Time: is time a concept or a physical force and can we prove the arrow of time

[David Cooper]

You do seem obsessed with finding contradiction where there is none.

I am merely concerned with approaching all issues with logical and mathematical precision rather than allowing anything slapdash to creep in and mess up the conclusions. Contradictions (genuine ones rather than apparent ones where people aren't using words to mean the same thing) should not be tolerated in any theory as they render it mathematically impossible (unless that theory is honest enough to admit that it departs from accepted mathematics).

It is not contradictory for two people to each say they are stationary in their own frames, with the other moving in them. They would both be true statements, despite both statements being "generated by using their frame as a base" as you put it.

Quite right - those statements are both true, but crucially they're not committing themselves to SR - their statements are just as true for LET. The contradictions only come into play when you tie things to a theory like SR with it's claim that all frames are equally valid, because then the measurements made using different frames as a base will contradict each other.

Merely angling the axes in some arbitrary way is exactly what you're doing by selecting a frame, so if you don't count these arbitrary orientation differences, then there are not multiple frames to be supposedly incompatible.

If you rotate the axes to a different angle, you then apply different coordinates to the content of the space you're representing, but you don't change the speed of of anything relative to your coordinate system. The angles you align your axes at are arbitrary and produce an infinite number of frames of reference which are all really the same frame, and that's why these infinite variant versions of frames can be removed from the discussion, making it much more economical to discuss the subject without long qualifications at every step to rule them out over and over again every time you want to make a simple statement like "all other frames are incompatible with this frame". The frames that remain in play for the discussion are the ones which are moving relative to each other, and there are an infinite number of those frames, all incompatible with each other in the claims they are making IF they are smuggling in a claim that they are all as valid as each other (which they automatically do whenever you're working by SR's rules).

If we've been brainwashed, then the we're brainwashed into something that is entirely consistent despite a century of falsification attempts. Inconsistencies would have been pointed out by smarter people than the armchair types (like myself) that post on these forums.

You've been brainwashed into thinking it's survived a century of falsification attempts - it has been thoroughly disproved, but the herd goes on pumping out propaganda to brainwash the masses into thinking that isn't the case. What you need to do is test it for yourself. Look at the facts. Look at the measurements. Look at the contradictions. When you stand at point A and ask questions about an event that's scheduled to happen at point B while different frames of reference are providing information about what should be happening at point B, some of those frames are telling you that the event hasn't happened yet while others are telling you that it has happened. They can't all be right, and yet SR asserts that they are. SR is founded in irrationality and physics is populated primarily by people who bought into this idiocy while the more rational ones followed other paths because they were rejected by what has become a really vicious mob. It's plain bullying that's been going on all this time with lesser minds ridiculing greater ones.

It isn't there in SR, but SR doesn't correspond to reality. There is a detectable fabric in GR, but that fabric is not stationary in any inertial frame. There cannot be a preferred inertial frame because no inertial frame foliates all of spacetime. A given frame is only meaningful locally.

The expansion of the space fabric means that the absolute frame at one location is not the same as the absolute frame at a distant location, but at every point in space there will be an absolute frame local to that point. SR attempts to ignore the fabric of space and pretend it doesn't need it, but logically it depends heavily on it - space is not nothing because it has properties relating to separation, speed limit and direction which are strictly enforced, and that requires a space fabric. SR is then more complex than LET in that it supports contradictions by limiting the speed of light to c relative to all frames at the same time even though that is mathematically impossible. People are simply trained to brush the contradictions under the carpet and deny that they exist. Trump is not the only person playing ridiculous games where he asserts contradictory things while making out that he's being consistent at all times - he is taking his lead from the physicists who play equally fast and loose with mathematics.

[Halc]

Contradictions should not be tolerated in any theory as they render it mathematically impossible.

Indeed.

It is not contradictory for two people to each say they are stationary in their own frames, with the other moving in them.

Quite right - those statements are both true, but crucially they're not committing themselves to SR - their statements are just as true for LET. The contradictions only come into play when you tie things to a theory like SR with it's claim that all frames are equally valid, because then the measurements made using different frames as a base will contradict each other.

They are not contradictory, yet you seem to suggest that there is a contradiction here. SR lays no claim that measurements of things in different frames will be the same. A few things. Events are separated by a frame-independent interval for instance. That value should be the same regardless of frame in which the measurement is considered.

If you rotate the axes to a different angle, you then apply different coordinates to the content of the space you're representing, but you don't change the speed of of anything relative to your coordinate system.

Well, you change the speed of it relative to a different coordinate system. An inertial object might be stationary if you rotate the axes so that the worldline of the object is parallel to the temporal axis, yet moving if the temporal axis is aligned in any other orientation.

The angles you align your axes at are arbitrary and produce an infinite number of frames of reference which are all really the same frame

You seem to be holding the temporal axis fixed to conclude this. This is more a 3D Newtonian model of space instead of 4D spacetime. The orientation of the temporal axis is the (arbitrary) selection of a frame.

The frames that remain in play for the discussion are the ones which are moving relative to each other

FYI, frames don't move since they're not objects. They are references against which velocity of other things is defined.

and there are an infinite number of those frames, all incompatible with each other in the claims they are making IF they are smuggling in a claim that they are all as valid as each other (which they automatically do whenever you're working by SR's rules).

Kindly spell out one of these inconsistencies. All just talk if you don't point out an actual inconsistency that SR supposedly has been hiding. Throw me an example please.

The expansion of the space fabric means that the absolute frame at one location is not the same as the absolute frame at a distant location, but at every point in space there will be an absolute frame local to that point.

Pretty much, yes. It kind of loses its meaning where space is significantly bent, but SR isn't valid in bent space, so we get the idea anyway.

SR attempts to ignore the fabric of space and pretend it doesn't need it, but logically it depends heavily on it - space is not nothing because it has properties relating to separation, speed limit and direction which are strictly enforced, and that requires a space fabric.

I cannot find anything in SR that references or requires such a fabric or a concept of a preferred frame. GR has those, but SR still works. Less time still passes on Earth in the frame of a ship making a rapid trip from here to some distant star. Fabric of space (or lack of it) makes no difference to that.

SR is then more complex than LET in that it supports contradictions by limiting the speed of light to c relative to all frames at the same time even though that is mathematically impossible.

So you continue to assert, yet very accurate measurements in different frames confirm this fact that you find so contradictory. Constant light speed is the sole premise of SR in fact. The rest follows from it.

You said yourself that LET is just a different interpretation of the same theory. That's fine, but it isn't a different scientific theory then, just a different metaphysical interpretation of it. SR doesn't assert any particular interpretation. It just says what will be empirically observed. Perhaps that is our disconnect. Maybe you think relativity asserts a certain philosophical interpretation, but it doesn't. If LET makes no different predictions, then SR cannot be inconsistent without LET also being inconsistent.

I mean, you say this:

Not so - the predictions are consistent with a constant flow of time, as shown in LET (Lorentz Ether Theory) which makes the same predictions as SR and GR using the same mathematics but with a very different interpretation. LET also has the advantage of not generating the contradictions that Einstein's theories do.

How can two theories make all the same predictions, but one has contradictions? The contradictions are probably because you are begging the premises of the LET interpretation and applying those premises to an interpretation that is not LET.

For instance, SR does not require 4D spacetime to work. I've defended that fact in some topics where the OP claims that relativity proves or asserts 4D spacetime. It doesn't. The 4D model just simplifies the mathematics, but any frame at all can be designated as the preferred frame, and the whole thing still works. Events are then objectively ordered, and frames that order them otherwise are simply not the preferred frame, but those frames are not 'incorrect' because of that.

As for LET describing a 'flow of time', constant or not, there is no way to detect a flow (or lack of it) at all. There is not even a unit for it. Seconds per second? That simplifies to nothing, like asserting that distance flows at a rate of meters per meter.

[Steve3007]

David, I've started writing a reply to your previous posts to me but not finished yet. Before posting it, I'll let your conversation with Halc continue for a bit as I think Halc is making some good points. For example, this:

How can two theories make all the same predictions, but one has contradictions?

I started doing your online "eight-question exam". I appreciate the effort you appear to have put into this whole subject, but one obvious problem with the exam is that it insists on "yes/no" answers that then decide what branch it takes to the next question (much like the dice example in the first question). If one does not accept the premises that inform the question then one cannot answer with a simple yes or no. Like the classic "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" example.

Ask: "Have you stopped beating your wife yet? Yes or no?"
If "yes" reply: "You used to beat your wife? You monster!"
If "no" reply: "You're still beating your wife? You monster!"

So I'll probably paste your questions from that exam into here at some point and give answers in my own words.

Also one more thing to beware of: Over the years I've read the words of many, many people who were convinced that the mainstream view on various subjects is a conspiracy of vested interests followed blindly by sheep. For sure, sometimes the most widely accepted view on a subject is rightly overturned by a revolution. But often, the most widely accepted view on a subject is widely accepted because it has been shown to work.

[Steve3007]

(To any women reading this, I apologize for the apparently slightly sexist nature of the example I gave of a loaded question. The problem is, it's often convenient to use well worn idioms that are familiar in our culture for such things, but well worn idioms often tend to be archaic. Another example is a phrase that is sometimes used, in British English, to signify "the everyday person on the street". That phrase is "the man on the Clapham omnibus". A fantastically anachronistic one.)

[David Cooper]

They are not contradictory, yet you seem to suggest that there is a contradiction here.

Of course there's a contradiction there - it comes in as soon as you endorse the SR specification which demands that no frames have a higher status than any others. By denying an absolute frame, you automatically have contradictions in that every acceleration is also a deceleration, and every such change in speed leads to a clock both running slower and speeding up at the same time. These are contradictions that cannot be tolerated by anyone rational.

SR lays no claim that measurements of things in different frames will be the same.

The claim that causes the problem is the one that all frames are equally valid and that none are in any way superior to any others - that is what leads to the contradictions. It is only by having an absolute frame (or by switching to a different SR model with Minkowski Spacetime) that the contradictions are avoided because the superiority of one frame is accepted and the rest are recognised as being misrepresentations of reality.

Events are separated by a frame-independent interval for instance. That value should be the same regardless of frame in which the measurement is considered.

You'll need to expand on that, because it doesn't appear to fit with relativity at all (any version). The measured time between events varies widely for different frames.

Well, you change the speed of it relative to a different coordinate system. An inertial object might be stationary if you rotate the axes so that the worldline of the object is parallel to the temporal axis, yet moving if the temporal axis is aligned in any other orientation.

I can't make out whether your point is an objection or not. Rotating the axes produces a different coordinate system in which the speeds of all objects are measured to be exactly the same as in the previous one. My point is simply that all such coordinate systems where the measured speeds don't change should be considered to be different versions of the same frame. This shouldn't need to be argued about because it's a standard approach aimed at simplifying discussion by removing the need to keep including clauses to exclude them over and over again whenever simple statements are being made about different frames (where the measured speeds are different).

You seem to be holding the temporal axis fixed to conclude this. This is more a 3D Newtonian model of space instead of 4D spacetime. The orientation of the temporal axis is the (arbitrary) selection of a frame.

Frames of reference are always 3D Newtonian representations, and to switch to a genuinely different frame, the origin must be moving relative to the first frame. The way time is affected by this is that the synchronisation across the frame is different from the previous frame.

FYI, frames don't move since they're not objects. They are references against which velocity of other things is defined.

Frames move relative to each other just as objects which are at rest in different frames move relative to each other. It is impossible for them not to. Put the origin on the object that's at rest in each frame and you'll see that the origins have to move relative to each other just as the objects have to. I am not surprised that you don't understand the rules as to how frames of reference work, because it is normal for the establishment to fail to teach the details properly - they don't care if you misunderstand the rules as they don't want you to understand LET. As for why they have such a pathological hatred of LET, that has always been an unfathomable mystery to me.

Kindly spell out one of these inconsistencies. All just talk if you don't point out an actual inconsistency that SR supposedly has been hiding. Throw me an example please.

I've shown you one more than clearly enough. You're standing at point A and you know that an event will happen at a certain time at point B. One frame of reference tells you it must have happened by now, but another frame tells you that it hasn't happened yet. If both frames are equally valid, then both are equally true: the event has already happened AND hasn't happened yet. That is a very stark contradiction, and if you can't see that it's a contradiction, you're beyond help.

The expansion of the space fabric means that the absolute frame at one location is not the same as the absolute frame at a distant location, but at every point in space there will be an absolute frame local to that point.

Pretty much, yes. It kind of loses its meaning where space is significantly bent, but SR isn't valid in bent space, so we get the idea anyway.

This particular issue isn't about bent space - it could be a straight expansion.

I cannot find anything in SR that references or requires such a fabric or a concept of a preferred frame.

That's because it's ignored, but it logically depends on it regardless. The only alternative is that everything has to carry some kind of data to give it a location through a system like coordinates and they have to crunch lots of data in order to work out if they're supposed to interact with each other - that would be a virtual universe rather than a real one.

Less time still passes on Earth in the frame of a ship making a rapid trip from here to some distant star. Fabric of space (or lack of it) makes no difference to that.

If you don't have a space fabric, how do you support the phenomenon of distance in order for the ship and the "distant" star not to be touching each other from the start? A theory that fails to factor in mechanisms for vital services of that kind is inferior to a theory that does the same job while factoring them in, but what do we get? People using really bad philosophy argue that the defective theory is superior because it's "simpler" by dint of omitting components vital to its functionality! And having done that, they then accuse people like me of bringing in philosophy when I talk about the need for an absolute frame while they imagine that they somehow aren't doing philosophy when they argue that it isn't needed, even though it provides vital services that their model steals without acknowledging the source. We are all doing philosophy - philosophy is applied reasoning and mathematics, and if you're looking for explanations and potential mechanisms behind natural phenomena, you simply can't get anywhere without it. Some people apply it consistently and rigorously, but others are highly inconsistent in how they use it and trample over all the rules. Correct use of Occam's razor takes out SR rather than LET.

So you continue to assert, yet very accurate measurements in different frames confirm this fact that you find so contradictory. Constant light speed is the sole premise of SR in fact. The rest follows from it.

Different frames set the speed of light relative to them to c as part of the rules as to how frames work, and that dictates everything else they do - they do not confirm the speed of light relative to themselves because they have set themselves up directly on the basis that light travels at c relative to them, and in doing so, they all assert that the speed of light relative to ALL other frames is >c in some directions and <c the other way.

You said yourself that LET is just a different interpretation of the same theory.

No - they are radically different theories (using very different mechanisms) which happen to share the same maths and make the same predictions.

That's fine, but it isn't a different scientific theory then, just a different metaphysical interpretation of it. SR doesn't assert any particular interpretation. ... Maybe you think relativity asserts a certain philosophical interpretation, but it doesn't.

SR dictates that there is no absolute frame; that no frame is superior to any other. As a result, it produces contradictions which invalidate it (or rather, which invalidate Einstein's original version - the versions with Minkowski Spacetime are invalidated in other ways).

If LET makes no different predictions, then SR cannot be inconsistent without LET also being inconsistent.

SR produces contradictions because its dogma produces them. LET does not produce those contradictions because it recognises that at any location, one frame represents reality correctly and all the rest misrepresent it.

How can two theories make all the same predictions, but one has contradictions? The contradictions are probably because you are begging the premises of the LET interpretation and applying those premises to an interpretation that is not LET.

One theory says that "it's already happened" and "it hasn't happened yet" and simultaneously compatible claims, but the other says they are contradictions. If you can't see the incompatibility between the two claims, I probably can't help you any further - you have made yourself contradiction-blind (or miseducation has done that to you).

For instance, SR does not require 4D spacetime to work. I've defended that fact in some topics where the OP claims that relativity proves or asserts 4D spacetime. It doesn't. The 4D model just simplifies the mathematics, but any frame at all can be designated as the preferred frame, and the whole thing still works. Events are then objectively ordered, and frames that order them otherwise are simply not the preferred frame, but those frames are not 'incorrect' because of that.

Einstein's original SR without 4D Spacetime produces contradictions. Those contradictions can be semi-removed by switching to a block universe with Minkowski Spacetime because you can then make things Lorentz invariant, but this only works in a pre-built block with the entire future already in place and set in stone as that block. However, to generate such a block in the first place you have to switch to other rules as the contradictions come straight back in otherwise. That construction phase under different rules necessarily becomes real physics, while the imaginary stuff in the block universe then becomes superfluous junk with "for Occam's razor" written all over it.

As for LET describing a 'flow of time', constant or not, there is no way to detect a flow (or lack of it) at all. There is not even a unit for it. Seconds per second? That simplifies to nothing, like asserting that distance flows at a rate of meters per meter.

Time is locked firmly to causality at every step. Causation is a process with befores and afters running all through it and it has to flow through in order. Many physicists are happy with the block universe idea where there is no flow of time, but not only can they not then account for the generation of the block (and rely on it existing pre-built in its entirety by magic instead), this is made infinitely worse by the patterns of causality written all through it which require the thing to be generated in order of causation in order to avoid it being the most improbable thing ever envisaged by man, beast or alien: more improbable than any of the most ridiculous of religious ideas.

[David Cooper]

I started doing your online "eight-question exam". I appreciate the effort you appear to have put into this whole subject,

Thanks - I really appreciate it when someone has the balls to give it a go.

...but one obvious problem with the exam is that it insists on "yes/no" answers that then decide what branch it takes to the next question (much like the dice example in the first question). If one does not accept the premises that inform the question then one cannot answer with a simple yes or no.

That's absolutely fine - you're fully entitled to object on such a basis. What matters is to pin down the place(s) where an error could lie in the argument, and there are bound to be places where the wording can be tightened up to address any issues that you have with it, so it's helpful to have you draw attention to them. Also, if you do actually find a fault that destroys the argument, that will be a helpful advance for science which I will welcome - no dud argument should be allowed to stand anywhere.

Also one more thing to beware of: Over the years I've read the words of many, many people who were convinced that the mainstream view on various subjects is a conspiracy of vested interests followed blindly by sheep. For sure, sometimes the most widely accepted view on a subject is rightly overturned by a revolution. But often, the most widely accepted view on a subject is widely accepted because it has been shown to work.

I don't think there's any conspiracy involved here - it's simply a mind virus which is propagated like a religion, shutting down people's ability to think and doing so by asserting authority rather than rigorously applying logic and mathematics. As for the business of SR being shown to work, well no - it has never been simulated by its own rules, but always cheats by introducing components that are banned in the model because it cannot work otherwise.

[Eduk]

David why are you trying to convince the readers of this philosophy forum about 'your' theories? Also what qualifications do you have?

[Halc]

I started doing your online "eight-question exam". I appreciate the effort you appear to have put into this whole subject,

Thanks - I really appreciate it when someone has the balls to give it a go.

Without reading the recent posts (except this quoted bit above), I also looked at your page and would like to comment.

It starts out with some misunderstanding...

Relativity came out of the simple idea that you can never tell whether you are moving or not.

This describes the principle of relativity, which predates Galileo. TOR comes out of the simple idea that light speed is measured at the same speed in any frame. SR come from ONLY that premise. GR includes plenty of other observations, including the restriction that there is only no local test for being stationary. There is a non-local test for it, so SR is a local model.

Albert Einstein's theory of relativity says that it is impossible to work out whether anything is really moving or not, and that does indeed seem to be the case (although he wasn't the first person to say this), but he went on to claim that it is perfectly correct to say that everything is both stationary and moving at the same time: you can claim that you are stationary while everything moving relative to you is moving, but it is also right for someone else to claim that they are stationary while everything moving relative to them is moving, including you: it's all relative! Both beliefs are valid not just because neither can be proved or disproved, but because he asserts that both claims are true, and that both claims are equally true.

This is already taking the tone I expected. Principle of relativity asserts says that one might be stationary in one frame and moving in another. Again, Galileo and Newton knew this. Your omission of reference frames (which are not Einstein's concepts) is misleading and implies that one might have different velocities in the same way (in the same frame), which nobody claims. Absolutely none of this touches on Einstein's claims.

Anyway, I looked at the exam, despite the disclaimer that I am unable to reason correctly if I don't agree with your conclusions. My beliefs should in fact play no role in this. If it is the proof that it claims to be, it would demonstrate an inconsistency in my stance.

Q1: Concerning event ordering: This question presumes locality (that causes precede effects), which not all interpretations do. Relativity states little on this front. I'm willing to assume that premise. You say the events are separated by time. They are also potentially separated by space, but not enough to be non-local. It asks if 'time must run', which is a metaphysical premise which I personally find unlikely. So I answered 'no' since there is no empirical difference one way or the other. There is no way to demonstrate this. No doubt I am already unable to reason correctly.

The exam throws me out because I answered wrong.

You deny that time runs, so you have immediately restricted yourself to the static block universe model

I did not deny that time runs. The question asked if time must flow, but I don't know. It works either way. You're asking me to restrict myself to a presentist model (presentism works under relativity also). A proof that forces such a restriction is already begging.

... but that model does not allow a universe to be generated in the first place as it allows no change whatsoever.

A block model has change in it. Each dice throw takes place at a different event and the calculator state changes at each operation.
The presentist model also doesn't explain the generation of the universe, or the generation of the time in which it exists. Neither flowing nor block model proposes an explanation of the universe's existence.

I went to question 2. The diagram above the simulation has Y-b and Z-b being stationary, despite the description saying that Y-a/Z-a being stationary. The simulation matches the verbal description, so maybe the same situation is being shown, but from different reference frames. Anyway, I found the diagram to be quite accurate. The simulation is confusing because it pictorially puts the blue planet as stationary (on the time axis), but time of all four objects (2 planets, 2 rockets) apparently plotted by clocks carried along with those objects, which makes the rockets get to Y/X-b before the planets do. I suppose that works, but it took me a while to realize that the diagram is not illustrating the state at any given moment. If you want to show it under presentism, all 4 objects should be in the same horizontal line, which is the current state of this universe at any given time.

That said, I actually went back to the question. It asks if the picture/simulation is a fair model. It is hard to say that, but since the diagram shows one frame, and the simulation is depicted from another, I'd almost say yes. But the simulation does not show the state of the universe any time after the rockets are launched. It depicts the facts from no reference frame at all. It seems to attempt to show it from the frame of the blue planet (which is stationary), but the rockets should be shown at their home planets when that event is reached (both rocket and planet are present at that event), and the simulation doesn't show that. So no, it isn't a fair model, but you note below the simulation that the events fail to mesh correctly. So I will actually give the question a yes answer so long as you don't draw conclusions from this failure to depict the state of things at a given time.

Question 3:

You will notice that the rockets arrive at the reunion points with their planets long before the planets get there, and that makes it impossible for them to interact with each other at those points until the planets catch them up, at which point they can interact with the rockets

Just as predicted. You are drawing conclusions from the failure of the simulation to depict the state of the system at a given moment, in any reference frame, not just the one chosen. So I retract my up-vote for question 2. The simulation is in no way an accurate depiction of the state of the system at any given time since you have objects moving upward at different rates.

I see no point in going further.

[Steve3007]

I often find, in conversations like this, that it's difficult to keep up. I started writing some replies to one of David's earlier posts but before I've had a chance to post them, lots more stuff has been said. Before I'd managed to reply to that, more stuff had been said. So I'll try not to be too anal about meticulously answering points in order, and I'll just jump in wherever I feel like it.

For now I'll jump in here. Halc said this:

Events are separated by a frame-independent interval for instance. That value should be the same regardless of frame in which the measurement is considered.

David replied with this:

You'll need to expand on that, because it doesn't appear to fit with relativity at all (any version). The measured time between events varies widely for different frames.

Halc didn't say measured time. He said interval. The word interval has a specific meaning in Relativity physics. Spacetime interval is, as Halc said, invariant. If two events are separated by a "spacelike" interval then their spatial separation is such that no information can have passed from one event to the other so they cannot have influenced each other. There can be no causal connection between them. Different observers can observe them happening in a different time sequence depending on how they are moving relative to those events. If two events are separated by a "timelike" interval then information can pass between them and there can be a causal connection between them. One of them could be the cause of the other. All observers will observe them happening in the same temporal order. You could do an experiment (i.e. make an observation) which shows to all other observers this causal connection.


More generally, your recent comments seem to me to confirm the difference in general worldview that I mentioned in an earlier post. You appear to believe it useful to consider an entirely observer-independent "reality" that renders some observations objectively "wrong" and some objectively "right", as opposed to believing that accurately performed observations are simply observations. Reality is the aggregate of all possible observations of it.

The contradictions you claim to exist in Relativity seem to stem mainly from your using this worldview in your choice of language. Examples:

You're standing at point A and you know that an event will happen at a certain time at point B. One frame of reference tells you it must have happened by now, but another frame tells you that it hasn't happened yet. If both frames are equally valid, then both are equally true: the event has already happened AND hasn't happened yet. That is a very stark contradiction, and if you can't see that it's a contradiction, you're beyond help.

An observer stationary in one frame of reference can observe events happening in a different order to an observer stationary in another frame of reference if the interval between those two events is such that one event cannot possibly have a causal connection to the other. Neither of those observers is objectively right or wrong about some supposed objective truth as to which event happened first. They have both made accurate observations. If you disagree, then you have to do so by describing a possible observation - a measurement or experiment - that demonstrates one or both of those observers to be wrong. If there is no possible causal connection between the events then you cannot do so. There is no possible observation which will give an objective, single answer as to which event happened first.

By denying an absolute frame, you automatically have contradictions in that every acceleration is also a deceleration, and every such change in speed leads to a clock both running slower and speeding up at the same time. These are contradictions that cannot be tolerated by anyone rational.

Obviously every acceleration is a deceleration. You will have learnt that in high school physics. A ball thrown into the air and in free fall is accelerating in a coordinate system in which the positive direction points towards the Earth (down). Therefore it is decelerating in a coordinate system in which the positive direction points away from the Earth (up).

A clock can be observed, by an observer who is moving relative to it, to be running slower than he observes a clock relative to which he is stationary to be running. While the opposite can be true for an observer moving with the first clock. Again if you think this is wrong, then tell me an experiment that an observer can do to demonstrate that. Don't just talk in terms of observer-irrelevant metaphysics.

This example, I think, shows this difference in worldview most starkly:

No - they are radically different theories (using very different mechanisms) which happen to share the same maths and make the same predictions.

If they really did share the same maths and make the same predictions then the differences between them would be entirely metaphysical. If it looks like a duck, and it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it is, for all meaningful purposes, a duck.

[Halc]

I would like to add that if LET makes all the same predictions, it would also predict that each rockets returns home while home is still in the past, as your simulation depicts, so LET would also be disproved by this (invalid) argument.

Of course there's a contradiction there - it comes in as soon as you endorse the SR specification which demands that no frames have a higher status than any others. By denying an absolute frame, you automatically have contradictions in that every acceleration is also a deceleration

Interesting. Acceleration is a vector rate of change in velocity, not a change in speed. There is no difference between acceleration and deceleration. The ISS for instance is always accelerating, yet its speed remains constant (relative to Earth). This is high-school physics, not even touching on relativity.

and every such change in speed leads to a clock both running slower and speeding up at the same time. These are contradictions that cannot be tolerated by anyone rational.

This part however touches on relativity. Speed is defined within a frame, and within that frame, the clock rate is dilated in accordance to that one speed. In a different frame, it might be dilated less. So I suppose a velocity difference would result in a larger and smaller speed in different frames (and corresponding time dilation), but that is not 'in the same way', so not a violation of the law of non-contradiction.

You'll need to expand on that, because it doesn't appear to fit with relativity at all (any version). The measured time between events varies widely for different frames.

Time is just one component of 4D spacetime. An event is a point in that 4D space, and regardless of the IRF chosen, the separation between any two such points (called the interval) is a fixed value. It might be pure space, pure time, or a combination of both, depending on the arbitrary orientation of the 4 axes.
I just brought it up as an example of something that is frame-independent.

I can't make out whether your point is an objection or not. Rotating the axes produces a different coordinate system in which the speeds of all objects are measured to be exactly the same as in the previous one.

You seem to be only rotating the spatial axes. OK, your model is a 3D one, so talk of worldlines and such is perhaps speaking to a different interpretation, but you did it in your web page. In the one diagram for question 2, the worldline of the planet (you drew the worldlines of all 4 objects) that moves to the right was depicted as parallel to the time axis, but in the simulation of the same scenario, the temporal axis was oriented with the left-bound planet. You rotated the temporal axis to be parallel to the worldline of a different planet. The speed of each object were suddenly not exactly the same, since a different planet is now stationary, and the former stationary planet is now moving at .866c to the right.

Frames of reference are always 3D Newtonian representations, and to switch to a genuinely different frame, the origin must be moving relative to the first frame.

Frames don't have positions or origins. They don't have velocities, but they do have velocities relative to each other.

Frames move relative to each other just as objects which are at rest in different frames move relative to each other.

Yes.

As for why they have such a pathological hatred of LET, that has always been an unfathomable mystery to me.

I don't hate it. It isn't wrong. It doesn't contradict relativity. It just isn't the only valid interpretation, and you seem to feel otherwise.

You're standing at point A and you know that an event will happen at a certain time at point B. One frame of reference tells you it must have happened by now, but another frame tells you that it hasn't happened yet.

If I am at the spatial location B where the event happens, then the fact that the event has 'happened by now' or not will not be dependent on frame. I presume that point A is not at B. From any other location in space such as A, different frames order events differently, and the event at B may be in the future or past of some event at A. Again, this would violate the law of non-contradiction only if the A before B and B before A were true in the same way, but they're not since they're being considered in different frames. You presume that there is an objective ordering of events, which is not asserted (or denied) by relativity. I think LET asserts such an ordering, in which case the one frame is preferred, and the other frames order events incorrectly. SR just says there is no local way to know if B has happened before A.

If both frames are equally valid, then both are equally true: the event has already happened AND hasn't happened yet.

No. The event has already happened in one frame, AND hasn't happened yet in another. Relativity does not use your wording.

That is a very stark contradiction, and if you can't see that it's a contradiction, you're beyond help.

You presume an objective ordering, and if you chose one, then you can happily say that other frames order events in non-objective order. SR does not forbid this. Relative simultaneity is not the same as objective simultaneity, and SR only speaks to the former. I am stationary in my chair here, and at the same time am moving at 1000 km/hr due to spin of Earth. This is not a contradiction in the same way that your example is non-contradictory.

That's because it's ignored, but it logically depends on it regardless.

How can it be logically dependent on what it doesn't mention? As I said, it only has one premise, and that premise doesn't mention a fabric or an objective frame. It seems you need to assert such things to beg your specific interpretation, but SR doesn't assert any particular interpretation.

The only alternative is that everything has to carry some kind of data to give it a location through a system like coordinates and they have to crunch lots of data in order to work out if they're supposed to interact with each other - that would be a virtual universe rather than a real one.

Things have a location???? I'd love to know the location of us, without relating to anything else that has no more of a location than us. From the big bang (the only objective event I can think of), how would you direct somebody to this galaxy? That at least gives an origin. What are our coordinates from there?

Less time still passes on Earth in the frame of a ship making a rapid trip from here to some distant star. Fabric of space (or lack of it) makes no difference to that.

If you don't have a space fabric, how do you support the phenomenon of distance in order for the ship and the "distant" star not to be touching each other from the start?

You're confusing space with objective space. Things still have relative separation under SR, just no objective location or objective velocity. The fabric is the objective aether-like stuff in relation to which one might be objectively stationary.

So you continue to assert, yet very accurate measurements in different frames confirm this fact that you find so contradictory. Constant light speed is the sole premise of SR in fact. The rest follows from it.

Different frames set the speed of light relative to them to c as part of the rules as to how frames work, and that dictates everything else they do - they do not confirm the speed of light relative to themselves because they have set themselves up directly on the basis that light travels at c relative to them, and in doing so, they all assert that the speed of light relative to ALL other frames is >c in some directions and <c the other way.

Ouch...
Is this a deliberate misrepresentation? This is in direct conflict with the empirical premise of SR. It describes no known theory, LET included.

No - they are radically different theories (using very different mechanisms) which happen to share the same maths and make the same predictions.

Sharing the same maths sounds like the same mechanisms. Sharing the same predictions sounds like the same theory, but differing on being grounded on a preferred frame. I looked it up, and while it had different roots, the modern version is just considered to be just an interpretation of SR with a preferred frame playing the role of the otherwise undetectable aether. The distinctions with standard spacetime interpretation of SR are all just philosophical, not scientific.

That's fine, but it isn't a different scientific theory then, just a different metaphysical interpretation of it. SR doesn't assert any particular interpretation. ... Maybe you think relativity asserts a certain philosophical interpretation, but it doesn't.

SR dictates that there is no absolute frame; that no frame is superior to any other

It says there is no local test to detect it. It doesn't assert its nonexistence. In fact, an obvious one is suggested by a non-local test: the frame of the center of gravity of all the stuff within sight.

SR produces contradictions because its dogma produces them. LET does not produce those contradictions because it recognises that at any location, one frame represents reality correctly and all the rest misrepresent it.

SR is not a metaphysical model of reality. It is a scientific theory that states that local empirical observations of any test will behave the same in any frame. You seem to confuse this scientific theory with the metaphysical model that there is no objectively more correct reference frame. That metaphysical model does indeed sometimes accompany the SR theory, but SR does not assert it. GR sort of asserts a preferred frame, so in that sense, GR and LET are quite similar.

How can two theories make all the same predictions, but one has contradictions? The contradictions are probably because you are begging the premises of the LET interpretation and applying those premises to an interpretation that is not LET.

One theory says that "it's already happened" and "it hasn't happened yet" and simultaneously compatible claims, but the other says they are contradictions.

SR does not claim "it already happened". It claims that it it already happened in a certain frame, which is a relative simultaneity, not an absolute (metaphysical) one. SR does not assert what is. It just asserts what will be measured. The former is metaphysics and the latter is science. You seem to have no capability to separate the two.

For instance, SR does not require 4D spacetime to work. I've defended that fact in some topics where the OP claims that relativity proves or asserts 4D spacetime. It doesn't. The 4D model just simplifies the mathematics, but any frame at all can be designated as the preferred frame, and the whole thing still works. Events are then objectively ordered, and frames that order them otherwise are simply not the preferred frame, but those frames are not 'incorrect' because of that.

Einstein's original SR without 4D Spacetime produces contradictions.

Oh really...
Seems to work fine in 3D. It is instructive to do the standard train/platform example in 3D instead of 4D.

As for LET describing a 'flow of time', constant or not, there is no way to detect a flow (or lack of it) at all. There is not even a unit for it. Seconds per second? That simplifies to nothing, like asserting that distance flows at a rate of meters per meter.

Time is locked firmly to causality at every step. Causation is a process with befores and afters running all through it and it has to flow through in order.

Funny, but I can effortlessly find a causal structure that has no flow. I don't care to argue eternalism with you. Relativity doesn't assert it, so I'm fine with your biases for the topic at hand.
OK, the thread is sort of about it, and not about relativity. The arrow of time is proved by entropy. Without that, there is no arrow. Past and future are not distinct.

[David Cooper]

David why are you trying to convince the readers of this philosophy forum about 'your' theories?

I don't think you should be attributing Lorentz's theory to me any more than I should attribute Einstein's work to people who've bought into his theories.

Also what qualifications do you have?

Am I endorsed by the clergy? No. Am I an expert in reasoning? Yes. Can people check my qualifications? Yes - all you have to do is check my reasoning and try to find faults in it. If you can't find faults, then I pass the test.

[Eduk]

I'm not qualified to talk expertly on general relativity. So therefore my reasoning goes as this. On the side of general relativity the weight of scientific consensus. On the side of ether, no reputable living physicist. Personally I enjoy using sat nav and trust those who made it when they say how. Not a fan of grand conspiracy theories. Also relativity would be a huge scalp to claim, no living physicist wouldn't love to win a nobel prize and disprove relativity. This forum seems an insane place to post cutting edge physics with any hope of expert feedback. So therefore I conclude ether to be obvious pseudoscience.
So what makes you think you are an expert in reasoning? What past successes lead you to believe this? I assume you have a PhD in physics and work for Cern? Or equivalent?
Would love to know what you hope to gain here.
I mean actually I assume you are making a cry for help. Unfortunately I'm perhaps not a great person to do that to. My advice would be to try.

[David Cooper]

Relativity came out of the simple idea that you can never tell whether you are moving or not.

This describes the principle of relativity, which predates Galileo. TOR comes out of the simple idea that light speed is measured at the same speed in any frame.

Whenever you try to measure the speed of light you get the same value for it if you assume that you are stationary. If you assume you are moving, you measure values other than c for the speed of light relative to you, so you're quite wrong - you always get back the assumption you put in at the start and there are an infinite number of assumptions about your speed that you can use as a starting point. It is much more efficient to describe relativity by making the point that you can never tell whether you're moving or not.

This is already taking the tone I expected. Principle of relativity asserts says that one might be stationary in one frame and moving in another. Again, Galileo and Newton knew this. Your omission of reference frames (which are not Einstein's concepts) is misleading and implies that one might have different velocities in the same way (in the same frame), which nobody claims. Absolutely none of this touches on Einstein's claims.

What I said is correct. If you want to misinterpret it and imagine that I'm saying things can have multiple speeds in a single frame when I haven't mentioned frames, that's your problem, but my intended meaning is perfectly clear and is confirmed later whenever I use reference frames.

Anyway, I looked at the exam, despite the disclaimer that I am unable to reason correctly if I don't agree with your conclusions. My beliefs should in fact play no role in this. If it is the proof that it claims to be, it would demonstrate an inconsistency in my stance.

Or a conflict between your position and the rules of reasoning.

Q1: Concerning event ordering: This question presumes locality (that causes precede effects), which not all interpretations do. Relativity states little on this front. I'm willing to assume that premise. You say the events are separated by time. They are also potentially separated by space, but not enough to be non-local. It asks if 'time must run', which is a metaphysical premise which I personally find unlikely. So I answered 'no' since there is no empirical difference one way or the other. There is no way to demonstrate this. No doubt I am already unable to reason correctly.

The question (preceded by some clues as to one of the most vital services that time must provide) was "Do you accept that time must run (or flow) so that events can run through in order?" The example given involves a series of cause-and-effect events at a single location and the steps have to be carried out in a precise order in order to generate the correct end result. Time and causality are locked together. The calculations must run through in order, and time must run alongside that - you can't have causation running through a series of before-and-after/previous-and-next steps without time running too. No time running --> no possibility of the cause-and-effect steps running through. By denying time the ability to run, you deny the right for all cause-and-effect process, which means that the results of long complications with large numbers of steps which must be carried out in the correct order cannot be calculated at all but must simply exist by magic without the process ever being run. That is a magical model rather a rational one.

The exam throws me out because I answered wrong.

It does that because a time that doesn't run leaves you depending on magic.

You deny that time runs, so you have immediately restricted yourself to the static block universe model

I did not deny that time runs. The question asked if time must flow, but I don't know. It works either way. You're asking me to restrict myself to a presentist model (presentism works under relativity also). A proof that forces such a restriction is already begging.

This "exam" is doing the job it's designed to do, pinning people down on precise points so that they don't just wave vaguely at the whole thing and say "it's wrong". In this case, you're objecting the the question because you're nitpicking about its interpretation, making too much of the words "run" and "flow" as if these are some exotic philosophical idea. There's nothing difficult about it. What the question is asking is whether you're prepared to allow processes to process - to carry out a series of steps in order, moving from one thing to the next, from a before to an after. If you aren't, you have sided with magic instead of physics because you are making it impossible for causation to be a real phenomenon. SR adherents play games with the word "time" and manage to confuse lots of people, but everything that involves time can be locked 1:1 with causation and process. The weirdness that people may be stupid enough to accept about the nature of time doesn't wash when it's applied to chains of causation - they can then see clearly what's really being shut down by the denial that time runs/flows.

A block model has change in it. Each dice throw takes place at a different event and the calculator state changes at each operation.

A block model has the illusion of change and process in it, but there is no change and no process taking place in it - it is 100% static and magically complete from the start.

The presentist model also doesn't explain the generation of the universe, or the generation of the time in which it exists. Neither flowing nor block model proposes an explanation of the universe's existence.

These theories aren't concerned with explaining how space and time exist - that's a different task. Theories of relativity are concerned with relativity. A model which allows process to be real rather than magical is superior to a model which depends on it being magical. The aim in science is to do science and to eliminate dependency on magic as much as possible. When one model eliminates the possibility of actual causation and another model has actual causation rather than the mere illusion of causation, the latter theory, all things else being equal, is clearly better as it has avoided including a monumental pile of magical baggage.

I went to question 2. The diagram above the simulation has Y-b and Z-b being stationary, despite the description saying that Y-a/Z-a being stationary.

The initial position of the simulation has the "a" versions stationary, aligned vertically up from X. If you found it in some other state, either you're machine's been hacked by someone who's messing with things or you adjusted it yourself, perhaps by clicking the Frame B button.

The simulation is confusing because it pictorially puts the blue planet as stationary (on the time axis), but time of all four objects (2 planets, 2 rockets) apparently plotted by clocks carried along with those objects, which makes the rockets get to Y/X-b before the planets do. I suppose that works, but it took me a while to realize that the diagram is not illustrating the state at any given moment. If you want to show it under presentism, all 4 objects should be in the same horizontal line, which is the current state of this universe at any given time.

The diagram has three modes. The initial mode (1) shows a version of SR in which event-meshing failures occur - we can see rockets reach Spacetime locations before the planets get there, even though they're supposed to be reunited at those locations. This mode shows what happens if you allow things to move without any of their clocks being slowed under the governance of a superior time tied to a specific frame. Because an absolute frame is banned in this model, we are not allowed to limit the progress of anything through Spacetime other than by using their own proper time, so they have to progress through Spacetime as shown with all the clocks ticking equally fast. The failure of objects to reach locations together where they're supposed to meet up shows that the model is not only broken, but that an undeclared Newtonian time automatically comes into play in the model, allowing different things to reach the same Spacetime location at different times under that Newtonian time, so this SR model has no option other than to to break SR's rules, thereby invalidating that SR model. This model can qualify as a potentially valid non-SR model of reality though if you make it a block universe model - the event-meshing failures will eventually be removed from it as the later arrivals catch up and clean up the mess at those locations. This provides a means to generate a block universe model and then have it "function" well after the whole thing's complete, although it is not SR. Importantly, if you click on one of the "+" or "-" buttons and then hold down the Return key (on a computer - this won't work on most mobile devices), the action will repeat at speed and switch smoothly through a large number of frames to show you that the model is Lortentz invariant - changing frame does not change what has happened or what has not yet happened, and that is a vital feature of SR in SR's attempt to be rational. (The only other model that's Lorentz invariant is the eternal static block universe, but that kind of universe can't be generated under the rules of SR and is invalidated as a direct result.)

But the simulation does not show the state of the universe any time after the rockets are launched. It depicts the facts from no reference frame at all. It seems to attempt to show it from the frame of the blue planet (which is stationary), but the rockets should be shown at their home planets when that event is reached (both rocket and planet are present at that event), and the simulation doesn't show that. So no, it isn't a fair model, but you note below the simulation that the events fail to mesh correctly. So I will actually give the question a yes answer so long as you don't draw conclusions from this failure to depict the state of things at a given time.

In mode 1 it does show the state of everything at a given time - the time of all the clocks are the same as each other because none of them are allowed to run slow - there is no absolute frame allowing clocks at rest in that frame to run faster than the rest. This meets a key requirement of SR - to fail to have objects move in this uninhibited way would be to accept the governance of the time of a specific frame with control over all the rest. Mode 1 is a model which attempts to run SR by SR's own rules, and what you see happen there is what necessarily comes out of attempting to run SR with no clocks running slow. That is essential for a Lorentz-invariant model, but it only "works" faultlessly under SR's rules in a static block universe after the generation phase has been carried out under different, undeclared rules of physics, and the undeclared physics would be the real physics that scientists should be addressing rather than the fantasy physics in a static block.

Question 3:

You will notice that the rockets arrive at the reunion points with their planets long before the planets get there, and that makes it impossible for them to interact with each other at those points until the planets catch them up, at which point they can interact with the rockets

Just as predicted. You are drawing conclusions from the failure of the simulation to depict the state of the system at a given moment, in any reference frame, not just the one chosen. So I retract my up-vote for question 2. The simulation is in no way an accurate depiction of the state of the system at any given time since you have objects moving upward at different rates.

The simulation in mode 1 shows events at the same moment by all clocks in the selected frame of reference - you can use the buttons to change the frame of reference and you will see that the events are Lorentz invariant. The failure here is that you haven't understood the way the diagram works and what it's showing you, but that's okay - not everyone reads slowly and carefully enough to interpret everything correctly on the first go, so it's an understandable failing - it's fully allowed. You can now look at it again armed with this better understanding. Mode 1 attempts to do SR by the book, not allowing any clocks to run slow. This leads to the event-meshing failure, but SR can escape from there into a static block universe model and claim fully correctly that SR "works" by SR's rules within that block, although it can't use SR's rules to account for the more important generation of that block, so all it does is account for superfluous, imaginary physics in a pre-built block, rendering it a prime target for Occam's razor.

When we move on to mode 2 (there's a button dedicated to changing mode - the mode number is displayed beside it), you'll then see a non-Lorentz-invariant model of SR, Einstein's original version. When you freeze the action and change frame, you can watch events that have already happened unhappen and rehappen as you switch to and fro between frames - this is an illustration of the way that version contains contradictions. Mode 3 shows a way to fix this by bringing Lorentz invariance back in by giving the time of one frame governance over all the others, making their clocks run slow. What happens with SR is that people mix incompatible models (different versions of SR) and try to pick and choose aspects of them to pretend that they have a single SR model that fits all the rules of SR, but there is no such model - there are merely different versions which conform to different rules of SR without any single SR model conforming to all of them. It is actually impossible to build a model that conforms to all SR's rules, and that illustrates why SR is not a viable theory. (LET can run by LET's rules though without any difficulty - no magic needed, and no contradictions to tolerate.)

[David Cooper]

I'm not qualified to talk expertly on general relativity. So therefore my reasoning goes as this. On the side of general relativity the weight of scientific consensus.

The authority of the clergy. Galileo shows them the moons of Jupiter through his telescope and asks them to track them from night to night, but they refuse to see what's happening.

On the side of ether, no reputable living physicist.

You've just libelled quite a few of them.

Personally I enjoy using sat nav and trust those who made it when they say how.

Sat navs run on the maths of LET, and if you do some research you'll find that LET is popular with many of the people who program the system.

Not a fan of grand conspiracy theories.

Nor am I. I prefer to use reason and maths to explore things.

Also relativity would be a huge scalp to claim, no living physicist wouldn't love to win a nobel prize and disprove relativity.

Einstein didn't get a Nobel prize for his relativity, and no one will get one for debunking it.

This forum seems an insane place to post cutting edge physics with any hope of expert feedback. So therefore I conclude ether to be obvious pseudoscience.

Is my first post in this thread out of place in some way? No. Are the rest replies to people responding to their objections? Yes. I'm not driving this conversation. The way to judge ideas is to judge them through reason, but your approach is a vulgar shortcut which fails to do that job properly. You write off correct things on the basis that they're being said on a mere philosophy forum. However, philosophy is superior to science. Physics 1 is nature, and it's in charge because it is the ultimate authority, being exactly what it is and doing exactly what it does. From Physics 1 we derive mathematics and logic on that basis that we see "truths" that have always been found to hold, but we are always ready to abandon those "truths" if they are found not to hold on some occasions. Further down, we come to science and physics 2 - the latter being the study of physics 1. This study is carried out under the rules of mathematics and logic. Bad science is done without proper regard for mathematics and logic, and many arrogant physicists imagine that their field is superior to maths and logic because physics 1 is superior to maths and logic, but physicists don't represent physics 1 - they represent physics 2, and they are of lower down the food chain than mathematician-logicians. Philosophy is applied reasoning, taking maths and logic and seeing what happens when maths and logic governs other things. Science is part of philosophy, not superior to it, but included within it. Most philosophy is carried out by dismally poor minds though, and that has given it a terrible reputation which leads to the Scientists rejecting it and feeling superior. They have a disdain for philosophy because they see philosophers as being stupid, and the result of this is that they accidentally reject logic at the same time. We have thus ended up with a situation where the physics establishment determines rightness by its own authority rather than by using mathematics and logic to test its ideas, and any attempt to correct it leads to claims that philosophy's been brought in and that philosophy doesn't belong in physics, but philosophy absolutely does belong there, and the physicists themselves have smuggled in a massive pile of bad philosophy to attempt to prevent criticism of their mistakes. This is something that all good philosophers should be taking an interest in, and they should be able to explore the subject with greater rigour than the slapdash physicists who reject reason.

So what makes you think you are an expert in reasoning? What past successes lead you to believe this? I assume you have a PhD in physics and work for Cern? Or equivalent?

I build reasoning systems. I come from a clan of mathematician logicians, but I didn't want to follow the family tradition, so I specialised in linguistics instead and ended up working in AGI system development.

Would love to know what you hope to gain here.

I'd like to know what your game is. Why are you trying to silence me through that approach instead of using reason to attack my arguments? Can't you hack it in the reasoning game?

I mean actually I assume you are making a cry for help. Unfortunately I'm perhaps not a great person to do that to. My advice would be to try.

Has it not occurred to you that I might just have made one little reply to a thread to set out how time really works, and that everything else is just responding to objections? If people here would rather just go on being wrong and not have their beliefs questioned, that's okay - there are plenty of other things I could be doing. I'm doing this out of generosity, giving up some of my valuable time in the interests of education. If you don't want it, you don't have to keep generating more replies from me.

[Halc]

Whenever you try to measure the speed of light you get the same value for it if you assume that you are stationary. If you assume you are moving, you measure values other than c for the speed of light relative to you

This is completely wrong. They initially assumed that they were moving and were surprised at the measurement not changing when 'moving with or against the wind' so to speak. How do you go about measuring light speed that requires assuming one is stationary? I've done it myself. Crude, but accurate to a digit at least. It took a laser, power drill, tachometer, and a piece of paper on the wall. All the components had the same relative velocity as each other, but not assumed stationary. Other early measurements used components that were moving relative to each other, so by definition could not have assumed a stationary measurement.

If you want to misinterpret it and imagine that I'm saying things can have multiple speeds in a single frame when I haven't mentioned frames, that's your problem, but my intended meaning is perfectly clear and is confirmed later whenever I use reference frames.

To omit the frame references is deliberately misleading. You are drawing conclusions from that deliberate obfuscation. This makes you an expert at deceptive reasoning, not valid reasoning.

Do you or do you not acknowledge that you have different speeds all at the same time? Einstein did not assert this. It came from centuries before. You whole bit of superior logic seems to depend on this being an inconsistency.

My beliefs should in fact play no role in this. If it is the proof that it claims to be, it would demonstrate an inconsistency in my stance.

Or a conflict between your position and the rules of reasoning.

My position is set aside. I only consider empirical facts, not my preferred interpretations of those facts.

The question (preceded by some clues as to one of the most vital services that time must provide) was "Do you accept that time must run (or flow) so that events can run through in order?" ... The calculations must run through in order, and time must run alongside that

I agreed up until the flow assertion. Yes, the events in the example should be unambiguously ordered. This has been shown to not be the case in many metaphysical interpretations, but we both seem to hold to the unproved principle of locality. Ordered events don't require flow any more than ordered marks on a tape measure require a flow of a current location along it.

Anyway, the point is irrelevant. I looked up LET, and it asserts a preferred frame, but not a preferred moment in time. It isn't necessarily a 3D interpretation. Maybe I didn't find that part.

It does that because a time that doesn't run leaves you depending on magic.

This is your answer to every disagreement. I cannot reason correctly. My view requires magic. Blah blah blah... How well reasoned. The block and running time models are in fact identical except in the ontological status of one slice (the slice being real, and the rest not), and the slice is not fixed. No magic is required for what is only an ontological distinction of which events are designated as real.

I did not deny that time runs. The question asked if time must flow, but I don't know. It works either way. You're asking me to restrict myself to a presentist model (presentism works under relativity also). A proof that forces such a restriction is already begging.

In this case, you're objecting the the question because you're nitpicking about its interpretation

I did not. The question did not ask if I deny flowing time. If it did, I would have said no, I don't deny it. The reaction to my answer was a conclusion drawn from a different question. Again, that doesn't sound like expert reasoning.

I went to question 2. The diagram above the simulation has Y-b and Z-b being stationary, despite the description saying that Y-a/Z-a being stationary.

The initial position of the simulation has the "a" versions stationary, aligned vertically up from X. If you found it in some other state, either you're machine's been hacked by someone who's messing with things or you adjusted it yourself, perhaps by clicking the Frame B button.

No, I'm talking about the diagram above the simulation, next to the verbal description. That one has the b versions on the vertical axis. It's fine. The two complement each other, showing the same scenario in two different frames.

The simulation is confusing because it pictorially puts the blue planet as stationary (on the time axis), but time of all four objects (2 planets, 2 rockets) apparently plotted by clocks carried along with those objects, which makes the rockets get to Y/X-b before the planets do. I suppose that works, but it took me a while to realize that the diagram is not illustrating the state at any given moment. If you want to show it under presentism, all 4 objects should be in the same horizontal line, which is the current state of this universe at any given time.

The diagram has three modes.

OK, I need to see these other modes. Perhaps I didn't figure that out.

The initial mode (1) shows a version of SR in which event-meshing failures occur - we can see rockets reach Spacetime locations before the planets get there, even though they're supposed to be reunited at those locations.

What possible version of SR describes this mode??? Certainly nothing authored by Einstein.

Because an absolute frame is banned in this model, we are not allowed to limit the progress of anything through Spacetime other than by using their own proper time, so they have to progress through Spacetime as shown with all the clocks ticking equally fast.

You seem to be under the impression that things move through spacetime. They don't. Things have worldlines in spacetime, as the diagram (not the simulation) depicts. All objects are present at all points on their worldlines, so there is no concept of ships arriving while their planets are still in the past. Nothing has a current moment.

The presentist model (which is sort of what mode 3 depicts) does have things moving in space, but it has no spacetime. The line passing through all the objects is all that exists, the current state of the universe. Mode 3 correctly shows that it is Lorentz invariant. In any frame, the current position of all object like along the one line.
Problem is that neither the clocks nor anything else are measuring the flow of time. If the flow slows or stops, it goes undetected by anything in that little universe.

OK, I looked at mode 2 and 3. Sorry I didn't see them the first time.

Importantly, if you click on one of the "+" or "-" buttons and then hold down the Return key, the action will repeat at speed and switch smoothly through a large number of frames to show you that the model is Lortentz invariant - changing frame does not change what has happened or what has not yet happened, and that is a vital feature of SR in SR's attempt to be rational.

Nicely done... Another feature I didn't see the first time.

Mode 3 has the objects are all in some state consistent with the frame of the blue planet, the preferred one I presume. Mode 2 has the objects in some state consistent with the frame selected by the +/- buttons. Both are valid.

(The only other model that's Lorentz invariant is the eternal static block universe, but that kind of universe can't be generated under the rules of SR and is invalidated as a direct result.)

This part I did not understand. I am unaware of SR asserting rules about generation of universes.