Need expert advice on how to handle a seemingly legitimate objection

[another1]

If something is, or isn't valid, can't be confirmed in words. You can only say you believe that it is believed. There is a real limit in stern language like you were talking about. Inconsequentiality is value . "It appears that this pine cone has no value but the pine cones over here don't look like that pine cone, and they have value at the art fair." Which is more important and should be stressed? "It appears" or "I reckon" suffices for some I have seen in that situation.

 

[zorq]

That's not true. Also, it is false.

A sentence is truth apt if there is some context in which it could be uttered (with its present meaning) and express a true or false proposition. Sentences that are not apt for truth include questions and commands, and, more controversially, paradoxical sentences of the form of the Liar (‘this sentence is false’); or sentences (‘you will not smoke’) whose apparent function is to make an assertion, but which may instead be regarded as expressing prescriptions or attitudes, rather than being in the business of aiming at truth or falsehood.
---http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803105953845

Consider this example:

Joe: "The sun rose this morning."

Sara: "No, it didn't. The earth turned while the sun stayed still."

As Einstein pointed out, motion is relative to the observer. So neither Joe and Sara is more correct than the other. They are expressing viewpoints, not truths. Their claims are not truth-apt.

They are expressing viewpoints. When Sara says, "No, it didn't," She is intending for Joe to understand that she does not agree. She finds fault with that statement and wants to communicate her idea that, "The sun rose this morning," is a false statement.

Instead of saying, "No, it didn't," she could have said "That's false. The Earth turned while the sun stayed still." And she would have been communicating the exact same thing with the intention that the listener understand that, "The sun rose this morning," is a false statement.

That is what I meant when I said...

"Every time people say "That's not true," the implication for the listener is exactly "That's false."

Unless you're suggesting that Sara was intentionally trying to agree with Joe and that Joe understood this I think my original claim stands.

 

[zorq]

Someone who says harmony is blue isn't lying. They are speaking nonsense.

My daughter has multiple forms of  synesthesia, including  chromesthesia, so would disagree with you. Is that relevant to the discussion?

(Discordance looks like "clown vomit" to her.)

Yes, synesthesia is very relevant as it shows that the words spoken have a meaning which is dependent on the speaker, not on some collective convention that the speaker may not know or knows but doesn't make sense to him or her.

Of course, what the listener understand is the meaning that he or she attributes to these words, meaning which can of course be different from that of the speaker. Which explains pretty good why we often fail to understand each other.
EB

While the words spoken may have meaning to the speaker, I believe that we are not actually dealing with semantic issues here. The exact words are irrelevant to this corner of the discussion. If we were having this conversation in Japanese instead of English Artemus's daughter may very well have a very different reaction to harmony, and discord seeing as how the visual and auditory input of the conversation would be processed through her brain slightly differently. However, I believe that the ideas communicated would be the same and we could each individually come to the same conclusions regarding Fast's proposed contradiction.

Another example: If I say that, "a tranquil internal calm is an electromagnetic wave with a frequency between 606 and 668 THz and a wavelength between 450 and 495 nm." I have expressed the same information as the sentence, "Harmony is blue" A person with synesthesia would very likely have significantly different reactions to these two sentences even though they are nearly 100% equivalent.

When we listen to these sentences with the intention of detecting truth it is irrelevant that the speaker was actually communicating something useful but we listeners are too ignorant to decipher it. I feel that's beyond the realm of this discussion.

 

[Wiploc]

Oh, no stopped in space. Yeah, that I get. I suppose nothing is not moving, in a scientific sense, but I'm not quite sure why it must be impossible, although I can imagine why it's unlikely to happen.

I think you really don't get it. It is not a matter of it being unlikely. It's a matter of there not being anything that can be called "stopped" except relative to something with the same velocity.

On earth, we say we are stopped when we've matched velocity with the local planetary surface. That works as a convention, but it is just a convention; it is not a truth. It is just as true to say that you are not stopped at all, but are "really" flinging around the sun.

In space, there is no such convention. Everything is stopped relative to itself. Everything is moving with respect to everything that doesn't share it's velocity. There is no referee who can blow a whistle and shout, "You, you're the one who's really stopped. Everyone else is moving."

No frame of reference is privileged over any other.

Still, objects are in motion, even if some objects are not in motion relative to other objects, and such motion would still seem to me to be independent of observers. Fascinating stuff though.

Independent of observers? I'm trying to think what you're imagining.

Imagine a two-body universe. Two asteroids tumbling. Is asteroid X moving and Y stopped? Or the other way around? Or both moving? There are no background stars to compare their motion to. There is no mark labeled "Center of the universe" that their motion can be compared to.

It is true that one or both is moving, because they aren't always the same distance apart. That fact is independent of any observers. But the notion that X is stopped and Y is moving is entirely dependent on whether you are X.

 

[fast]

I think you really don't get it. It is not a matter of it being unlikely. It's a matter of there not being anything that can be called "stopped" except relative to something with the same velocity.

On earth, we say we are stopped when we've matched velocity with the local planetary surface. That works as a convention, but it is just a convention; it is not a truth. It is just as true to say that you are not stopped at all, but are "really" flinging around the sun.

In space, there is no such convention. Everything is stopped relative to itself. Everything is moving with respect to everything that doesn't share it's velocity. There is no referee who can blow a whistle and shout, "You, you're the one who's really stopped. Everyone else is moving."

No frame of reference is privileged over any other.

Still, objects are in motion, even if some objects are not in motion relative to other objects, and such motion would still seem to me to be independent of observers. Fascinating stuff though.

Independent of observers? I'm trying to think what you're imagining.

Imagine a two-body universe. Two asteroids tumbling. Is asteroid X moving and Y stopped? Or the other way around? Or both moving? There are no background stars to compare their motion to. There is no mark labeled "Center of the universe" that their motion can be compared to.

It is true that one or both is moving, because they aren't always the same distance apart. That fact is independent of any observers. But the notion that X is stopped and Y is moving is entirely dependent on whether you are X.

My car is parked, and it's therefore not moving (in the normal sense of how people talk). In a scientific sense, that of course is not true that the car is stopped because even though the car is not moving relative to the ground, it is (in a scientific sense) moving because the ground itself is moving as the planet moves through space. If the car could stop, in a scientific sense, the car would appear to observers on the ground as if the car took off into space, but even though the stopped car would still be moving relative to the planet, a stopped car in a scientific sense is still a stopped car, not just relative to itself but relative to it's position in space (if such a thing is possible)--I'll come back to that.

If observers (people with the capacity to make measurements of movement) were to die out, the car would still be moving as the car continues to take up different points in space as the planet continues to orbit the sun. So, movement is independent of observers even though the taking of measurement that requires intelligent beings is dependent on observers.

Now, it's going to be mighty difficult to find an object that isn't moving in the scientific sense because such an object in our solar system would have to appear to be traveling at extreme rates of speed as even the solar system itself is moving within the universe, and if the universe itself is somehow undergoing size changes, the precise point a stopped car would take up would soon be overtaken. I suspect that my car wouldn't make it very long if it stopped. Heck, it might not even make it into space, for the direction of the planets movement could be such that if my car stopped, the planet itself could travel into it, and if my car were particularly resistant to planetary impact, it might travel through the planet and wait until the next body of matter came screaming by.

 

[Wiploc]

In a scientific sense, that of course is not true that the car is stopped because even though the car is not moving relative to the ground, it is (in a scientific sense) moving because the ground itself is moving as the planet moves through space.

This is your error. Since Michelson Morley, we haven't believed in the aether. That leaves us no way to say what direction space is going. Einstein doesn't just eliminate the way to prove space's direction, he eliminates the concept: Even if space had a velocity, its point of view wouldn't be privileged over that of your car.
All motion is relative to the observer. You don't have to accept that if you don't want to. But, until you do, the scientific consensus will be against you.

 

[zorq]

http://xkcd.com/1366/

 

[fast]

In a scientific sense, that of course is not true that the car is stopped because even though the car is not moving relative to the ground, it is (in a scientific sense) moving because the ground itself is moving as the planet moves through space.

This is your error. Since Michelson Morley, we haven't believed in the aether. That leaves us no way to say what direction space is going. Einstein doesn't just eliminate the way to prove space's direction, he eliminates the concept: Even if space had a velocity, its point of view wouldn't be privileged over that of your car.
All motion is relative to the observer. You don't have to accept that if you don't want to. But, until you do, the scientific consensus will be against you.

I said the planet is moving through space, not that space itself was moving.

ETA: that motion is happening whether it's observed or not; hence, if we all shut our eyes, we're still moving.

 

[Wiploc]

In a scientific sense, that of course is not true that the car is stopped because even though the car is not moving relative to the ground, it is (in a scientific sense) moving because the ground itself is moving as the planet moves through space.

This is your error. Since Michelson Morley, we haven't believed in the aether. That leaves us no way to say what direction space is going. Einstein doesn't just eliminate the way to prove space's direction, he eliminates the concept: Even if space had a velocity, its point of view wouldn't be privileged over that of your car.
All motion is relative to the observer. You don't have to accept that if you don't want to. But, until you do, the scientific consensus will be against you.

I said the planet is moving through space,

Which is either wrong or not truth apt.

not that space itself was moving.

You think space has a velocity. And you think that your car would move relative to the earth if it matched the velocity of space.

ETA: that motion is happening whether it's observed or not; hence, if we all shut our eyes, we're still moving.

The earth is moving thru space whether it is observed or not? Two things:

First, no, the earth is not moving relative to space. Space doesn't have a velocity. The earth does move relative to almost everything else, though.

Second, it doesn't matter whether your eyes are open. Remember my two-body problem, above? Those asteroids didn't even have eyes.

Consider the twin paradox. One flies away on a rocket; the other stays home. The rocket achieves relativistic speeds. The first twin observes the second to be distorted by speed: He's thinner, heavier,and his watch runs slowly. But the second twin observes exactly the same weirdnesses about the first. Neither viewpoint is privileged. Each is moving relative to the other. This is true regardless of whether their eyes are closed.

 

[fast]

In a scientific sense, that of course is not true that the car is stopped because even though the car is not moving relative to the ground, it is (in a scientific sense) moving because the ground itself is moving as the planet moves through space.

This is your error. Since Michelson Morley, we haven't believed in the aether. That leaves us no way to say what direction space is going. Einstein doesn't just eliminate the way to prove space's direction, he eliminates the concept: Even if space had a velocity, its point of view wouldn't be privileged over that of your car.
All motion is relative to the observer. You don't have to accept that if you don't want to. But, until you do, the scientific consensus will be against you.

I said the planet is moving through space,

Which is either wrong or not truth apt.

not that space itself was moving.

You think space has a velocity. And you think that your car would move relative to the earth if it matched the velocity of space.

ETA: that motion is happening whether it's observed or not; hence, if we all shut our eyes, we're still moving.

The earth is moving thru space whether it is observed or not? Two things:

First, no, the earth is not moving relative to space. Space doesn't have a velocity. The earth does move relative to almost everything else, though.

Second, it doesn't matter whether your eyes are open. Remember my two-body problem, above? Those asteroids didn't even have eyes.

Consider the twin paradox. One flies away on a rocket; the other stays home. The rocket achieves relativistic speeds. The first twin observes the second to be distorted by speed: He's thinner, heavier,and his watch runs slowly. But the second twin observes exactly the same weirdnesses about the first. Neither viewpoint is privileged. Each is moving relative to the other. This is true regardless of whether their eyes are closed.

Whoa, too much at once. I'm still trying to figure out why you don't think the planet is moving through space.

 

[Wiploc]

Whoa, too much at once. I'm still trying to figure out why you don't think the planet is moving through space.

It's not moving relative to space. Does that help?

Space doesn't have velocity. It doesn't have grid lines or mile markers.

If you go 1000 miles away from the earth, and then turn around and come 1000 miles back, you'll be back where you started relative to the earth. But, are you back where you started relative to space?

 

[fast]

Whoa, too much at once. I'm still trying to figure out why you don't think the planet is moving through space.

It's not moving relative to space. Does that help?

Space doesn't have velocity. It doesn't have grid lines or mile markers.

If you go 1000 miles away from the earth, and then turn around and come 1000 miles back, you'll be back where you started relative to the earth. But, are you back where you started relative to space?

even if space doesn't have velocity, which sounds good to me, as that makes things easier, I wouldn't see why it's lack of movement negates any movement relative to space. How about relative to a point in space?

By the way, if i go 1000 miles away from earth then turn around and come 1000 miles back to the point in space that I was at when I left earth, I would not be at earth, for earth will no longer be where it was when I left because it was moving.

 

[Speakpigeon]

The meaning of a term is independent of what a person may happen to mean when using a term.

What do you mean?
EB

The lexical meaning of terms is a function of collective usage, not individual usage, so a word will continue to mean just what it means despite what anyone may just so happen to mean when using a word.

Conversations occur mostly between two people at a time and they don't go checking what collective usage might be each time they have to use a different word. In fact, they never do. Yet they proceed with their conversation regardless, which suggests that they do so on the basis of what they mean by particular words. Whether the fact that they seem to understand each other could be properly explained by calling on the notion of collective usage would be a different matter.
EB

 

[Wiploc]

Whoa, too much at once. I'm still trying to figure out why you don't think the planet is moving through space.

It's not moving relative to space. Does that help?

Space doesn't have velocity. It doesn't have grid lines or mile markers.

If you go 1000 miles away from the earth, and then turn around and come 1000 miles back, you'll be back where you started relative to the earth. But, are you back where you started relative to space?

even if space doesn't have velocity, which sounds good to me, as that makes things easier, I wouldn't see why it's lack of movement negates any movement relative to space.

You're thinking it has zero velocity, but it doesn't have a velocity at all.

How about relative to a point in space?

No grid lines, mile markers, or points.

By the way, if i go 1000 miles away from earth then turn around and come 1000 miles back to the point in space that I was at when I left earth, I would not be at earth, for earth will no longer be where it was when I left because it was moving.

There's no difference between going 1000 miles from the earth and having the earth go 1000 miles from you. There's no difference between going 1000 miles back toward the earth and having the earth come back 1000 miles toward you.

There is a difference between going 1000 miles closer to the earth and returning to some imaginary point in space that isn't 1000 miles closer to the earth.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Someone who says harmony is blue isn't lying. They are speaking nonsense.

My daughter has multiple forms of  synesthesia, including  chromesthesia, so would disagree with you. Is that relevant to the discussion?

(Discordance looks like "clown vomit" to her.)

Yes, synesthesia is very relevant as it shows that the words spoken have a meaning which is dependent on the speaker, not on some collective convention that the speaker may not know or knows but doesn't make sense to him or her.

Of course, what the listener understand is the meaning that he or she attributes to these words, meaning which can of course be different from that of the speaker. Which explains pretty good why we often fail to understand each other.
EB

While the words spoken may have meaning to the speaker, I believe that we are not actually dealing with semantic issues here. The exact words are irrelevant to this corner of the discussion. If we were having this conversation in Japanese instead of English Artemus's daughter may very well have a very different reaction to harmony, and discord seeing as how the visual and auditory input of the conversation would be processed through her brain slightly differently. However, I believe that the ideas communicated would be the same and we could each individually come to the same conclusions regarding Fast's proposed contradiction.

I don't see how we could be said to know what ideas may be communicated by sentences. I can see that each of us does come up with some interpretation and proceed from there. Yet, different people will or will not arrive at the same interpretation, as is apparent in the actual conversations people have.

This thread doesn't seem to be about the reality of the physical world and whether for example it can be said that space has no colour. Rather, it seems to be about language, meaning and specifically whether it is possible to dismiss certain associations of words on the basis that it is not possible that it could mean anything. But how can we dismiss any association of words without taking what is meant into account? And how could we then say anything meaningful without a priori knowledge of the material world?

Another example: If I say that, "a tranquil internal calm is an electromagnetic wave with a frequency between 606 and 668 THz and a wavelength between 450 and 495 nm." I have expressed the same information as the sentence, "Harmony is blue" A person with synesthesia would very likely have significantly different reactions to these two sentences even though they are nearly 100% equivalent.

The terms "Blue" and "electromagnetic wavelength between 450 and 495 nm" may well have the same reference if by reference one means some physical characteristic but they certainly do not have the same meaning to me and I suspect to anyone.

When we listen to these sentences with the intention of detecting truth it is irrelevant that the speaker was actually communicating something useful but we listeners are too ignorant to decipher it. I feel that's beyond the realm of this discussion.

How is it possible to discuss the truth of a sentence without taking into account what the person who said or wrote it meant?
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

even if space doesn't have velocity

You're thinking it has zero velocity, but it doesn't have a velocity at all.

So, is it a category error to talk of the velocity of space?
EB

 

[fast]

Whoa, too much at once. I'm still trying to figure out why you don't think the planet is moving through space.

It's not moving relative to space. Does that help?

Space doesn't have velocity. It doesn't have grid lines or mile markers.

If you go 1000 miles away from the earth, and then turn around and come 1000 miles back, you'll be back where you started relative to the earth. But, are you back where you started relative to space?

even if space doesn't have velocity, which sounds good to me, as that makes things easier, I wouldn't see why it's lack of movement negates any movement relative to space.

You're thinking it has zero velocity, but it doesn't have a velocity at all.

How about relative to a point in space?

No grid lines, mile markers, or points.

By the way, if i go 1000 miles away from earth then turn around and come 1000 miles back to the point in space that I was at when I left earth, I would not be at earth, for earth will no longer be where it was when I left because it was moving.

There's no difference between going 1000 miles from the earth and having the earth go 1000 miles from you. There's no difference between going 1000 miles back toward the earth and having the earth come back 1000 miles toward you.

There is a difference between going 1000 miles closer to the earth and returning to some imaginary point in space that isn't 1000 miles closer to the earth.

i am so out of my league on this. I cant even pretend to have confidence in my responses. I would have thought that zero velocity would of been sufficient to describe the speed in which space travels, since according to you, it has no velocity, but some how or another, you think I'm making a category error?

Speaking of imaginary points, just curious, how fast are we moving? If you say relative to what, let's make it relative to imaginary points one earth hour away from each other. For example, at 11:30 est, stick your hand in the air and point. The area of the universe that the tip of your finger takes up will be imaginary point 1. Exactly one hour later, as indicated by the time on your cell phone, stick your hand in the air and point again. Let that area of the universe right where the tip of your finger is be imaginary point 2. If we were to measure the fixed distance between the two points, how many miles would it be?

 

[Wiploc]

even if space doesn't have velocity

You're thinking it has zero velocity, but it doesn't have a velocity at all.

So, is it a category error to talk of the velocity of space?
EB

I think so, yes.

 

[zorq]

While the words spoken may have meaning to the speaker, I believe that we are not actually dealing with semantic issues here. The exact words are irrelevant to this corner of the discussion. If we were having this conversation in Japanese instead of English Artemus's daughter may very well have a very different reaction to harmony, and discord seeing as how the visual and auditory input of the conversation would be processed through her brain slightly differently. However, I believe that the ideas communicated would be the same and we could each individually come to the same conclusions regarding Fast's proposed contradiction.

I don't see how we could be said to know what ideas may be communicated by sentences. I can see that each of us does come up with some interpretation and proceed from there. Yet, different people will or will not arrive at the same interpretation, as is apparent in the actual conversations people have.

This thread doesn't seem to be about the reality of the physical world and whether for example it can be said that space has no colour. Rather, it seems to be about language, meaning and specifically whether it is possible to dismiss certain associations of words on the basis that it is not possible that it could mean anything. But how can we dismiss any association of words without taking what is meant into account? And how could we then say anything meaningful without a priori knowledge of the material world?

I agree this thread doesn't seem to be about the reality of the physical world. But my take on it is that it isn't even about language. I take the domain of this thread to be entirely about meaning.

What I was trying to say in my previous post is that because this thread was posted in the "Logic" sub forum I, perhaps presumptuously (sorry), assumed that fast was looking for a logical evaluation of his conundrum and not a linguistic one. It is precisely the imprecision of language and the failure of humans to communicate perfectly with one another that lead fast to his category error in the first place. The fact that "false" is used to describe statements which represent a negative state of affairs, AND "false" is also used conventionally to describe things which can not possibly apply to the situation lead him to confusion and and a (IMO fascinating) logical conundrum.

It is precisely what is meant that should be taken into account. When I say the word "discordance" I want my listeners to understand a situation of disagreement and unrest. I don't want my listeners to think of clown vomit. There is nothing inherently wrong with saying the word "discordance" and hoping your listeners think of clown vomit, but I just thought that this sort of communication failure isn't what this thread is about.

Another example: If I say that, "a tranquil internal calm is an electromagnetic wave with a frequency between 606 and 668 THz and a wavelength between 450 and 495 nm." I have expressed the same information as the sentence, "Harmony is blue" A person with synesthesia would very likely have significantly different reactions to these two sentences even though they are nearly 100% equivalent.

The terms "Blue" and "electromagnetic wavelength between 450 and 495 nm" may well have the same reference if by reference one means some physical characteristic but they certainly do not have the same meaning to me and I suspect to anyone.

Well, I was referring to the "physical reference" of the words "blue" and "harmony." I suspect you are using the word "meaning" as a synonym of the word "significance" here.

When we listen to these sentences with the intention of detecting truth it is irrelevant that the speaker was actually communicating something useful but we listeners are too ignorant to decipher it. I feel that's beyond the realm of this discussion.

How is it possible to discuss the truth of a sentence without taking into account what the person who said or wrote it meant?
EB

Perhaps I phrased that clumsily. I apologise. Let me try again.
I feel that failures of communication do not indicate failure or successes of logic. While failures of communication is a subject worthy of a lot of study it doesn't necessarily belong in a thread on logic.

But I'm prone to changing my mind and I think I have just done so.

 

[Wiploc]

i am so out of my league on this. I cant even pretend to have confidence in my responses. I would have thought that zero velocity would of been sufficient to describe the speed in which space travels, since according to you, it has no velocity, but some how or another, you think I'm making a category error?

I do.

Speaking of imaginary points, just curious, how fast are we moving? If you say relative to what, let's make it relative to imaginary points one earth hour away from each other. For example, at 11:30 est, stick your hand in the air and point. The area of the universe that the tip of your finger takes up will be imaginary point 1. Exactly one hour later, as indicated by the time on your cell phone, stick your hand in the air and point again. Let that area of the universe right where the tip of your finger is be imaginary point 2. If we were to measure the fixed distance between the two points, how many miles would it be?

1. Relative to the tip of my finger, the point at the tip of my finger doesn't move at all.

2. I want to say anywhere from about a thousand miles (at the equator) to zero (at the pole) but I'm having trouble nailing down what that is relative to. Perhaps it's relative to the center of the earth?

3. We could get different figures by treating the sun as stopped, or the center of the galaxy.

4. For that matter, we could take the frame of reference of your belt buckle, a migrating owl, or a curing cheese---anything at all except a photon. (And I'm not sure about the photon.)

Each of these answers is as true as the others, because all motion is relative to the observer.