lodestar

If that sounds absurd to you, you probably don't understand what it means. Read some introduction to Aristotle and Thomism. Edward Feser has some very didactic introductions for casual readers. There's nothing philosophically unsound about an intelligent designer. That statement is simply absurd, because "philosophical unsound" is almost an oxymoron. That assumes philosophical knowledge is necessarily communicable, while it's exactly the opposite, necessarily personal. Your usage of supernatural in the colloquial sense doesn't make any sense either. Even in that colloquial sense, supernatural is not synonym with unknowable. It might not be communicable knowledge, which is what set science apart from philosophy, but not unknowable. The only assumption needed for ID in the context of this discussion is if whether final causes exist or not. Period. If you don't understand this, fine, but don't try to push your way into the subject thinking this is a discussion about creationism and similar quackeries. Yep, what you just don't seem to realize is that the predictive power itself rests on the assumption that the universe will necessarily always behave in the same way. That's something we just believe, there's no way to know. There's no such thing as Laws in objective reality itself. Laws exist only in our concepts of reality, in our models. When the fudge factor is introduced to salvage the theory after observations that render it invalid, I call that intellectual imposture. By myth I mean myth. If you don't know what a myth is, or you only understand the colloquial usage of myth as a popular belief, you'll have to study the subject or you really won't understand what's the point here. Of course it is unempirical. So what? I'm not saying Intelligent Design is a scientific theory, I'm saying it's a philosophical problem. First of all, that's a very common misconception in popular culture. Occam's Razor doesn't mandate to choose the simplest hypothesis. It mandates to choose the hypothesis with the fewest number of assumptions. Second, Occam's Razor is obviously just an heuristics approach to improve the likelihood of finding a solution, not an irrefutable demonstration. If it worked like you seem to imagine, I could simply argue that only mind exists, since matter is not necessary. Hell, I could argue that only my mind exists, nothing else is necessary! Third, that objection is incredibly naive. You're using "simply" as a weasel word, not realizing that to have such an ontological leap from non-existence to existence without anything to bridge the chasm will itself demand the assumption that logic itself can be suspended for that comogeny to occur, which has nothing simple about it. That's probably the most fundamental philosophical problem. Even in scientific cosmogony, there's hardly any issue that can be solved like that by Occam's Razor, including Intelligent Design. Finally, Occam's Razor as a methodological procedure doesn't matter in the context here, because we are dealing with the issue of how the existence of final causes affects the social acceptance of an idea, not trying to rule final causes in or out as a premise for other proposition. The context here has nothing to do with providing satisfactory scientific explanations, in which keeping only whatever you deem necessary would be a sound methodological approach. For the exact same scientific theory of the origin of the universe you can assume the universe has a final cause, and therefore anything and everything that exists within it is guided to that, or you can assume final causes don't really exist and the universe only exists as it is. This is not a scientific problem. You seem to think too scientistically to grasp what's the real issue here. As I said, in the current state of astrophysics and cosmology, the choice is between Dark Matter or geocentrism. While geocentrism by itself doesn't mean the universe is intelligently designed, in the scientific sense, it strongly suggests our privileged position has a purpose.

I was very enthusiastic about them when I started playing, but when I finally got one that works, I realized it's simply not worth it. Frankly, when I feel like flying something with wings, I go to X-Plane.

Trying to immanentize the eschaton.

But it doesn't, so what you said doesn't make sense. That's certainly the most popular conception, but where it bears on the matter here (which is, whether Wolfgang Smith defending it makes him a crackpot), Intelligent design is ultimately linked with the problem of whether final causes exist in reality or not. Science doesn't deal with final causes. Period. To say Intelligent Design is a discredited solution to the problem of the initial cause in scientific grounds doesn't make sense, because Intelligent Design would assume the initial cosmogenic act had a final cause, and you can't deal with that on scientific grounds. Since Wolfgang Smith is proposing a thomist interpretation of quantum phenomena, he can't have thomism without final causes, so a final cause on whatever was the initial cause is automatic, hence, Intelligent Design. That's not a current solution to the objective problem, but to the conceptual problem, within the paradigm adopted. If you waive any of the assumptions of that paradigm, like the most obvious, the assumption of the Cosmological Principle, you can scrap all that and start from scratch. Sorry buddy, but in the end of the day, we actually know very, very little about the universe, and it's not hard at all for everything we think we know to be wrong if a few faith based assumptions are wrong. Dark Matter is a fudge factor introduced to make the field equations work with the other assumptions and the chosen interpretation of observations. It's as simple as that. Strictly speaking, Intelligent design can be a myth in a cosmogeny context, in that the cosmogenic act can't be described in any other form but a myth, but that's not the context here, and I think you mean myth in the colloquial sense, which also doesn't make sense here. I did. I said Dark Matter actually can be equally used as a reductio ad absurdum argument. Frankly, there's no better argument than that, since it's purely analytical. It simply can't be refuted. You can only say that despite that, you still believe that this make-believe matter exists somewhere, somehow, it's just a matter of time for it to be found. If that's the case, fine, but don't come to me saying I'm a crackpot because I chose to believe the opposite.

There's no mystery on the "how", but there's plenty of mystery on the "why". I think there's a lot of confusion between the two, which leads some to believe it's all clear and experts claim it's mysterious to make it sound more important, and on the other hand, there are those who believe it's incredibly complicated. I think the problem is that among the experts there are many scientific geniuses, but very few of them were skilled philosophers, and the main problem seems to be a philosophical one, a failed ontology. In the end of the day, the whole problem is that we still don't have a definitive answer to why the state vector is collapsed by the act of measurement, and that's an unsolvable problem under the cartesian dualism adopted. You can't solve the problem by staying strictly within the domain of the res extensa, as we do with classical mechanics, simply because there's an irrevocable link with the res cogitas in the observed phenomena. Quantum phenomena become incredibly clear when you throw away the cartesianism and go back to aristotelian metaphysics, but unfortunately, that's something most physicists simply don't know how to do. Hell, most physicists don't even know how to recognize the problem! Seriously, it's almost ridiculous how Stephen Hawking claims on the first page of his The Grand Design that philosophy is dead, while he spends the rest of the book struggling with a metaphysical problem, trying to solve it with physics, and ultimately failing and engaging in a rhetorical attempt to convince the reader that reality itself is confusing. Heisenberg himself hinted how the superposition states could be likened to aristotelian potency and the theory of forms. Wolfgang Smith suggests how to solve the problem with a thomist interpretation in The Quantum Enigma, and I think he has the best shot so far. Ian J. Thompson also tries to do it with a neo-aristotelian metaphysics in Philosophy of Nature and Quantum Reality, but I haven't read it yet.

Intelligent design is ultimately a philosophical problem regarding final causes, and I don't see how taking either side on that makes one a crackpot. In the end of the line, the choice is between the preferred frame of geocentrism or Dark-Matter, and the degree of crackpotness of either one is merely cultural. So, what you're saying really doesn't make sense. If that's really your best excuse for not reading Wolfgang Smith, too bad. Your loss.

Is it? Read again... carefully...

Neither it does for frame-independent, so what's the problem? Anyway this is subject to time, funding and publication bias, not a perennial truth. Science advances one funeral at a time, as Max Planck used to say. Neither there are any experiments for a frame-independent model that also won't fit a preferred frame model well. The gravitational fields we can actually experiment with are too weak for that. To quote Clifford Will, "General Relativity has passed every solar-system test with flying colors. Yet so have alternative theories.†That analogy doesn't make sense, since the first proposition is contingent, while the second is a contradiction. I guess you think I believe intelligent design is a scientific theory and tried to be sarcastic?

Well, the beauty of living in a free country is that I am free to believe in anything I want, and you are free to take me seriously if you want. Anyway, just to clarify, I don't believe Earth is in the center of the universe, I simply know for a fact that there's no scientific evidence favoring a frame-independent model over a preferred-frame model since both provide satisfactory explanations to current observations. If that makes me a crackpot, then the most brilliant physicists of the 20th century are crackpots, from Einstein and Eddington to Hawking and Ellis.

You're obviously criticizing without ever reading anything, because not only his book on quantum mechanics doesn't weave religion into anything, his books that actually deal with religion are philosophical, not scientific. As to his belief in geocentrism and intelligent design, I don't see how that's a problem, except for someone with the naive scientistic belief that these are unscientific.

Sure, but that's not a requisite. The barycenter doesn't have to be within any object, for instance, in a binary system, where both bodies orbit a common point in empty space I'm not saying they are the same. I'm saying they may be equally valid, both providing explanations to observed phenomena, and choosing one over another may not depend on scientific grounds.

Sure, you can do that within a frame-independent model, but as I just tried to explain to K^2, I'm not talking of the equal validity of any coordinate system within a frame-independent model, but the equal validity of an absolute model with a preferred frame of reference and a frame-independent model. All in all, what I'm saying, and I usually assume all physicists and even students know that, is that you don't need General Relativity if you put the Earth in the center. Maybe you missed that class...

I never made that claim. Quite the opposite. I said that if General Relativity is correct, then Dark Matter is a necessary fudge factor to get the math to work for current observations, but that looks a lot like a reductio ad absurdum to me. I never made any claim to the correctness of anything either. Quite the opposite. I'm saying neither model can be proven correct and they are scientifically equivalent. The choice between them rests on philosophical premises, not scientific grounds. If you keep reading things I never wrote, we'll have a hard time understanding each other. That's absolutely wrong, because I'm not talking of geocentric coordinates in the same frame-independent model. I'm talking of another model with a preferred reference frame. So far, you haven't managed to refute anything I actually said, only things you imagined I said, as this post confirmed, and you failed to even acknowledge what I'm talking about. To claim I'm saying dumb stuff doesn't mean much when this very last message confirms you still don't understand what I'm talking about. Trying to pretend superiority or arrogance after your failure doesn't help your case much. I assume this board has a moderator. If my posts don't meet the standards, complain to them.

In the same way that in the heliocentric model each planet orbits the Sun, while the Sun orbits the center of galaxy and carries the whole Solar System with it. The issue is just relative movement. The larger encompassing system doesn't change the relative movement within the inner system. Not at all, pretty much like the center of the milky way has nothing special, yet, all stars and planets within it still revolve around it while keeping their orbits in the local systems. It's not an assumption. It's a fact. Relative movement is irrelevant on this matter. The math works for any place you choose. Sure, one can't use this argument to promote geocentrism, but one can use it to say it's as valid as other models, and then there are other arguments to prefer one model over the other. For instance, you can say Ockham's Razor favors the geocentric model, since it doesn't need the assumption that the distribution of matter in the universe is uniform. No observations of relative movement anywhere else in the universe made from or close to the Earth could support one model or another, because ultimately they all depend on the assumption of the cosmological principle. However, there are observations for which the geocentric model provides better explanation than a frame-independent model. The problem isn't that some observations point to an Earth centered universe. The problem is whether that is acceptable on non-scientific grounds. For instance, I mentioned quasar distribution before. All known quasars are distributed in groups of concentric spheres around the Earth. That's obvious if the Earth is at the center of the observable universe, but that's not an acceptable solution for modern astrophysicists due to their commitment to the Cosmological Principle. To this day, as far as I know, that is an unsolved problem. There's no solution that works without breaking with the Cosmological Principle or introducing even worse assumptions.

I think you don't understand the scope of the discussion. We're not discussing the validity of GR within the current model. We're discussing if both models are equally valid and it's not a scientific decision to choose one over the other, but as the OP suggests, a philosophical or ideological decision which ultimately rests on if our existence has a final cause or not. Yes, in both models the Sagnac Effect covers the frequency shift, in a frame-independent model the change in clock rate is ascribed to a change in the flow of time itself, and in a geocentric frame, it's a result of the variations in ether density due to not using an absolute frame and the relative motion through it. Not at all, because the observed gravitational time dilation is the same in both models, with a rotating Earth or a rotating universe. In the ECI in a geocentric model, speed doesn't affect time itself, but will affect the ticking rate of clocks relative to the ECI. General Relativity is not essential to anything when you put Earth in the center of an absolute space. Simple as that. For GPS operation, General Relativity not only isn't essential, but it would make it a lot more complicated if it were actually used for synchronization in orbit, instead of synchronizing all satellites before launch with respect to an isotropic light-speed frame as it does. That isn't even consistent with Special Relativity, but it is consistent with the MLET and a geocentric model. Again, I don't feel embarrassed when I'm wrong, because I'm not trying to pretend superiority like you seem to be.

Indeed, but all of them, besides parallax and its derivatives, depend on other assumptions that gets us back to square one on the matter of choosing a model over another. The point is not if the current model is internally consistent. It is, most of the time. The point is that if there aren't other models equally valid and consistent, or even more. Assuming that we're not in a privileged position and the statistical data we get from near bodies is also valid for distant bodies. Right, but even if the distance measurement for quasars is correct, how do you account for the distribution of all known quasars in groupings of concentric spheres around the Earth, without scraping the Cosmological Principle?

I expected you to act as an adult. If you can't and will insist on condescension and sarcasm, I guess our conversation is over.

First, this is not my idea, this is one of the many equivalent models available, and any physicist will tell you that no observations made from the Earth can favor one over another. Second, to answer your question, all bodies within a system orbit the center of mass of that system, so if the center of mass of the whole universe is very near or inside the center of the Earth, it would be immobile, while the center of mass of the local system itself, inside the sun, would be revolving around it, carrying the whole system with it. Frankly, where it bears on the issue of relative movement, there's no physical relevance in assuming the validity of one over any other. You can take any point in the universe and assume that's the center of gravity and the math will work just fine. Now ask me about parallax... Well, I hope you realize, that there is a difference between 'believing the earth is not special', and 'not believing the earth is special'. If you rest your understanding of the universe at the believe the earth is privileged, you make an assumption. This assumption could be wrong and obstruct the truth. If one doesn't believe the earth is privileged, there is no assumption. Actually, that's wrong. Both could be assumptions, but the real problem is that Earth being in a privileged position is an observable phenomena. The assumption, named Cosmological Principle, is precisely that Earth isn't in a privileged, position, therefore, most of 20th century astrophysics and cosmology theories are about finding a way to make the observations that show Earth in a privileged position fit in a model where Earth isn't in a privileged position, in order to preserve that assumption. This is a philosophical decision, not a scientific one. If scientists accept Earth in a privileged position, it automatically asks the questions, why and who did it? You'll have to deal with final causes, and science can't deal with final causes. Not quite. Yes, from the problem of relative movement, you can choose any frame of reference and the math for any centrism works, but that's precisely because assuming there's no absolute frame or reference is the solution to the problem of a central Earth conflicting with the Cosmological principle. So, not every argument works, hence, there are still some dilemmas in the current model that are still looking for a solution other than geocentrism, the redshift of quasars, for instance.

You're making the same confusion someone else here did, getting into a petitio principii by taking the interpretation that depends on the assumption in discussion as evidence for the assumption itself. We don't observe the effects of dark matters mass. We model it and make it fit the observations. There are models with no Dark Matter that will also fit the observations. Dark Matter is simply the preferred theory at the moment because we don't have to get rid of anything important, read waive ideological assumptions like the cosmological principle, although you have the simple problem of actually finding it. We don't see the universe expanding faster and faster. What we see is homogeneous redshifts everywhere around us and we decide to interpret that as an expanding universe, but it's not the only interpretation and not even the simpler one. It totally matters where Earth is for that, because if the universe is expanding, you'd see homogeneity from anywhere else, pretty much like the distance between dots on a baloon's surface grows equally as you fill it. IF the universe is not expanding, the only place where you'd see that homogeneity is in the center. Since putting the Earth in the center would violate the cosmological principle, we instead chose to interpret that as an expanding universe. As I mentioned before, this is not my theory, this is Edwin Hubble's theory in his Observational Approach to Cosmology, p. 63, a basic textbook in physics. I'm not saying anything revolutionary or new here. This is basic. If K^2 is a physics student and don't know what I'm talking about, he's probably playing KSP too much.

First of all, it's not my model. This is not an original theory that I'm presenting to you here at the KSP forum for review. This is common knowledge among physicists. I haven't said a single word that isn't accepted widespread knowledge. The only thing you mentioned so far is asking me how the Michelson-Morley experiment would behave in a moving vehicle, and I answered that properly, I believe, since you presented no counter-argument other than asking why I don't do the experiment myself. Is there anything else I missed? This is something anyone with an education on the subject should know, and if you're asking me for it as if I'm saying something original, it simply means you don't really know much about the subject. I can answer any questions if you know what to ask, but I can't educate you on the subject from the scratch here. As I said, I can quote dozens of classic textbooks, peer-reviewed articles and even popular science books acknowledging the issue. I don't have my notes with references right now, but these are a few I could remember and Google for you: Edwin Hubble, on his Observational Approach to Cosmology, on not interpreting redshifts as velocity-shifts: "The assumption of uniformity has much to be said in its favour. If the distribution were not uniform, it would either increase with distance, or decrease. But we would not expect to find a distribution in which the density increases with distance, symmetrically in all directions. Such a condition would imply that we occupy a unique position in the universe, analogous, in a sense, to the ancient conception of a central earth. The hypothesis cannot be disproved but it is unwelcome and would be accepted only as a last resort in order to save the phenomena. Therefore, we disregard this possibility and consider the alternative, namely, a distribution which thins out with distance." Fred Hoyle, on Astronomy and Cosmology: “We know that the difference between a heliocentric theory and a geocentric theory is one of relative motion only, and that such a difference has no physical significance. But such an understanding had to await Einstein’s theory of gravitation in order to be fully clarified†Let it be understood at the outset that it makes no difference, from the point of view of describing planetary motion, whether we take the Earth or the Sun as the center of the solar system. Since the issue is one of relative motion only, there are infinitely many exactly equivalent descriptions referred to different centers – in principle any point will do Stephen Hawking, on his A Brief History of Time, that you probably read: Now at first sight, all this evidence that the universe looks the same whichever direction we look in might seem to suggest there is something special about our place in the universe. In particular, it might seem that if we observe all other galaxies to be moving away from us, then we must be at the center of the universe. There is, however, an alternate explanation: the universe might look the same in every direction as seen from any other galaxy too. This, as we have seen, was Friedmann’s second assumption. We have no scientific evidence for, or against, this assumption. We believe it only on grounds of modesty: it would be most remarkable if the universe looked the same in every direction around us, but not around other points in the universe Robert H. Dicke, Gravitation and the Universe: "Particularly significant in the distribution of galaxies about us is uniformity and isotropy. The galaxies appear to be uniformly distributed about us. Not only is the distribution uniform but the above described motions with respect to us represent a uniform dilation. How is this to be interpreted? We might be tempted to conclude that man occupies some special central point in the Universe, that galaxies move away from us. An alternative interpretation is that the Universe is uniform in structure and that all points are similar. Thus the Universe might appear isotropic from any particular galaxy in which man happened to be living…The mathematical transformation is easily carried out and leads to the conclusion that in the average the Universe would appear the same when seen from other galaxies." George Ellis, in an interview in Scientific American, vol. 245, which is remarkable in the context of this discussion, since you seem to believe I'm saying something new, against the mainstream science: People need to be aware that there is a range of models that could explain the observations. For instance, I can construct for you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based on observations. You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds. In my view there is absolutely nothing wrong in that. What I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that. Yes, it is. Current cosmology astrophysics is basically a choice between Dark Matter and geocentrism, and while everyone in the field is aware of this, very few are willing to choose geocentrism. There are a few who do. Robert Sungenis two volume book, Galileo Was Wrong is probably the most gentle introduction you'll find. As I said, it does include agreement by the most relevant part of the scientific community. You probably just don't know the scientific community as much as you think you do. Talk is cheap. If something I said here is nonsense, show it and present a counter-argument. So far you presented neither. Claiming something is nonsense without any argument is nonsense. That remark is incredibly childish. It's not a matter of how many lectures or books you read, but which books and how much you understand it. If read only one short book very carefully, Hubble's Observational Approach to Cosmology, you'd be very aware of what I'm talking about. First of all, no need for insults or being aggressive. I assume we're all adults here, despite being in a videogame forum. Second, if I'm cherry-picking something and you know it or you can present a counter-argument, just do it. So far I've seen nothing. That kind of talk doesn't take us very far. Third, as I said above, this is not "my" theory or anything new at all. Basically, if you know the history of the special and general relativity theory and big bang theory, you'd know what I'm talking about very well. Buddy, any physics student should be aware of this. This is junior year physics. Most of the classic textbooks mention the issue. Any physics graduate is perfectly aware how most of the 20th century astrophysics and cosmology revolves around this issue and the crisis of the chosen path is the current state. If you are not aware of this, you're probably just an enthusiast who reads a lot of recreational science books and magazines, watch youtube videos, but has no formal education on the subject. If that's the case, no surprise, it's very common. Usually, I see aggressive reactions like yours in this kind of people, while graduates or students are often aware of what I'm talking about and we usually have productive talks.

They are the exact same thing: a fudge factor to make the observations fit in the math and assumed constants. When you need mass to make the math fit, you add make-believe matter and call it Dark Matter, when you need energy to propel that mass you add make-believe energy and call it Dark Energy. Problem solved.

First of all, I have no interest in doing that. Second, even if I had, I doubt funding and publication bias would allow me to do it. Third, it's not my statement, nothing I said is original research, it's just the current state of astrophysics and cosmology that any dedicated student should be aware of. You think my statement contradicts something because you're obviously trying to fit it into another model, while either model is reasonably consistent within itself and in the end of day it's just a matter of personal belief. I can quote a dozen physicists right now acknowledging the issue if you need.

Yes, I am aware. That's called Sagnac Effect and was discovered by Georges Sagnac in 1913, three years before Einstein published his General Relativity. General Relativity is not "absolutely essential" for GPS satellites, since the Sagnac Effect appears in either a relative or absolute model, as the one proposed by Sagnac, which was completely antithetical to GRT. It's particularly amusing that you patronize me with that, and direct me to read on the subject, while it's obvious you're not aware that GPS satellites use the Sagnac effect theory for corrections, assuming an absolute space, and not General Relativity. You're just confusing observed reality with chosen model. The Sagnac effect is observed, and George Sagnac explained it in an absolute model. You can explain it within General Relativity and many other models too, but this is no confirmation for either one. Buddy... being wrong, if that was the case, would be no embarrassment to me, because I'd learn something. On the other hand, the contrast between the ignorance of your remarks and the arrogant attempt to patronize would definitely embarrass me if I did something like that. You don't even know me, why the need to be so aggressive?

In the same way that I could hear your voice unchanged if we were talking inside a supersonic jet, the result is relative to the medium. If you get the same result in a vaccum, then we might have something, but as far as I know, no repeat of the Michelson-Morley experiment ever did that.

Really? And how do you calculate galaxies distances without interpreting redshifts as velocity shifts and plugging in the numbers for a 13.75 billion years old universe?