LAUGHED OUT OF COURT

"if pigs flew, they would not fall to the ground"."

This is not a valid statement to use as a basis for a theory.

If pigs are known to fall to the ground by experiment then in the implication:

(p implies q)

q is false, which makes the implication (p implies q) a false statement irrespectively of the value of p.

Therefore, this is not a way to claim a theory and if done it is a false theory by implication since q is proved already to be false.

Implication is a fundamental logical operation and has some peculiar nature that often causes confusion. The truth table is:

p q P --->q
T T T
T F F
F T T
F F T

"If Bill is God then Bill eats food" is a true statement.

Maybe the above is analysis is simple but sometimes we must go back to simple things and look at them carefully. Big mistakes sometimes result of very simple misunderstandigs.

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[1234567890] Actually, "If Bill is God then Bill eats food" being a true statement rather demonstrates the weakness of this logical method, when used formally. Sure, P istrue here but there is absolutely no cause and effect relationship between p and q as implied by the conditional modifiers, "if" and "then. Surely, calling "Bill eats food" an implied conclusion of "If Bill is God" is
pretty silly and demonstrably false. Ok, maybe it's not demonstrably false since I can't prove Bill isn't God so let's use another example:

According to your truth table, a statement such as "if the sky is green then the sun is grey" is true since p and q are both false statemnts. Not only that, it suggests that the conclusion "the sun is grey" is directly implied by the premise "if the sky is green". Now, you may call that sound logic, but to me it's no better (most likely worse) than my attempt to preserve the cause and effect relationship in my analogy.

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Obviously, the theory you propose Einstein could make about bigs would be immediately refuted based on experimental evidence. Then, why could anyone claim that such theory could be developed in the first place?

Are there any logical conflicts in our perception of reality and its connection to physical laws?

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[1234567890] Well, that was my point with the analogy. The MMX's null result probably proved that light did not travel at a constant speed (pigs don't fly) for a particular observer frame, and yet this didn't stop Einstein, et al, from developing theories, such as SR, which depended on the speed of light being constant (if pigs flew).

Going back to the pig analogy, let's say that Enrico was on the ground photographing the fall of the pigs. Now, if you only showed Einstein the photograph of the pig at the beginning of the fall, would it be accurate for him to use that as proof that pigs fly and go on to develop a theory based on flying pigs? No, that photograph should have been deemed inconclusive, allowing for the view that the pig is actually falling toward the ground and not flying up the building.

1234567890 you are making many good points, especially when you mention that implication must describe cause and effect. The problem is that cause-effect is a special type of implication and if we restrict the set of all implications to the subset describing cause-effect we must assume that all our knowledge comes from tautologies and there is no way to discover anything using deductions.

I read the article by Dr. Van Flandern "Physics has its Principles" and I must admit to my own knowledge it is very rare I see an attempt to present a foundation of Physics based on irrefutable and accepted principles. This is the reason I wanted to debate the issue of Zeno's paradox with Dr. Van Flandern and this was not an attempt on bad faith. I see that he has put a lot of thought into the deductive process and the need to accept principles before deductions are made. Otherwise, as you well point out, the results can be illogical, althouth I must point out that the operations can be valid. But restricting the operations is not the answer, is a kind of brute force solution.

Illogical conclusions can arise from valid operations of logic if the principles used as premises are not demonstrated and accepted. This is a major problem in Physics and I think Dr. Van Flandern may agree to that.

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1234567890 you are making many good points, especially when you mention that implication must describe cause and effect. The problem is that cause-effect is a special type of implication and if we restrict the set of all implications to the subset describing cause-effect we must assume that all our knowledge comes from tautologies and there is no way to discover anything using deductions.

I read the article by Dr. Van Flandern "Physics has its Principles" and I must admit to my own knowledge it is very rare I see an attempt to present a foundation of Physics based on irrefutable and accepted principles. This is the reason I wanted to debate the issue of Zeno's paradox with Dr. Van Flandern and this was not an attempt on bad faith. I see that he has put a lot of thought into the deductive process and the need to accept principles before deductions are made. Otherwise, as you well point out, the results can be illogical, althouth I must point out that the operations can be valid. But restricting the operations is not the answer, is a kind of brute force solution.

Illogical conclusions can arise from valid operations of logic if the principles used as premises are not demonstrated and accepted. This is a major problem in Physics and I think Dr. Van Flandern may agree to that.




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Thanks. By all means, if Zeno's paradox interests you, you should discuss it. At the very least, trying to resolve the paradox gives us a deeper sense of the meaning of space, time- reality in general.

I just think that motion is self-evident, if defined properly, and time would be better spent in discovering the mechanism behind motion. BTW, Zeno's paradox of the arrow is an argument against motion being possible even if space were quantized- the argument being that in each quantized space, the arrow was instantaneously at rest so it cannot have gained the property of motion to move from one quantized space to another.

So, it seems that Zeno didn't believe motion to exist, whether space was quantized or a continuum. And if we agreed with his premises, as you, motion would be impossible. The only way to "resolve" his paradoxes of motion then is to challenge his premises(e.g. if we assumed that the arrow possessed a property
of motion while it is in one space,i.e. it differs from an arrow
not having this property, then it is possible to move from one quantum of space to another).

"So, it seems that Zeno didn't believe motion to exist, whether space was quantized or a continuum. And if we agreed with his premises, as you, motion would be impossible. The only way to "resolve" his paradoxes of motion then is to challenge his premises"

Actually his teacher did not believe motion to exist, exactly. The implicit assumptions of Zeno are:

1. Having a size is equivalent to having parts
2. There is a smallest size

The first two of Zeno's paradoxes are against motion if space is infinitely divisible and this has never been argued by anyone. You point out that the arrow paradox also challenges discrete space notion. You are absolutely correct in the sense that a total challenge to motion was the intent of Zeno. However, some important thing to understand is that infinite divisibility is a necessary and sufficient condition for motion impossibility (P <--> q) but with discrete space it is only necessary (p ---> q). In other words, there can be no mechanism for motion in pluralistic space but it can exist for discrete space if and only if, time-space is considered to evolve with motion. This is what in a sense Eistein did. Motion is possible because although the arrow does not change, space-time curves around it and the system arrow/space-time is different at every instant.

This is on of the reason Einstein become sucessful because many are oblivious to the fundamental philosophical questions he resolved with his theory. His theory is a deductive system and it is a solution but may not be how reality works. But, and this is important, since Einstein there have been no alternative to resolve the motion paradox as stated by Zeno thousands of years ago.

Since I understand you (1234567890) know and understand Zeno's paradox well, Einstein also gave solution to the forth paradox of the stadium. He resolved all of them at once.

This is to say that models as Meta Model(pluralistic) are subject to motion impossibility paradox. I hope nobody sees this as a bad faith statement. Maybe there is a way to resolve Zeno's paradox for Meta Model but according to all work done on this paradoxes for over 200 years it seems very difficult or impossible. If it can be done it can displace Einstein from main Philosphy but a lot of work is needed for that, some breakthrough.

123...

Call me dense but I'm still not getting the origin of two different absolute velocities for two parallel light beams projeced in the same vector.

What is the cause for the affect?

Is there a reason for anyone venturing into these paradox threads? Is there something to be gained by grappling with this paradox process?