Right, the universe does not consult with our laws of logic, but we must follow these laws if we wish to make a coherent description of the universe, it's convention. So here's is the problem with your "point". The fundamental laws of logic apply to our descriptions of the universe, they do not apply to universe itself. If a person's description fails to follow these laws, it is an inept description. Your description, "light acts like a wave when looked at as a wave, and otherwise as a particle" suffers that problem.

If I ask you, is your car green, and you say sometimes it looks green, but other times it does not look green, you have given me an inept description.

"I'm trying to demonstrate its consistency with itself, despite your assertions that your premise "is well supported by hundreds of years of scientific experimentation, empirical evidence".
— noAxioms
This is incorrect, "consistency with itself" does not make it true, — Metaphysician Undercover

Where above did I assert that self-consistency made an argument true? I didn't, which means I'm not incorrect, or at least you've not pointed out where.

You seem to be missing something. Time is passing do you not agree?

Given your beliefs, yes.

Things change as time passes. [...] By the time I say "now" things have changed.

Of course. It takes time to say 'now'. I don't recall mentioning the time it takes to utter words.

Therefore there is no such thing as "the current state" of things.

I don't see how this follows, but if that's how you envision it, fine.

I don't think Einstein ever denied that there is a difference between past and future.

At the time of the publishing of GR, he adopted the geometric interpretation of relativity, thus denying the reality of past, present, and future, and thus any different between these unreal things is irrelevant to the view. For example, a unicorn is different than a bandersnatch, and I don't have to deny that difference in order to posit a view in which neither of them exists.

It's definitely not denied by Special Relativity nor General Relativity. There are those who interpret Special Relativity as forcing the conclusion that there is no real difference between future and past, but that conclusion requires another premise not provided by the theory, so I think it's a misinterpretation.

I agree that SR theory proper does not assert either premise. I don't think GR did either, but the theory was essentially unworkable without a geometric interpretation of relativity. I'm just reading this on wiki in the history section of spacetime, my bold:

Minkowski's geometric interpretation of relativity was to prove vital to Einstein's development of his 1915 general theory of relativity, wherein he showed how mass and energy curve flat spacetime into a pseudo-Riemannian manifold.
- - -
Einstein, for his part, was initially dismissive of Minkowski's geometric interpretation of special relativity, regarding it as überflüssige Gelehrsamkeit (superfluous learnedness). However, in order to complete his search for general relativity that started in 1907, the geometric interpretation of relativity proved to be vital, and in 1916, Einstein fully acknowledged his indebtedness to Minkowski, whose interpretation greatly facilitated the transition to general relativity. Since there are other types of spacetime, such as the curved spacetime of general relativity, the spacetime of special relativity is today known as Minkowski spacetime. — wiki

As I said, if you want me to drop my "biases" you need to give me reasons why I ought to. If your asking me to dismiss what I know to be true, just to accept what I know to be false, then forget it.

Again, I never asked you to alter your beliefs. I'm just demonstrating that the existence of an valid alternate view contradicts your assertion of the necessary truth of the opinions you hold. One opinion at least. Your beliefs are just that, not knowledge as you claim. Some of them are known to be false, as Tim Wood has pointed out.

The existence of a present moment is one of the premises of Aristotle's argument, so if that premise is wrong, his argument is unsound. How do you not see this? You claim to be 'trained in philosophy' and yet you don't see these trivial flaws in your argument. I have no training at all, but I at least took some courses requiring some basic elements of logic. You're the one who cannot back his assertions.
— noAxioms

Existence of a present moment is not the premise being discussed here I clarified that in the last post.

As I've told you, the premise provided by Aristotle is that there is a fundamental difference between past and future. The other premise is that two distinct, or different things require something which separates them, this constitutes "the difference" between them. Therefore there is something which separates past from future, and this is the present.

You're repeating yourself. See my quote that I left just above which answers this. By assuming a present, Aristotle's argument is inapplicable to a view that denies that premise, as does the geometric interpretation.

If my decision to accept this premise is an "uninformed" one then there must be evidence, information out there which demonstrates the falsity of my premise.

You honestly don't see the logical fallacy of this statement, do you?

Yes, my model defines the words differently. It has no 'the past' and 'the future', hence there is no issue to dodge. It denies the existence of such properties.
— noAxioms

Exactly! That demonstrates how you are asking me to dismiss science, in favour of science fiction.

Again with this assertion that you cannot back. Name a single science experiment that predicts a different result given the geometric interpretation. You can't because there isn't one. You've reduced yourself to making up facts to support your case.

However, unlike what you claim, my mind remains open

You probably believe that as well, empirical evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

That's why I continue this discussion. As soon as you can produce any type of evidence or information, which reveals that the distinction between the past and the future might not be a real distinction, I'm ready to follow you into other possibilities.

The claim of such a distinction is yours, hence the burden of proof. That's another part of your philosophical training that seems not to have stuck.
My claim was that your assertion of a real and distinct past and future is not a necessary truth, and I demonstrated that claim by showing a valid alternate interpretation where they don't exist at all.

Right, the universe does not consult with our laws of logic, but we must follow these laws if we wish to make a coherent description of the universe, it's convention. — Metaphysician Undercover

Right. It's not logic, it's not the universe, it's convention according to MU.

If a person's description fails to follow these laws, it is an inept description. — Metaphysician Undercover

Inept? Maybe incomplete. Not inept. Maybe you should review some videos on the two-slit experiment and read some Feynman. The descriptions are accurate. But, since they do not conform to MU's ideas of what they should be, they and the universe must be nonsensical. Is that your argument?

If I ask you, is your car green, and you say sometimes it looks green, but other times it does not look green, you have given me an inept description. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not inept. Maye incomplete. Depends on the ambient light - and your definition of colour. Of course these qualifications aren't relevant in QM. In QM the weirdness is just the fact of the matter. It's your understanding that's inept. And per my observation, your ineptness appears to be pathological.

That is, the interference pattern is a fact. Light is a wave. Yet in the same experiment, close one slit and the light's pattern is that of a particle.

"It seems as though we must use sometimes the one theory and sometimes the other, while at times we may use either. We are faced with a new kind of difficulty. We have two contradictory pictures of reality; separately neither of them fully explains the phenomena of light, but together they do." Einstein, speaking of wave-particle duality.

nept? Maybe incomplete. Not inept. — tim wood

No, a description which contains contradiction is inept.

No, a description which contains contradiction is inept. — Metaphysician Undercover

inept, adj. having or showing no skill; clumsy.

QM is inept. Every 20th century physicist worthy of name is inept, their ideas nonsense. So says MU.

I think it more likely the ineptness and nonsense are all yours.

I cannot answer your question about special relativity, but I can tell you not to bring up anything "philosophical" with scientists because they despise philosophers . If you ask them why, it's almost always because of the harm philosophy has caused the pursuit of truth and they mention Aristotle to support their claim. Most scientists I've talked to complain that Aristotle thought light bodies fall slower than heavy bodies. I replied that wasn't the true reason why the Catholic Church rejected Galileo's gravity claim. It was because he and Copernicus showed, with a heliocentric model, the book of Joshua is nothing but mumbo jumbo. This all could have been remedied if the Church would finally admit the Bible was only written by ordinary people and some of them were incredibly stupid.

I've tried to explain to them that Aristotle practically invented formal logic that we still use today, however he did frequently make mistakes. Unfortunately because society, namely the Church, refused to believe he could possibly be wrong, it got us into trouble. Interestingly, it was philosophy, through the works of Sextus Empiricus and later by Rene Descartes for example, and not science that "put Aristotle in his place."

I have learned through experience to not talk about philosophy with scientists even though I love science as much as philosophy. Scientists do not see it that way and you'll be happier if you do not mention philosophy at all.

Yet, when I point out the atomic bomb is a product of scientific work and how it has seriously threatened humanity, scientists refuse to accept any responsibility and instead say that it is humanities' misuse of science that is the problem. Similarly, using their logic, it's not gun manufacturers that are the problem in society, but rather the misuse of the technology by people.

Here's another example, science is responsible for producing the multitude of ways to consume fossil fuels and now humanity is in very grave danger from climate change. Once again, scientists refuse to accept any responsibility for this and then complain that humanity refuses to accept science that says greenhouse gasses are the problem. But if you ask a philosopher what the problem is, they will most likely say people do not usually act in accordance with reason but instead act they way they do because of wants and desires, and thus they do want to give up their science (e.g. cars, electrical power, energy to heat their homes, etc.)

Scientists also do not want to hear that Albert Einstein was a huge fan of Baruch Spinoza.

I have a question for you. I was told acceleration or the application of force on the male twin is what solves the twin paradox. Please explain.

I have a question for you. I was told acceleration or the application of force on the male twin is what solves the twin paradox. Please explain. — Michael Lee

You were told incorrectly. This can be verified here on Earth where two clocks are kept at identical speed but one experiences far greater continuous force and corresponding acceleration (in a centrifuge say). They will remain in sync indefinitely. Application of force has no dilation effect on clocks.

Change in rate of change of distance multiplied by distance (a scalar quantity) is what matters. This is a little different from just acceleration times distance since acceleration is a vector quantity, a component of which may not alter the rate of change of distance, and thus has no effect.

I have a question for you. I was told acceleration or the application of force on the male twin is what solves the twin paradox. Please explain. — Michael Lee

See this video. Acceleration is the wrong answer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgvajuvSpF4&t=10s

See this video. Acceleration is the wrong answer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgvajuvSpF4&t=10s — tim wood

I looked at the comments first, and the common complaint is that he speaks to you as a child through the first 12 minutes, and then suddenly blurts the real answer in the final seconds and exits without explanation, and his wording is obfuscating if not wrong.

First of all, the 'difference is acceleration' explanation is dismissed by considering a valid 3-observer tag-team scenario, except it doesn't explain the younger age of person C (the return person) using that C's reference frame, in which C is massively younger than A already at the start of the exercise (does Lincoln mention that? No!), so of course C is younger when C and A meet. Acceleration does have something to do with it, but it isn't the direct cause, as my example above demonstrates.

Secondly I have a gripe with Lincoln's obfuscating usage of phrasing like: "Don is in one reference frame but Ron is in two". Under SR, an observer is in all inertial reference frames, and it is impossible to exit one. It can be done only in GR. What he means to say is that Don is stationary in one reference frame the entire time, but Ron is stationary for different periods of time in two different inertial frame. Most of us know that but not everybody does, so it is obfuscating language.

Finally, he announces in the final seconds that the above quote is the reason for the discrepancy, and says this follows directly from Einstein's equations, which, to my knowledge, contain no mention of dilation being due to some count of reference frames. Don could have been pacing back and forth for 8 years ,and hence been 'in' two different reference frames himself. Ron is in an instantaneously accelerating craft leaving him actually stationary while coasting, while Don is on Earth spinning and orbiting, so it seems Don is actually the one stationary in innumerable inertial frames while Ron is confined to the two. I know, the idealized experiment ignores a spinning Don and the his gravity well, but even if he was doing all this continuous accelerating, he'd still be older than Ron when they meet again. Thus the count of frames just isn't enough of the story to explain this.

I'm saying that Linclon's fast exit from the video leaves all these questions unanswered. I'd not ever understand the twins scenario if that's all I had to go on.

I have a question for you. I was told acceleration or the application of force on the male twin is what solves the twin paradox. Please explain. — Michael Lee

Everyone knows what is observed at the reunion: The home twin is older than the traveling twin. The controversy is over the traveler's conclusions about what the home twin's current age is during the trip. There are at least five different answers to that question, with no consensus, even 100-plus years after special relativity was discovered. One answer is that simultaneity at a distance is a completely meaningless concept. The other four answers say simultaneity at a distance isn't meaningless, but disagree about how the home twin's current age varies during the trip. Acceleration by the traveler IS the cause of the age difference at the reunion, despite the various arguments to the contrary. For details, see my webpage:

https://sites.google.com/site/cadoequation/cado-reference-frame

Acceleration by the traveler IS the cause of the age difference at the reunion, despite the various arguments to the contrary. For details, see my webpage: — Mike Fontenot

The trouble with this, as you would find if you watch the other video, is that the same "paradox" is observed in a (thought) experiment in which acceleration plays no part.

He references three or four other videos that might make the ideas more accessible. Nowhere does he say this stuff is easy. Like Aristotle to Alexander, "There's no royal road to knowledge." And it is difficult. And people do screw it up. One of the sources of misunderstanding is that in addition to the relativistic effects, and having nothing whatever to do with them, there is also a Doppler effect. To the stay-at-home, the outbound clock appears to tick more slowly, for the same reason a train whistle changes pitch as it passes you. One thing Lincoln does say is that you have to be rigorously careful in your understanding of how it all works or you probably will get it wrong. He is in this, by all evidence, correct. I saw the criticisms too. They mostly arise out of profound ignorance - a failure to appreciate the difficult thing presented reasonably transparently and without and pretense.

It's worth the trouble to work through the calculations, including the derivation of the Lorentz formulas. Time, trouble, effort, but once you get it you've joined a select group. No medals or ribbons, just knowledge.

The trouble with this, as you would find if you watch the other video, is that the same "paradox" is observed in a (thought) experiment in which acceleration plays no part. — tim wood

There are two "red herring" examples that claim to prove that acceleration doesn't cause the time difference in the twins' ages at the reunion.

One is the example that uses three perpetually-inertial observers: the home twin, and two unrelated people. The fist unrelated person takes the place of the traveler on the outbound leg, and the second one takes the place of the traveler on the inbound leg. The latter is younger than the home twin at the "reunion" by the same amount as the twins in the original scenario. The fallacy is that in the revised case, no one is surprised at the result, so there is no paradox to resolve.

The second red herring is the case where the traveling twin circles the home twin, at a high constant speed. When he returns, she isn't older. But it's not hard to show that whenever the motion is perpendicular to the line connecting the two twins (which is always is, in the circular case), their rates of ageing will be equal.

The latter is younger than the home twin at the "reunion" by the same amount as the twins in the original scenario. The fallacy is that in the revised case, no one is surprised at the result, so there is no paradox to resolve. — Mike Fontenot

Age is the red herring. The issue is the rates of the clocks. And you have just acknowledged that the non-acceleration three-traveler example is correct.

The second red herring is the case where the traveling twin circles the home twin, at a high constant speed. When he returns, she isn't older. But it's not hard to show that whenever the motion is perpendicular to the line connecting the two twins (which is always is, in the circular case), their rates of ageing will be equal. — Mike Fontenot

Please show it. And circular motion is always under acceleration. The velocity, in other words, is changing continuously.

There are two "red herring" examples that claim to prove that acceleration doesn't cause the time difference in the twins' ages at the reunion.

One is the example that uses three perpetually-inertial observers: the home twin, and two unrelated people. The fist unrelated person takes the place of the traveler on the outbound leg, and the second one takes the place of the traveler on the inbound leg. The latter is younger than the home twin at the "reunion" by the same amount as the twins in the original scenario. The fallacy is that in the revised case, no one is surprised at the result, so there is no paradox to resolve. — Mike Fontenot

I agree that dismissing acceleration altogether is wrong. We seem to take apart Lincoln's dismissal of the 3-person scenario the same way. I would have explained the different ages in terms of moment-of-acceleration, something not often mentioned in explanations.

The second red herring is the case where the traveling twin circles the home twin, at a high constant speed. When he returns, she isn't older.

Excuse me??? How do you figure this? H-K experiment demonstrates otherwise.

But it's not hard to show that whenever the motion is perpendicular to the line connecting the two twins (which is always is, in the circular case), their rates of ageing will be equal.

Love to see you show this my friend.

Please show it. And circular motion is always under acceleration. The velocity, in other words, is changing continuously. — tim wood

The acceleration doesn't matter in this case since it is perpendicular to the motion in the central frame. The changing velocity doesn't matter either since only the direction changes, not the magnitude. But there is nonzero magnitude, and thus there is dilation. Mike is wrong here.

I garbled the answer for the circular case. Sorry. I should have said the linear acceleration causes the traveling twin and the home twin to disagree about their respective ages when they are separated. But in the circular motion case, they agree about their respective ages, even while they are separated.

I do the analysis for the circular motion case in the lower, older portion of my webpage:

https://sites.google.com/site/cadoequation/cado-reference-frame

If you scroll down far enough, you will get past my recent work on my new simultaneity method, and get to my old work on the co-moving-inertial-frames simultaneity method , which I called "the CADO frame". The CADO frame features a "CADO Equation", that is NORMALLY written

CADO_T = CADO_H - v * L,

where the asterisk just denotes multiplication of two scalars. But in Section 12, on the CADO Equation for 2 or 3 Spatial Dimensions, the equation becomes

CADO_T = CADO_H - v "dot" L,

where v and L are now vectors. In the circular case, v and L are perpendicular vectors, and so their dot-product is zero. Therefore CADO_T (the age of the home twin, according to the traveler) is equal to CADO_H (the age of the home twin, according to the home twin), so they agree about their two ages.

I garbled the answer for the circular case. Sorry. I should have said the linear acceleration causes the traveling twin and the home twin to disagree about their respective ages when they are separated. But in the circular motion case, they agree about their respective ages, even while they are separated. — Mike Fontenot

If they're separated, their computation of each other's ages is a frame dependent thing, but I agree that the answers agree in the two frames where each person respectively is stationary. There's no reason why some other frame might be chosen, despite your rather solipsistic way of having observers only compute their reality relative to their immediate frame.