We’re not saying what “now” is at the distant place, we could never know that. The “now” is in relation to us, to our reference frame, based on the moment when those old photons from the distant place reach us. Not only do we have no idea what something X light years away looks like “now” but it would be impossible to know what it looks like (to transfer that information) in less than X years, as the info would have to travel FTL. There’s no need or possibility of time synchronization over such distances (or apparently over ANY distances as this thread seems to establish).
If I understand your example correctly, this goes back to my initial question regarding whether the 1wSOL vs 2wSOL are merely an issue regarding practical factors in measuring the SOL or whether they are two different physical properties (i.e. the supposed theories that claim or allow for there to be a difference between the two).
Your example sounds somewhat similar to my ABC triangular setup which I described above as a possible means of a 1wSOL measurement. At least I think it does.
The people usually saying that are in the media, and, for the most part, have no clue what they are talking about.
What is happening now in that distant galaxy one billion light-years away can have no relevant impact on us, as any information would take one billion years to reach us (obviously), but looking at all the galaxies one billion light-years away gives us a glimpse of what the universe was like one billion years ago.
Cosmologists use this information to propose and test theories of galaxy formation and evolution, by comparing the “time slices” of how the universe looked one billion, five billion, ten billion years ago, and so forth. We can “see” certain structures and objects in the earliest (about 13.7 billion years ago) images we have which appear to have evolved, over time, into other structures. In this way, we can refine our understanding of how our universe came to be in the form we perceive it today.
Cosmologists, for the most part, neither know, nor care, what those objects and structures look like now. The important information is what they can tell us about how the universe looked and behaved then.
Physicists don’t have any use for the Anthropic Principle because it’s a religious concept – meaning, an unsubstantiated claim that requires blind belief in it, and not possible to evaluate by reason or logic or the scientific process.
The Anthropic Principle is a religious doctrine.
Well, we don’t know what time is, so it’s difficult to say if it is only an imaginary concept or an actual physical quantity.
Of course it is the same. The only reason different observers can observe time on a different scale is that because time is not a constant.
Bad analogy. The media a wave travels through is not an observer.
I’m sorry, but that view is a wrong one.
You are also saying everything around us exists only because our brain is creating symbols for each perceived independent quantity.
It’s too absurd to be true.
If existence depends on humans, there’s no reason for that fateful asteroid to wipe out the dinosaurs 65 mil years ago.
Physicists have plenty of use for the anthropic principle, in its weaker forms. Again, there are many different forms of the anthropic principle. You only get into something resembling religion with the strong forms of the anthropic principle.
I think that the best way to think of the weaker forms of the anthropic principle is as an exception to the Copernican principle. By default, we assume that our current location is not particularly special… Except that it is special, in so far as it was a location where intelligent life could arise. So, for instance, we can’t assume that the matter density we observe locally is a typical value for the Universe, because life could only form in an unusually high-density location.
The Anthropic principle is not a religious concept. I’m as diehard an atheist as there is. Maybe religious people have twisted it around and bastardized it. I’d never say or suggest that humans are a requirement for the universe to exist, and until this thread I’ve never heard, read, or otherwise seen anyone suggest that that’s what the Anthropic principle means. I gave a summary of my definition of the anthropic principle a few posts up. If the catholic church has a different definition for it, then that’s certainly not the one I’m invoking. “Things only exist because people can perceive them” is NOT the anthropic principle. Nor has it ever been.
The AP claims something but it does not ask for proof for its claim.
It’s religion. Therefore useless and false by definition.
It’s not even that.
It’s even more subjective.
It’s that nothing exists unless a human brain can conceive of its existence.
The Anthropic Principle is a good intellectual exercise, but it can’t be true and we know too much already to be certain that it isn’t true.
Naxos, I can’t say I’m a massive fan of the anthropic principle, though the more weakly it is stated the more self-evident it becomes. I.e. nothing that we observe can be imcompaitble with our existance as observers. E.g. when applied to explaining why in our immediate vicinity we observe what is a region of space far more dense then the average density of the universe it’s a no-brainer.
However, whilst it remains a contentious issue, what you’ve stated is and your own opinion on what the anthropic principle is and how accepted you believe it should be. This is not an accurate reflection of what it is actually commonly understood to be or how widely accepted it actually is.
My view of the Anthropic Principle can be summed up by saying the fact that earth, a planet with life is in the “habitable zone” distance from the sun is not an amazing coincidence, not an amazing beating of the odds, not so highly improbable as to be a miracle, etc. The habitable zone is where the earth happened to be, and so that’s where life developed. If life was going to develop on one of the 8 planets in our solar system, it was going to be earth. So regardless of how many trilllions of planets are not in a habitable zone (presuming of course all life requires what earth life does - a big presumption), ours IS. So it’s not so improbable that life developed here. All planets with life will be in the habitable zone of their star by definition (of course it’s highly unlikely that all planets in habitable zones contain life).
Combine the post hoc fallacy with basic statistics and you get the anthropic principle. People who take this basic logical fact and extrapolate statements based on human existence are destroying the AP and making up their own crap.
You can claim that physicists shouldn’t use the Anthropic Principle. Your understanding of it is so wrong that this claim has little value, but it’s a legitimate position.
You can’t claim that they don’t. They manifestly do.
One major use of it is seen in the multiverse concepts. A way to explain the “fine-tuning” that allows for life is to postulate many possible universes of many possible physical constants and say that ousr happens to have the right combination. This is statistics rather than religion.
I’m a subscriber so I’m not sure what shows for others, but New Scientist magazine just did a major Ultimate Guide to the Multiverse that addresses this.
This may be contested, but that only means that some physicists espouse it.
We don’t know, so the only useful course is to look at what physicists say about it, and almost all of them say time is real.
Please provide some proof of this beyond your belief.
Lets modify your experiment:
Lets have two laser source (say red one at point A, and green laser at point D). Between them lets have point B and C with two of atomic clocks at each point. Now lets start clocks with red laser (when red laser hits the clock at B and C respectively). Now lets stop the clocks using green laser.If the speed of light is the same in both direction, both clocks should read the same time. After confirming that ,one-directional measurement of the speed of light should be reasonably simple (the distance between B and C should be known quite precisely).
Similarly, it should be possible to verify (or falsify) invariance of the speed of light in regard to moving frames. (at point B and C lets have two fighter jets with atomic clocks flying the same direction at constant speed, therefore can be regarded as being in the same inertial frame. At points A and D lets have 2 choppers (with red and green laser respectively) hovering at the same hight as the jets . Using the same procedure as above we can easily determine if the speed of light is realy independent of the speed of the observer.
Maybe you can clerify but if I’m reading this correctly, it won’t work. If you start the clocks with one laser, and stop them with one from the other direction, the clock C, which is closer to D, will read less time than clock B.
Clock B starts.
Clock C starts.
Clock C stops.
Clock B stops.
If I’m missing something, please let me know.
Yes, of course, the experiment has to be repeated from the other direction and result compared (Clock C starts, clock B starts, clock B stops, clock C stops). If the speed of light is indeed isotropic, time recorded on clock B minus time recorded on C from the first experiment should be exactly the same as time C minus time B recorded in the second experiment.Sorry about not complete explanation in my first post
See?
Statements like that put a human being at the center of existence and define everything else based on that false assumption.
That’s exactly why the AP is false. Humans are irrelevant to the universe.
I don’t get why you say this. The observer exists. That is a given. The observer is allowed to take this as an axiom in deriving further statements about the universe. In its most basic:
I exit. Therefore the universe is capable of supporting life as I know it.
By simple rearrangement:
Hypothesis: The universe is constructed in a manner that cannot support life as I know it.
Refutation: I exit. Therefore the hypothesis is false.
There is nothing human centric or religious about this. It is also perfectly scientific. The hypothesis was falsifiable. There was a refutation. This is good science.
A religious belief has the characteristic that it embodies revealed truth. That is there is a fundamental axiom that is revealed, and not in any other way supported by evidence and cannot be tested or falsified. I can’t see how an observer assuming his own existence is a revealed truth. Unless you don’t believe that you exist.
Wrong.
The observer exists. But any statements dependent on the observer’s existence are biased, and very likely false. That’s why the AP is false.
The “capable” adjective is a trap, but for this case it’s OK. Yes the universe can support bio-existence since living things exist on the Earth.
There are too many self-referential presumptions on the above statement. It’s useless for rational analysis.
Not at all!
A religious belief is a claim that prohibits a rational examination of its truth value.
Example?
Example?
How can it not be biased? We know time is a subjective measure dependent on the observer.
As far as the other example you asked for, it’s a common homework question in 101 level college logic courses.
Your hypothesis is false. Therefore the consequent can be anything you want. It’s a self referential argument that can’t support or refute any argument.