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Single Idea 14016

[filed under theme 27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 1. Relativity / a. Special relativity ]

Full Idea

Special Relativity, with its definition of simultaneity, is shot through with verificationist assumptions.

Gist of Idea

The idea of simultaneity in Special Relativity is full of verificationist assumptions

Source

Craig Bourne (A Future for Presentism [2006], 6.IIc)

Book Ref

Bourne,Craig: 'A Future for Presentism' [OUP 2006], p.171


A Reaction

[He credits Sklar with this] I love hearing such points made, because all my instincts have rebelled against Einstein's story, even after I have been repeatedly told how stupid I am, and how I should study more maths etc.

Related Ideas

Idea 13993 Special Relativity denies the absolute present which Presentism needs [Markosian]

Idea 7621 Special relativity, unlike general relativity, was operationalist in spirit [Putnam on Einstein]


The 14 ideas from Craig Bourne

How can presentists talk of 'earlier than', and distinguish past from future? [Bourne]
The redundancy theory conflates metalinguistic bivalence with object-language excluded middle [Bourne]
It is a necessary condition for the existence of relations that both of the relata exist [Bourne]
All relations between spatio-temporal objects are either spatio-temporal, or causal [Bourne]
Presentism seems to deny causation, because the cause and the effect can never coexist [Bourne]
Special Relativity allows an absolute past, future, elsewhere and simultaneity [Bourne]
No-Futurists believe in past and present, but not future, and say the world grows as facts increase [Bourne]
The idea of simultaneity in Special Relativity is full of verificationist assumptions [Bourne]
Since presentists treat the presentness of events as basic, simultaneity should be define by that means [Bourne]
Is Sufficient Reason self-refuting (no reason to accept it!), or is it a legitimate explanatory tool? [Bourne]
Relativity denies simultaneity, so it needs past, present and future (unlike Presentism) [Bourne]
Time is tensed or tenseless; the latter says all times and objects are real, and there is no passage of time [Bourne]
B-series objects relate to each other; A-series objects relate to the present [Bourne]
Time flows, past is fixed, future is open, future is feared but not past, we remember past, we plan future [Bourne]
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