[ExI] QT and SR

[John K Clark]

On Tuesday, September 02, 2008 Lee Corbin sent me this although I did not
get it until today. Lee might as well have sent it by snail mail.

> Can something be going slower than completely stopped?

No.

> that's how Special Relativity sees things moving "faster than light", as
> conceptually incoherent.

Absolutely true, but remember "things" are made of matter or energy or
information and the correlations (and feel free to invent your own word) I'm
talking about are made of none of these things.

> Remember that on a spacetime diagram relative velocity causes the angle
> between the space and time axes to diminish. Well, you can diminish that
> angle to less than zero!

I don't give a hoot in hell. If a space-time diagram says one thing and
experimental results say something else then you can take your space-time
diagram and stick it where the sun don't shine. And I have never in my life
seen a space-time diagram of a correlation.

You sound like a medieval theologian who refuses to even consider anything
that challenged Aristotle; no you're worse because this doesn't even
challenge Einstein.

> tell me exactly where in this chain of reasoning you demur:
> 1. Something we do *here* causes an effect *there*.

I demur at step 1. If it were a cause you could have instantaneous
communication and I specifically said more than once and for at least a
decade that is not possible. Perhaps you could call it instantaneous
correlation. Sometimes I like to think that you can send a message faster
than light but it's encoded and the key to decode it can only be sent at
light speed or less.

> If I read that right, then you put your money on influences traveling
> faster than light

Yes.

> in complete defiance of the Special Theory of Relativity.

No.

> Oh, really?

Yes really.

> "Effect", my dear fellow, means to cause to come into
> existence in a sort  of way

As in "cause and effect", which I was under the impression was key to what
you were talking about, I know it's what I was talking about.

> Of course, you will not admit you were wrong.

Go to Google and type in define:affect.

The first definition you will get is "have an effect upon", doesn't seem
like a word worth having to me. The second definition is "act physically
on",
in other words effect. Then we get "connect closely and often
incriminatingly" but that wasn't really the idea I was trying to get across.
And then "the conscious subjective aspect of feeling or emotion" and that
sure as hell wasn't what I wanted to say!  The word I wanted was not
"generally, a synonym for feelings, moods, emotions", the word I wanted
was not affect, it was effect.

> I remember the huge blowout on SL4 where everyone but Heartland was
> agreeing with you.

BULLSHIT! There was never a time when only Heartland disagreed with me.
NEVER. For all its shock levels SL4 is remarkably conservative and
pedestrian.

> you did commit the solecism of misstating his position.

Heartland changed his position so many times you will need to be much more
specific for me to know what on Earth you are talking about. The only point
he was consistent on was that Anesthesia is equivalent to death.

> I would never speak so forcefully to anyone who had not proved on
> innumerable occasions that he had a skin so thick that any rhinoceros
> would melt with envy

I don't know where you got that idea, I'm a very sensitive guy and your
words were so mean I'll probably cry myself to sleep tonight.

  John K Clark