Forum:Tell me if I'm being rational here


 * Tell me if I'm being rational here --> The whole universe is only experienced through my senses. Without me to experience it, it doesn't exist. The simplest answer is that I am the universe. Künstlerin (talk) 19:30, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
 * No, Kunstlerin, you are not. Totnesmartin (talk) 19:45, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Künstlerin, I don't think your position is irrational. Although, your statement of it (maybe unintentionally) is approaching solipsism... well, we can talk about that elsewhere if you are interested. 00:05, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * At great length, undoubtedly. But yeah, it's solipsism and pyrrhonism, which, while you can't "prove" anything other than that, it's a fairly cynical position to take and actually makes the assumption that what you see is, in fact, not what you get. They're positions that only really work in a metaphorical sense, there's equally no proof that they represent reality. ADK ...I'll subpoena your beagle! 00:11, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * ADK, I don't see any pyrrhonism here. As to solipsism, the way she has worded this statement sounds like solipsism, but based on my discussions with her elsewhere, I am pretty sure she is not actually a solipsist. She is just maybe being a bit imprecise is the way she is expressing herself here. 00:41, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * No. The two statements "The whole universe is only experienced through my senses." and "Without me to experience it, it doesn't exist." are non sequitur. As the argument is illogical/invalid/fallacious, it is not a rational argument. One can present a rational argument for solipsism, but this is not a rational way of doing it. -- 00:16, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Eira, you are treating what Künstlerin has stated as an argument. I think she is just stating a position, and at this stage she hasn't provided any arguments for that position. 00:38, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * And if I stated that "my position" is: "My favorite color is pink. The sky is pink." Would that make it any more logical/valid/rational? No. I'm talking about parts of hairs, and you're trying to split hairs but the problem for you is that even if you split that hair perfectly, it's still a part of a hair. Seriously? "Pedantry: you're doing it wrong." -- 01:52, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Those two statements are only non sequitur to a materialist. To an idealist, they are connected. I think rationality is fundamentally about one's reasons for believing a position, rather than the position itself. Since Künstlerin hasn't at this stage put forward her reasons, I don't think anyone can evaluate their rationality. 01:58, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * WTF? Do you not understand what "non sequitur" means? It means "it doesn't follow"... your idealist views can be sequitur, they just have to follow from the premises. The statement "Without me to experience it, it doesn't exist" does not follow from the statement "The whole universe is only experienced through my senses." Proposition P does not imply Proposition Q... as a result, it is a non sequitur regardless of if I accept idealism or materialism. Stop trying to be a pedantic asshat, because you're failing miserably, and dragging this only further off topic. -- 02:02, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * "Stop trying to be a pedantic asshat" ... quite funny words coming from you. 02:04, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It can be a sequitur if you formulate another premise that says "as I cannot prove that the universe exists outside and independent of my experience, the universe's existence is dependent on my experience". A leetle circular, perhaps and still falls into the trap of assuming this is true based on a lack of evidence for it being otherwise. ADK ...I'll defenestrate your jelly! 02:12, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Hang on, isn't this all completely besides the point of the page? ADK ...I'll shave your salad fork! 02:14, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Exactly about it being able to be a sequitur. And yes, we're off the point of the page, and Mara: you forgot the rest of the quote: "because you're failing miserably". -- 02:22, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * If I am failing miserably at emulating you, that is nothing to feel miserable about. 02:44, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * There are two ways to fail at being pedantic. Either not being detail oriented enough, or being wrong. You are the later. Stop being wrong, and I'll stop harping on you about being wrong all the fucking time. -- 10:16, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, the reason I asked, was because the Speed of Light article has this weird thought experiment that follows the same sort of logic. It says, "Boy is travelling at the speed of a light. Girl can see the boy and the light. The boy cannot see the light. Therefore the boy is NOT travelling at the speed of light." It sounded very non-sequitor to me, and so I deleted it, but human said not to delete things i don't understand, so i just left it but asked for someone to clear it up, but then nobody could really do a good job of explaining the thought experiment better in a way that wasn't a non-sequitor. I just don't think logic like that tends to follow. Künstlerin (talk) 06:26, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You're right, the thought experiment asserts that since Bob cannot see the light that the light does not exist. However, the Weak Interaction does not affect right-handed particles, nor left-handed anti-particles... this does not mean that the Weak Interaction or the W-, W+, or Z bosons stop existing, just because a right-handed particle cannot interact with it... -- 10:41, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * See here if you really want some weirdness. Which, of course, reminds me of this. ADK ...I'll assassinate your fat! 12:54, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, I've just re-read a bit on it, the thought experiment is based on the wave and field nature of light. Light is not a car traveling at top speed - if you catch up with the car, it looks stationary but because it's acting as a particle you can see it. If a field is stationary, it cannot exist. It's not so much that light ceases to exist as much as it can't exist in a stationary form. That's not just pulled out of nowhere but derives from Maxwell's equations that originally proposed the oscillating field traveling at c. ADK ...I'll run your baseball bat! 13:03, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * [[File:Goodpost.gif]] Well put, ADK! 06:04, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Much of special relativity can make sense if you mentally substitute "speed of light" for "infinite speed". Infinite speed +1 is still infinite speed. Infinite speed x2 is still infinite speed. And so on. This makes light a constant speed independent of its source and a speed that can never be surpassed. ADK ...I'll disintegrate your chump! 13:06, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank u for the essay, ADK. And the comic is very funny. yes - Infinite Speed +1, that's an easier way to look at it =) Künstlerin (talk) 22:40, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I think I noted that the imperceptibility, or even the complete lack of interaction between something and an "observer" does not make the something cease to exist. If I travel at the speed of light away from a sun, then for all points of time after reaching the speed of light away from that sun the light cone of the sun will never reach me, and thus the sun leaves my causal domain, but that does not mean the sun ceases to exist. As another example that Künstlerin brought up, if a tree falls in the forest and only one person is there to hear it, did the tree make a sound? We all experience different reference frames, and the fact that something doesn't interact with my reference frame does not mean that that something does not exist, and thus it is also not a logical contradiction then that something can "exist" and not "exist" at the same time, because we're looking at two different causal domains. -- 02:25, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I think the point is that laws of physics are invariant to motion. The fact that an oscillating wave that stands still cannot exist (according to Maxwell's equations among others) indicates that the laws of physics must alter if you "catch up" with a light beam. The light really does cease to exist for you in that case, it's not really imperceptibility that's the issue it's just that observing a static wave doesn't seem to be part of physics. But since you can't catch up with a light beam such a blatantly silly contradiction doesn't happen (well, you can catch up, but only as a massless particle and then time stops, which I suppose saves you from the contradiction because the time dependence ceases to be and the concept of a "static" wave becomes less meaningful). ADK ...I'll jostle your bistro! 08:49, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Again, for right-handed particles, the W and Z bosons don't "exist", because they cannot interact with each other. That does not make the W and Z boson non existent objectively. So, again, just because within your causal domain something "seems to stop existing" does not mean that it actually does stop existing. Thus, there is no logical contradiction between "the light beam exists and doesn't exist". And anyone suggesting that there is a contradiction there is committing the fallacy of equivocation. You're using different meanings of "exist". If I were in a car traveling at the speed of light away from you, would you stop existing because you will never be able to exert interaction with me ever again, because you've left my causal domain? -- 09:07, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I get it, I'm just saying that it's nothing to do with "leaving a causal domain" or anything like that. It isn't "does not exist" so much as cannot exist in that state. ADK ...I'll edit your glucose! 09:13, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
 * *sigh* no it doesn't "not exist"... you're EQUIVOCATING again. Just because in your frame of reference you don't see the oscillation of a field doesn't mean that the field doesn't oscillate in other frames of reference. Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. -- 09:27, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It's not "ceases to exist", it's "such a thing is impossible". Because relativity states the laws of physics are invariant to motion, you have effectively destroyed the laws of physics if you do catch up with the speed of light - this is a thought experiment, after all, where we have caught up with our light and haven't applied anything else, so "oh, you just can't see it" doesn't apply, it's more abstract than that because in thought experiments your senses aren't limited to real world consequences. Because it's a thought experiment, "you just can't see it" doesn't happen because you see and experience and detect everything and are given hypothetical omniscience. Because of relativity (which is older than Einstein, going back to Galileo showing physical laws are invariant with motion) you cannot tell that you're moving by doing any experiment. Einstein's "catching up with a light beam" merely applies this to all physics, now including optics and looks for potential issues. Because of this invariance, if you're going at light speed in this thought experiment, it looks like the light is stationary and so the osculations stop. But you can't tell you're moving, it just looks like the light has stopped. This is something Maxwell's equations say cannot happen because such a thing necessarily does not exist. Ergo, it shouldn't be possible to catch up with a beam of light. <font color="#CC0000" size="3">ADK <font color=#330033>...I'll enumerate your penguin! 09:40, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The argument: "light would appear to cease to exist in your frame of reference, yet because the rules of physics are invariant with respect to the speed of the reference frame, and light exists in our non-light-speed reference frame, so we shouldn't be able to enter that refrence frame." Is not a non sequitur. The original phrasing of the thought experiment however was. -- 09:50, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Let's take the thought experiment and reverse it somewhat. Because of relativity, if you're catching up with a light beam you may as well say that it's the light beam that's slowing down (and let's forget what we know about special/general relativity with this for a moment). Now "catching up" is effectively replaced by "speed of light equals zero". Now this whole equivocation thing doesn't apply, because you're asking yourself what a stationary beam of light looks like when c = 0 m/s (this is important because the effective speed of light does change in a medium, but that's not the same thing as light actually slowing). The osculations stop and physics says that such a thing ceases to exist. This is a bit wierd and so Einstein concluded that you shouldn't be able to catch up with a light beam. If it's just that the phrasing of the article's thought experiment was wrong, I have a copy that's explained much clearer. <font color="#CC0000" size="3">ADK <font color=#330033>...I'll waste your blimp! 09:54, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Wait, why did the kissing stop? 11:17, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The argument was never that the conclusion was wrong. It was that fallacies were being committed and as a result the argument was irrational, and invalid. When you look at the math, the cost to accelerate arbitrarily close to the speed of light becomes arbitrarily large, and so the force necessary to accelerate something to the speed of light would be infinite. Since infinite force doesn't exist, you cannot accelerate something to the speed of light. I've known this for a long time, and it's clear... but the argument was irrational. This is what happens when people aren't pedantic enough "but I'm right" isn't good enough! -- 09:59, 15 May 2011 (UTC)


 * The link you provide ADK about Einstein's Train is misconceiving a few issues of relativity and equivocating in a few others. I don't have a physics degree and so I can't explain everything that is wrong with it... I have some concepts about what the person is doing wrong, but I can't really put them well into words. But suffice it to say, the argument is false. And sounds like some stuff I would read on a different webpage. -- 02:44, 15 May 2011 (UTC)