Michael
"I exist, therefore the universe is closed".
Exactly. Which provides a basis for validity, albeit within a closed system. The next question being what physical process is the determinant of this? And the bigger point being, so we can only know one form of existence, which means that science cannot presume an abstract concept.
However, that is not why I am here, I just alighted on that phrase going through the posts. My point was going to be about time and relativity. Timing is a measuring system calibrating a feature of the difference between physical realities, ie their rate of change. There is no change in any given physical reality, and hence no time. By definition, physical existence, as it is knowable to us (closed system), involves no form of change or indefiniteness. Whatever constitutes the substance of physical existence can only be in one physically existent state at a time, in order to be existent. Those states alter, ie over time, at different rates.
This points to the fact that there is no duration in distance, or to be more precise, in the concept of distance. Because that it is a spatial difference between existent states, ie there can only be distance between existent states which exist at the same time. There is no distance between something which exists and something else which does not. Most existent states change in some way from one point in time to the next. We must presume all have, and that this has had an effect on distance. Whether it did or not in any particular circumstance is irrelevant to the concept. In other words, any given distance is always unique, since it reflects a definitive physically existent circumstance at a given time.
Which means that x=vt can be used incorrectly. Distance can be expressed, conceptually, in terms of duration incurred. The concept being that instead of expressing distance as the fixed spatial quantity which it is, it can alternatively be quantified as the duration which would have been incurred had any given entity been able to travel along it, either way, which cannot happen. That is, it must be understood that there is no duration as such, this is just an alternative to, and the equivalent of, a spatial measure, ie a singular quantity.
But this is what Einstein did. Furthermore, he used light as the entity travelling the distance. Except that using light in this way means it is time, which is a constant, not observational light. He then conflated physical existence with the light representation of it. In other words, he ended up attributing the timing differential to the wrong end of the physical process. He deemed the timing difference to be in physical existence, whereas it is in the timing difference in the receipt of observational light. There always being a time delay between existence, and receipt of a light representation of that existence, because observational light has to travel.
Paul
