[jimbobghost]

I hesitate to enter into this deep debate, since I am barely able to understand the debate itself.

that being said, it may be that Bogie has addressed the never ending question of theologists "if god does not exist, who created the universe"?

might it be that the universe, as he stated, has always existed; and that the universe, in fact, invented/created god?

[Bogie_smiles]

Reply #101
Bogie’s reply to jimbobghost’s reply Reply #100

I hesitate to enter into this deep debate, since I am barely able to understand the debate itself.

that being said, it may be that Bogie has addressed the never ending question of theologists "if god does not exist, who created the universe"?

might it be that the universe, as he stated, has always existed; and that the universe, in fact, invented/created god?

The premise that the universe has always existed, and that the universe, in fact, invented/created god, isn’t exactly where I am coming from. Rather than dismiss the concept of the existence of God, I would prefer the saying that:

If at first there was nothing, not even God,
Then nothing could ever be.
But just look around at the many fine things,
As far as the eye can see.
So say with certainty one of two things,
It seems to make sense to proclaim:
Either God, or the Universe, has always been here,
And maybe they’re one and the same.

[jimbobghost]

nice poetry...never realized you had so much soul.

but the thing is, I can see (at least a part) of the universe, so I know it exists...but I have never seen god.

[Bogie_smiles]

nice poetry...never realized you had so much soul.

How are you defining soul? I support the scientific method, and it excludes the Supernatural, right?

but the thing is, I can see (at least a part) of the universe, so I know it exists...but I have never seen god.

If you believe that God and the Universe are one and the same, you have. But if you call the premise of the poem an acknowledgement that there is something Supernatural about the universe and God being one and the same, that is not what it means. It means that the universe is not supernatural, it is natural, and anything that seems Supernatural has natural causes that we don't yet understand.

[jimbobghost]

"It means that the universe is not supernatural, it is natural, and anything that seems Supernatural has natural causes the we don't yet understand."

...or does not exist.

btw: "soul" was meant to pay tribute to the author's artistic talents (kind of like Aretha Franklyn )

[Bogie_smiles]

"It means that the universe is not supernatural, it is natural, and anything that seems Supernatural has natural causes the we don't yet understand."


...or does not exist.

I interpret your statement, “or does not exist”, to mean you are saying that anything that seems Supernatural has natural causes that we don't yet understand, and therefore anything Supernatural does not exist?


If so we agree. If not, please use “or does not exist” in a sentence that explains your meaning in context.

btw: "soul" was meant to pay tribute to the author's artistic talents (kind of like Aretha Franklyn )

Thank you, I like that comparison. I knew everyone must have a talent, just didn’t realize that was it

[David Cooper]

My simple logic is that the twins physically age at different rates when they spend time at different levels of wave energy density. Time simply passed for each twin at the rate that was consistent with their local energy density environments, (high density, slower aging, clocks run slower; low density, faster aging, clocks run faster).

What's really happening there though is that one of them has his functionality slowed more than the other, and that isn't time that's slowing. If you run a simulation of a universe and have two objects separate and then come back together again with one of them functioning slower than the other such that it is effectively a slowed clock, it is just that - a slowed clock failing to measure all the time that is actually passing. If you try to move that object into the future faster than the other object (whose functionality is less slowed), it will get to the reunion point first and the other object will be late, so they won't meet up in the way they do in the real universe. In the real universe, they meet up correctly precisely because time does not run at different rates for different objects - it is only the speed of functionality that varies. Just like the simulation, the universe has to run through events in order of past to future, and it has to control the rate at which they move through time to ensure that they meet up in the way that we know they do, which means the clock of the object with slowed functionality is necessarily under-recording the amount of time that is actually going past there. The same amount of time is going through everywhere in the universe in complete sync - for it to do anything else would cause event-meshing failures (which have never been observed in nature). Any theory that rejects the existence of absolute time is demonstrably wrong, and this is illustrated every time someone tries to simulate such a theory - they always have to cheat to pretend that it works, and that means having some objects' "time" run slow under the governance of a superior system clock which should not be necessary in the simulation if their model worked the way they assert. They simply cheat and lie every single time.

If you could find a way to accept the speculation that there was no beginning to the universe, and you are half way there, lol, and if you could acknowledge that the answer to the paradox about how we could ever get to “now” if time is infinite backwards is in the fact that time simply passes everywhere, but the rate of aging is governed by the local energy density, then the next question is:...

For the record, I don't believe there was a beginning - I expect that the universe is eternal. Also, even if there was an infinite amount of time before now, it could still get to the point where our now happens because an infinite amount of time can pass in an infinite amount of time. It is our difficulty with comprehending the infinite that is probably at issue.

Do you believe that energy is carried through space in the form of waves, i.e., that waves har the mechanism for how energy traverses space? I assume a “yes” to that question, and then ask you what type of waves would you say carry energy through space? I assume the answer you might give is that, “light waves and gravitational waves carry energy through space”. If I am right about how you might answer, then:
1) Would you agree that light waves are emitted by electrons? i assume a "yes".

They can be, but it depends on the speed of functionality of the emitter (and the speed of travel of the detector which classes them as light rather than some other part of the electromagnetic spectrum. A gamma ray can be emitted by something that isn't an electron, for example, but it can be detected as visible light if you're moving the right way relative to it.

2) Would you agree that gravitational waves are emitted by objects that have mass (weight in a gravitational field)? I assume a "yes" there too, so do you have a belief about how mass emits gravitational waves?

That is something I don't understand properly, but I'm led to believe (perhaps incorrectly) that such waves are only generated by accelerations (including decelerations). When black holes aren't close to merging, for example, they aren't throwing out such waves. In the case of planets orbiting a star, the orbits hardly decay at all, so very little energy is being lost from the system as gravitational waves - the amount lost this way only becomes significant when dealing with extremely massive, compact objects and high speed direction changes.

[jimbobghost]

"I interpret your statement, “or does not exist”, to mean you are saying that anything that seems Supernatural has natural causes that we don't yet understand, and therefore anything Supernatural does not exist?"

sorry Bogie,
i love speaking with you, but i don't get involved in games of this sort...you can define "supernatural" in any way you wish; but i only deal in realities.

(but keep up with your poetry...i see a future for you in the music industry; such as Iris DeMent's "Let The Mystery Be")

[Bogie_smiles]

Ok. Is that your final answer, lol.

[Bogie_smiles]

What’s really happening there though is that one of them has his functionality slowed more than the other, and that isn't time that's slowing.

We agree. Let’s take the first part of that statement, “What's really happening there though is that one of them has his functionality slowed more than the other, …”. My agreement on that part is based on the fact that the rate that those objects function relative to each other, the two clocks, the twins, all particles for that matter, is governed by the local wave energy density of their respective environments during their individual periods of functioning.

Do you understand why I think that? You don’t have to agree of course, but do you understand the train of logic I am employing?


And like you say,

“ and that isn't time that's slowing”.

Agreed. That is not what I have intended to convey.

This is what I mean to say:

Time simply passes everywhere, and the rate that time passes as measured by a clock at those various locations varies, governed by the local wave energy density. The rate that clocks, or twins function, or the rate that the individual particles function that make up the clocks or twins, is governed by the wave energy density of the environment in which they are functioning (higher local wave energy density, slower clocks, slower aging of a twin, slower function of particles themselves).

If you run a simulation of a universe and have two objects separate and then come back together again with one of them functioning slower than the other such that it is effectively a slowed clock, it is just that - a slowed clock failing to measure all the time that is actually passing.

We agree that the accelerated clock has measured the rate that time passes on its dial to be slowed, i.e., that the clock is functioning slower, and that equates to the twin aging slower too, on the basis that I consider the human body to be a clock measuring the rate the body is aging.

I believe the slowing occurs because the wave-particles that the clock is composed of function slower in an energy density environment that is accelerating relative to the environment of a clock that remains at rest.

Do you understand where I am coming from when I say the wave-particles function slower as the wave energy density of their environment increases, i.e., when they are accelerated relative to particles that remain at rest?

It has to do with the speculation that the number of gravitational wave fronts that the moving particles (or moving clock) encounters from the direction of motion during its acceleration period is greater than the number of gravitational wave fronts that the "at rest" clock encounters from that same direction while it sits “still”. The speculation is that for each wave front encountered, there is a tiny time delay in the forward increment of motion of the object being accelerated. Because the rest clock, or stay at home twin, is not the one that is said to be in motion relative to the accelerated clock, the rest clock doesn’t have as many wave front encounters in the direction of motion, and therefore experiences less accumulated time delay than the moving twin experiences during its period of motion. Experiencing less time delay equates to the appearance of more rapid aging.


Since the time involved starts and ends simultaneously for the two clocks, the variance shows up as a difference in the amount of time recorded on the face of the clocks. The rate that time actually passes is impossible to determine because the definition of a second requires that the measurement be made at zero degrees K and without outside influences like gravity, for example. Your concept of absolute time is therefore theoretical, while my concept of the rate that clocks measure the passing of time is based on scientific observations of how clocks that are in relative motion to each other function.


I am going to continue to respond to the rest of your post because there are important points of contention in that portion too, but first I hope to get a response from you to just this limited portion. Then we can figure out the rest.

[Bogie_smiles]

While I wait and anticipate your response to my last post on the subject, I decided to post my following response to much of the remaining content of your earlier post, to save response time, hoping the discussion continues:

For the record, I don't believe there was a beginning - I expect that the universe is eternal. Also, even if there was an infinite amount of time before now, it could still get to the point where our now happens because an infinite amount of time can pass in an infinite amount of time. It is our difficulty with comprehending the infinite that is probably at issue.

Well said. We agree on that too.

They can be, but it depends on the speed of functionality of the emitter (and the speed of travel of the detector which classes them as light rather than some other part of the electromagnetic spectrum. A gamma ray can be emitted by something that isn't an electron, for example, but it can be detected as visible light if you're moving the right way relative to it.

Thank you for that thoughtful response. We have some minor areas of disagreement here, but not worth getting into here and now; maybe later?

That is something I don't understand properly, but I'm led to believe (perhaps incorrectly) that such waves are only generated by accelerations (including decelerations).

Agreed. It is commonly stated that the gravitational waves that Einstein predicted, and that have been detected by LIGO and the ESA interferometers, are produced by objects in relative motion, i.e., accelerating relative to each other.

We are detecting waves produced by high energy events like the in-swirling death spiral of two black holes. In GR they are often referred to as ripples in the fabric of spacetime. The issue is not settled in the minds of the all general science enthusiasts, but since there are detectible gravitational waves emitted by high energy events where two very massive objects accelerating relative to each other (are in relative motion), then my speculation is that logic supports the idea that any two objects in relative motion will emit gravitational wave energy, relative to observations made from the location the other object.

Putting that speculation into the context of less energetic events, like an apple falling to the earth, there should be gravitational waves emitted by the apple (too small to be detected) from the perspective of the earth, and gravitational waves emitted by the Earth from the perspective of the falling apple (another problematic situation in regard to detection), so this will remain speculative until some consensus is published that clears it up.

When black holes aren't close to merging, for example, they aren't throwing out such waves. In the case of planets orbiting a star, the orbits hardly decay at all, so very little energy is being lost from the system as gravitational waves - the amount lost this way only becomes significant when dealing with extremely massive, compact objects and high speed direction changes.

True. When objects are in orbit, they are said to be falling around each other. They would logically be “falling toward each other” based on their mutual gravitational attraction. However, because the speed of gravity is said to be the same as the speed of light, effectively they are falling toward where the other object was, not where it is. This means that in the period of time that the gravitational waves have been traveling between the two objects, each object has moved out of the way, lol. They fall to where the object was, but are still in each others gravitational grasp, and so they fall in orbit.

[Bogie_smiles]

Ok, here is my response to the final portion of @David Cooper ’s reply #106:

If you try to move that object into the future faster than the other object (whose functionality is less slowed), it will get to the reunion point first and the other object will be late, so they won't meet up in the way they do in the real universe. In the real universe, they meet up correctly precisely because time does not run at different rates for different objects - it is only the speed of functionality that varies. Just like the simulation, the universe has to run through events in order of past to future, and it has to control the rate at which they move through time to ensure that they meet up in the way that we know they do, which means the clock of the object with slowed functionality is necessarily under-recording the amount of time that is actually going past there.

This makes perfect sense if you are defending the concept of absolute time. But since I am a never-absoluter , it is quite wrong sided. The different rate of functionality of objects in relative motion is not something that someone there with the objects can detect. An observer positioned with either of two objects in relative motion, like a twin on the rocket ship, and the twin that stays home at rest, do not realize that there is a difference in their respective rates of functionality. That is the reason why there is surprise on the part of the twins that the traveling twin appears much younger. Neither of them detected any chance in functionality during the duration of the separation.

The same amount of time is going through everywhere in the universe in complete sync - for it to do anything else would cause event-meshing failures (which have never been observed in nature). Any theory that rejects the existence of absolute time is demonstrably wrong, and this is illustrated every time someone tries to simulate such a theory - they always have to cheat to pretend that it works, and that means having some objects' "time" run slow under the governance of a superior system clock which should not be necessary in the simulation if their model worked the way they assert. They simply cheat and lie every single time.

The truth in what you say about the universe being in complete sync is ironic. You say that the synchronization is due to the fact that there is a universal rate that time passes everywhere, and I say that the synchronization is that every location in space has an energy density that varies from the universal average level of energy density by some (impossible to measure) (vague) amount.

In conclusion, absolute time would correspond to the rate that all clocks would tick if they were all located in an environment where their local wave energy density was equal to the universal average level of gravitational wave energy density. In reality though, every location in space has a varying level of energy density governed by the relative motion of all mass in the universe. Let me quote from a paper on Mach’s principle (or as some call it, Mach’s conjecture):

“Mass there influences inertia here. ... Because every object in the universe exerts a gravitational pull on every other, each object will feel each other’s presence through their mutual attractions. So motion must ultimately depend on the distribution of matter, or its mass, not on the properties of space itself.”

What Mach is referring to specifically is about the concept that there is no absolute space, but because there is no absolute space, it follows that there is no absolute time as well.

[jimbobghost]

"Ok. Is that your final answer, lol."

Bogie, i'm afraid it must be, because I can offer no further solution, and i'm concerned I may be testing your patience.

however, if you will permit me one final question,and your potential response as a well respected member of this forum:

if you stated there was something called "atoms", and I asked you to prove it; I am sure you would do so.
if you stated there was something call a "vacuum" and I again asked you to prove it; I am once again certain you would do so.

if you, or somebody else stated there was a god, and I asked you to prove it, would/could you do so?

in the former instances, you would most likely show evidence of scientific experiments proving them to actually exist (even though I have never actually "seen" them).

in the instance of the existence of god, what would you show me as evidence of his/her/its being?...certainly not a field of posies.

forgive my ignorance, and thank you once again for your responses and patience.

[Bogie_smiles]

I don’t think that there is any irrefutable proof of God.
If you believe, you have your proof in the way your life is influenced by the belief.
If you don’t believe, there is no proof that you would find irrefutable.
IMHO

[jimbobghost]

thanks Bogie

[David Cooper]

We agree. Let’s take the first part of that statement, “What's really happening there though is that one of them has his functionality slowed more than the other, …”. My agreement on that part is based on the fact that the rate that those objects function relative to each other, the two clocks, the twins, all particles for that matter, is governed by the local wave energy density of their respective environments during their individual periods of functioning.

Do you understand why I think that? You don’t have to agree of course, but do you understand the train of logic I am employing?

There's no problem there. The problem comes in if you equate the clock's ticking to time and have time ticking at different rates one to the other.

Time simply passes everywhere, and the rate that time passes as measured by a clock at those various locations varies, governed by the local wave energy density. The rate that clocks, or twins function, or the rate that the individual particles function that make up the clocks or twins, is governed by the wave energy density of the environment in which they are functioning (higher local wave energy density, slower clocks, slower aging of a twin, slower function of particles themselves).

If you're counting the passing of time as being the amount measured by a clock, then you're going to have event-meshing failures. Time only works properly if the slower clocks are failing to measure all of the time that's actually passing for them, and time is then an absolute with the same moment everywhere and the same next moment simultaneous everywhere too. The reality is that the functionality of two clocks which record different amounts of time passing has to be coordinated by absolute time - without that, there's no mechanism to slow one clock more than the other. You can have a clock being slowed by higher energy density in its vicinity, but slowed relative to what? If you have no absolute time, how can time anywhere be slowed when there's nothing local to slow it against? And if you're slowing it in one place against another where it isn't slowed (or is slowed less [though again slowed relative to what?]), then the unslowed time is governing the slowed one and is the absolute time (or is closer to ticking tick by tick with absolute time than the other).

I believe the slowing occurs because the wave-particles that the clock is composed of function slower in an energy density environment that is accelerating relative to the environment of a clock that remains at rest.

Do you understand where I am coming from when I say the wave-particles function slower as the wave energy density of their environment increases, i.e., when they are accelerated relative to particles that remain at rest?

It's all absolutely fine until you try to attach the label "time" to it.

It has to do with the speculation that the number of gravitational wave fronts that the moving particles (or moving clock) encounters from the direction of motion during its acceleration period is greater than the number of gravitational wave fronts that the "at rest" clock encounters from that same direction while it sits “still”. The speculation is that for each wave front encountered, there is a tiny time delay in the forward increment of motion of the object being accelerated. Because the rest clock, or stay at home twin, is not the one that is said to be in motion relative to the accelerated clock, the rest clock doesn’t have as many wave front encounters in the direction of motion, and therefore experiences less accumulated time delay than the moving twin experiences during its period of motion. Experiencing less time delay equates to the appearance of more rapid aging.

When we're dealing with moving clocks running slow, all that complexity is superfluous - we already have a resolved mechanism for the entirety of what happens to such clocks and how it is that their functionality is slowed. Any encounters with waves which slow the clock further are the same kind of slowing that you get while stationary in the vicinity of lots of mass/energy, so they are a different category of moving and have different maths.

Since the time involved starts and ends simultaneously for the two clocks, the variance shows up as a difference in the amount of time recorded on the face of the clocks. The rate that time actually passes is impossible to determine because the definition of a second requires that the measurement be made at zero degrees K and without outside influences like gravity, for example. Your concept of absolute time is therefore theoretical, while my concept of the rate that clocks measure the passing of time is based on scientific observations of how clocks that are in relative motion to each other function.

If you have clocks slowed by anything, it is necessary for there to be an absolute time for it to be slowed relative to. Take that away and you have no way to coordinate the slowing for anything. If the factors you mention exist everywhere and you have a mathematical method for calculating how much slowing each unit of energy causes, you can calculate how fast a potential absolute time runs for zero energy. If that potential absolute time isn't absolute time either because there are further factors that cause slowing, then that doesn't eliminate absolute time, but merely pushes it further away from our ability to measure it directly, but it remains a logical necessity that it exists.

We are detecting waves produced by high energy events like the in-swirling death spiral of two black holes. In GR they are often referred to as ripples in the fabric of spacetime. The issue is not settled in the minds of the all general science enthusiasts, but since there are detectible gravitational waves emitted by high energy events where two very massive objects accelerating relative to each other (are in relative motion), then my speculation is that logic supports the idea that any two objects in relative motion will emit gravitational wave energy, relative to observations made from the location the other object.

Your logic is correct up to a point (see below), but the amount of energy involved in this is tiny in normal cases - it barely registers, and I don't think it has any relation to the slowing of clocks.

True. When objects are in orbit, they are said to be falling around each other. They would logically be “falling toward each other” based on their mutual gravitational attraction. However, because the speed of gravity is said to be the same as the speed of light, effectively they are falling toward where the other object was, not where it is. This means that in the period of time that the gravitational waves have been traveling between the two objects, each object has moved out of the way, lol. They fall to where the object was, but are still in each others gravitational grasp, and so they fall in orbit.

The gravitational waves only carry away the energy lost by orbital decay. If you have two things orbiting each other and maintaining separation orbit by orbit, you have no energy being lost and there cannot be any gravitational waves coming off the system as that would require extra energy to come out of nothing. The decay of orbits only becomes significant once you have really high mass concentrations, so you simply aren't getting any gravitational waves of any significance coming from anything on the Earth or out in deep space.

This makes perfect sense if you are defending the concept of absolute time. But since I am a never-absoluter , it is quite wrong sided. The different rate of functionality of objects in relative motion is not something that someone there with the objects can detect.

If you put one twin near a black hole and the other not, they can compare their rates of functionality with each other and see full clear that one is ticking slower than the other. We can do this on the Earth too with highly accurate clocks on different shelves of the same lab, one low and one high. We can also use the Earth as a clock by looking at how long it takes for the same star to be at zenith, but the altitude we measure this from will produce different timings. If we time it from the bottom of a well, we think the Earth took less time to revolve once than if we time it from the top of the well.

An observer positioned with either of two objects in relative motion, like a twin on the rocket ship, and the twin that stays home at rest, do not realize that there is a difference in their respective rates of functionality. That is the reason why there is surprise on the part of the twins that the traveling twin appears much younger. Neither of them detected any chance in functionality during the duration of the separation.

There is no surprise at all if they understand the mechanism by which movement slows clocks (without slowing time). The problem there though is the maths of relativity which hides the absolute frame from all attempts to pin it down through measurement. With the gravity-twins-paradox experiment though we know which clock is running slower than the other throughout the experiment.

The truth in what you say about the universe being in complete sync is ironic. You say that the synchronization is due to the fact that there is a universal rate that time passes everywhere, and I say that the synchronization is that every location in space has an energy density that varies from the universal average level of energy density by some (impossible to measure) (vague) amount.

The reality is that we can calculate with high precision the effects of speed of movement and energy density on clocks, so there's no vagueness involved. Something coordinates the local slowing with extreme accuracy throughout the universe.

In conclusion, absolute time would correspond to the rate that all clocks would tick if they were all located in an environment where their local wave energy density was equal to the universal average level of gravitational wave energy density.

No - that would be slower than absolute time. Absolute time is totally unslowed. All clocks run slower than that (except for the universe's own hidden clock which does tick out absolute time everywhere, though in a tickless manner).

In reality though, every location in space has a varying level of energy density governed by the relative motion of all mass in the universe. Let me quote from a paper on Mach’s principle (or as some call it, Mach’s conjecture):

“Mass there influences inertia here. ... Because every object in the universe exerts a gravitational pull on every other, each object will feel each other’s presence through their mutual attractions. So motion must ultimately depend on the distribution of matter, or its mass, not on the properties of space itself.”

What Mach is referring to specifically is about the concept that there is no absolute space, but because there is no absolute space, it follows that there is no absolute time as well.

It's a dud argument if that's the conclusion - without absolute space, there's nothing to control the relative speeds between the content of that space, and nothing to transmit gravitational pull through either. Many people in physics are obsessed with denying the existence of logical necessities on the basis that they can't be seen directly (and yet at the same time, many of them [though not Einstein] are also obsessed with declaring the existence of logical impossibilities [gods] that also can't be seen, but that's another issue).

[ATMD]

Reply #99
Bogie’s reply to ATMD’s reply #96

Totally agree. In fact, I think that for any world view, the beginning of the universe required a miracle.

How you feel about the “always existed” explanation of the existence of the universe, as a viable world view? It doesn't require "something from nothing", or the Supernatural "God did it". I don't think that world view has to invoke a miracle at all. It does require a grasp of an infinity, eternity.

Btw Science is not a dogma, our world views change with new findings and discoveries.

Yes, well said.

Yes, I have a Buddhist friend who says that the universe has always existed. I try to be open-minded about it. Eternity is extremely difficult to grasp, but I am trying

Modern cosmology seems to indicate that our universe had a beginning, but it could have been a part of an eternal cycle.

[Bogie_smiles]

Yes, I have a Buddhist friend who says that the universe has always existed. I try to be open-minded about it. Eternity is extremely difficult to grasp, but I am trying

Yes, but of the various alternatives, I find “always existed” the easiest to grasp, lol.

Modern cosmology seems to indicate that our universe had a beginning, but it could have been a part of an eternal cycle.

True. The observed redshift leads to an effort to back track the expansion, and sometimes I think you can get carried away with how far you can realistically carry out the back tracking.

Some say stop at the cyclical idea, and others go all the way to back track to an infinitely dense, zero volume, point space :shrug:

I started a thread a couple of years ago in the New Theories sub-forum that I called, “If there was one Big Bang event, why not multiple big bangs”. It played out over a long time without much support before it died out. One point of interest was that the cyclical models were brought up and discussed. I find those models to fail, not only because they would seem to lose energy with each cycle, but because they are generally considered to be finite models. Being finite then again begs the question of a beginning, and we are back to my preferred explanation for the existence of the universe, which is that it may have “always existed”

[Bogie_smiles]

1) If you're counting the passing of time as being the amount measured by a clock, then you're going to have event-meshing failures.

What you call event-meshing failures are a symptom of imposing the concept of absolute time.
What you call event-meshing, I call evidence of varying energy densities throughout the gravitational wave energy density profile space. Two different perspectives, but mine doesn’t require recalculating the natural synchronization of events to accommodate the invocation of the perspective of absolute time; a perspective that cannot exist in a universe where it is impossible for any clock to display the rate that absolute time passes. I know, you fall back on the fact that clocks, by their physical nature, are prevented from measuring absolute time, but I’m not swayed because I think my explanation for the variable rate that clocks measure time is more realistic.

2) If you have clocks slowed by anything, it is necessary for there to be an absolute time for it to be slowed relative to.

I offered the concept that if clocks were positioned everywhere throughout the universe, then the average rate that they measured the passing of time would approximate a universal rate. You could compare each clock to that average, instead of claiming the only comparison must be to some concept of absolute time that no clock anywhere in the universe can tick at (even when we disregard the “built in” slowed functionality of all clocks).

3) Your logic is correct up to a point (see below), but the amount of energy involved in this is tiny in normal cases - it barely registers, and I don't think it has any relation to the slowing of clocks.

There are vast stretches of deep space where your disregard for the tiny density fluctuations are certainly too insignificant to be concerned with. However, the places in my model where they become significant is within the inner workings of wave-particles, and in places where the presence of nearby massive objects affects the local gravitational wave energy density profile of the space surrounding them because of their outflowing gravitational wave energy.

4) The gravitational waves only carry away the energy lost by orbital decay. If you have two things orbiting each other and maintaining separation orbit by orbit, you have no energy being lost and there cannot be any gravitational waves coming off the system as that would require extra energy to come out of nothing.

We don’t agree on that point. To my knowledge there is no "perfect" orbit because the orbiting objects are affected by the relative difference in their proximity to other celestial objects. Celestial mechanics would certainly require energy to keep objects in perfect orbits, i.e., without perturbations.

5) There is no surprise at all if they understand the mechanism by which movement slows clocks (without slowing time). The problem there though is the maths of relativity which hides the absolute frame from all attempts to pin it down through measurement. With the gravity-twins-paradox experiment though we know which clock is running slower than the other throughout the experiment.

I think we agree that there is a natural mechanism that slows the functionality of clocks in relative motion, and I think we agree that time doesn’t slow down or speed up as a result of that natural effect.  I would define the recording of time as way we value the rate that clocks tick as displayed by the movement of their dial, as they carryout their measurement. Clocks therefore will slow down or speed up, depending on the gravitational wave energy density of their local environment.

The maths you are talking about are theory specific, as in Special Relativity Lorentz transformations, or as in the varying tensor values that come into play in GR as relative motion occurs. My model is consistent with those maths because thy are close enough to guide rockets into orbits and to permit spaceship docking, with the human visuals that are also involved, and the various tolerances

I agree that it is nice to be able to tell which object is in motion and which is theoretically at rest, as in the twins thought experiments, and also as in cases where two functioning clocks are separated and are experiencing different rates of acceleration, whether that acceleration is due to gravity or propellents.

6) The reality is that we can calculate with high precision the effects of speed of movement and energy density on clocks, so there's no vagueness involved. Something coordinates the local slowing with extreme accuracy throughout the universe.

Agreed, we do achieve high precision in the calculations, but the vagueness I was referring to was the difference between those highly precise measurements, and the impossible to measure absolute time.

7) No - that would be slower than absolute time. Absolute time is totally unslowed. All clocks run slower than that (except for the universe's own hidden clock which does tick out absolute time everywhere, though in a tickless manner).

I understand that if there was an absolute time, it would be ticking faster than the universal average that I defined. My point is that there is no place in the universe where your absolute time is actually occurring, and so my definition of a universal average rate of time passing is conceptually superior to an “impossible” absolute rate of time passing, IMHO.

8 ) It's a dud argument if that's the conclusion - without absolute space, there's nothing to control the relative speeds between the content of that space, and nothing to transmit gravitational pull through either. Many people in physics are obsessed with denying the existence of logical necessities on the basis that they can't be seen directly (and yet at the same time, many of them [though not Einstein] are also obsessed with declaring the existence of logical impossibilities [gods] that also can't be seen, but that's another issue).

I’m ready to drop the discussion of a conceptual absolute time that cannot exist in the universe as we know it.

However, I am interested in discussing the concept of absolute space.

For starters, can you give me a coordinate system that would be useful in finding our way around absolute space? Let’s assume we start at an arbitrary location somewhere in space, travel from that location for any period of time, and wish to return back to the exact point that our journey originated.

[jimbobghost]

"For starters, can you give me a coordinate system that would be useful in finding our way around absolute space? Let’s assume we start at an arbitrary location somewhere in space, travel from that location for any period of time, and wish to return back to the exact point that our journey originated. "

leave a trail of bread crumbs?