Nor is that in a black hole singularity I think. Sometime I wonder if infinity from our perspective could be the zero point of a kind of inverse reference: so whatever is going on in a black hole sees US as the unexplainable math-breaking reference point.
Quote:But of course independent of this discussion science never deals in final truths, so I may have to backpedal a bit with my earlier statement
That's right. Science deals with the implications of events or entities in a particular context: it just happens to be a massively large one. 
But the philosophical question is whether there really ARE truths that are context-independent, and we are just too limited to perceive them, or whether truth itself is just determined by whatever arbitrary vantage point we happen to choose.
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RE: Is truth relative?
January 26, 2015 at 12:35 am
(This post was last modified: January 26, 2015 at 12:37 am by The Grand Nudger.)
(January 25, 2015 at 8:17 pm)bennyboy Wrote: What if x = c? Then c + c is indeed 2c. Course, we could get real strange with it, and the plus isn't addition at all (or anything mathematical) and c isn't a letter but a color. Course, all we have then is a statement in a foreign language with familiar notation, which we handle all the time between us. Things don't become less true or more true by being spoken in swahili or spanish, eh?
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RE: Is truth relative?
January 26, 2015 at 5:11 am
(January 26, 2015 at 12:35 am)Rhythm Wrote: (January 25, 2015 at 8:17 pm)bennyboy Wrote: What if x = c? Then c + c is indeed 2c. Course, we could get real strange with it, and the plus isn't addition at all (or anything mathematical) and c isn't a letter but a color. Course, all we have then is a statement in a foreign language with familiar notation, which we handle all the time between us. Things don't become less true or more true by being spoken in swahili or spanish, eh? What if c means "constant," i.e. the speed of light? Is c + c still = 2c?
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