Photons and determinism, part 2

[bennyboy]

Okay, so photons "experience" no passing of time. In other words, in the relative framework of a photon, whatever it's leaving and whatever it arrives at are brought together to a zero distance-- i.e. they share the same point.

The framework of a photon is an invalid framework. Naively interpreting the physics equation will give a no passing of time. However, the equations don't work in the photon framework, thats why they're invalid.

Why invalid? Is this special pleading, or is there a reason why it is considered an invalid framework?

500 years in the atmosphere!? How thick was that atmosphere? Plus, a photon is destroyed when it interacts and a brand new photon is emitted (assuming scattering).

I mean that 500 years ago, it passed through a planetary atmosphere, but you are right in this (with a headslap of my own). So if a photon enters an atmosphere on its way to my eye, I'm actually receiving a photon emitted from the last of a chain of transmissions, rather than the original photon, so I'll drop that part of the idea right now.


Still, 1000 years in our framework is a lot of time for something to happen to our solitary little hero photon, but 0 seconds in ITS framework is obviously no time for anything to happen to it. I'd like you to explain why you don't feel this framework should be considered in philosophical arguments about determinism. Why is it "invalid"?

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Gravity will deflect the photon and depending on the geometry, alter it's energy.

AHHHHHH, how could I possibly forget about gravity. :pulls-hair-out:

A passing by gravitation object can deflect the photon from your eye.

But I think it doesn't, because a photon cannot really be "changed," being timeless, can it?