[geocentrism] Re: The aether.geocehtrism
- From: geocentric@xxxxxxxxxxxx
- To: geocentrism@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2004 14:14:13 +0100
Philip wrote:
> Ok it seems that we must get this aether out of the way , at least by
> concensus, that it is possible either way. I think it pretty conceited for
> one to say dogmatically , "it doesn't exist" or even "it does"
> I cannot see any possibility of the geocentric model working without it,
> unless it involved the infinite power of God, and in the normal things He
> does not interfere in that way.
Ok, my stance is "there is no theroy of a medium through which light
propogates that is consistent with the speed of light being constant no
matter how one is moving relative to the that medium." I don't see why
you need an aether to be a geocentric though.
> Mike said below,
> "If a wave propagates by displacement of a medium and you move relative
> to that medium then your speed will affect the apparent speed of the
> wave: classic doppler effect. Light however doesn't behave like this, "
>
> This statement seems to reveal the crux of the problem we are all having,
> which only occurred to me when I pointed out to steves post, that sound is
> mechanical and works in a mechanical medium. Light, any EMR is not a
> mechanical vibration, therefore we cannot talk about it displacing a
> mechanical medium, which seems to be the idea that many have had. Hence the
> many attempts to demonstrate its existence as some sort of physical
> material, or at least properties akin to such.
So if the aether isn't some physical material then what is it?
> At the risk of once again being accused of talking rubbish, though much
> greater brains than I have promoted this, I would like to put again what I
> think the aether really could be. Mike says that science does not depend on
> authority, but he must agree that we can and do resort to "authorities" on
> certain subjects. In any case the aether cannot be regarded as a mechanical
> medium. It has to be a condition of reality, that has very different and
> special properties.
Yes we do rely on authorities because we can't all peform every
experiment ever done and understand the maths in every theory. But in
principle we could do this and we can certainly do it for any area that
we don't believe to be true. I can't deny the existence of some
nebulous notion of aether that doesn't even have a physical relatiy. If
your theory ended up being mathematically equivalent to relativity then
calling it "the aether theory" would make no difference. But usually
when people talk about an aether they mean some sort of physical medium.
You need to be very explicit about what you mean by "aether" if you
mean something different to a physical medium through which light
propagates.
> According to Asimov, to understand the aether you have to consider the idea
> that the universe is not three, but four dimensional. What we experience as
> subjective time is in actuality our mental movement along an already
> existing component of the created universe called the fourth dimension.
> God said the book of life is already written, and all the names therein,
> or something like that. Daniel saw it.
>
> This is the model Asimov used to give us some chance of grasping it. (as
> accurately as I can remember it from the 50's.)
>
> Consider a three dimensional square based tower, with a finite height h. We
> are looking at a two dimensional world across the base dimensions, and it is
> populated with 2 dimensional beings. The height of this physical object
> represents the TIME of these beings. For this example a being lifespan lasts
> over the full height h.
>
> It is important to realise that flat world people do not have ANY height.
> They do not experience any height. They live their physical 2 D movements by
> subjectively (their consciousness) moving forward in time till they die.
>
> Lets move to the mid point of their mental existence , half way up the
> block. Below is the past, to them long gone, and the future is above,
> already there, but to them still to come.
>
> Looking from the outside we as three D people in a 3D world see the whole of
> these flatworlders existence. We can see that there is a physical material ,
> and if there was a flatlander person he would
> exist between the layers. That would be his "aetheric pressure" that his
> radio or magnetic feilds would react against. This also has something to do
> with the c constant of EMR, but I can't remember that part. Only exceeding
> the speed of light would jump across the layers.
>
> If this idea was translated to a 4 dimensional model, then quite a lot of
> unexplainable things would indeed be answered. But I cant even begin to
> understand the possible paradoxes that occurred to me when I first read this
> thesis.That belongs to God.
It sounds remarkably similar to a description of relativity's spacetime.
I also think it actually appeared in a novel of his about time travel,
I don't think he ever presented it as a theory - not sure. It is true
that according to relativity you could travel back in time if you could
go faster than c precisely because spacetime is 4d and a rotation in
this 4d space does change your perception of time. That's why clocks
slow down when they're moving relative to you. If they went at c they
would stop, if they went faster they would go backwards!
The "aetheric pressure" in this idea needs to be explained in a bit more
detail though. I might google this later and see if I can find out what
Asimov wrote.
Regards,
Mike.
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