John J. Kineman wrote:
> At 09:13 AM 2/16/99 -0500, you wrote:
> >Don Mikulecky replies:
> >Time is labeled by a clock. What we can do is mark simultaneous instants.
> We
> >can also discern non-simultaneous events as prior or subsequent. that's the
> >best we can do. This is a labeling, not measurement.
> >Don Mikulecky
> >
> >Jack Martinelli wrote:
> >
> .... Although there is no absolute character to time, it
> >> is farily easy to construct an
> >> objective procedure for measuring it. Our sense of time is subjective.
> >> If this is what you want to model, then good luck.
>
> The implication of Rosen's perspective (and others, by the way) is that
> time itself is subjective. Since time can only be quantified (labeled) in
> terms of space, and vice versa, this implies that space too is subjective.
>
> Yet I believe we need to account for the objective character of the
> space-time world in terms that are not just individually referenced, but
> shared by all observers. That shared view is incontrovertable; so what
> accounts for its relative permanence?
That is if we are all at the same place and traceling at the same speed. Don't
forget relativistic effects on time.
> We need to see how the shared
> objective "reality" is derived from the ultimately subjective one Rosen was
> constructing.
Rosen doesn't "construct" a set of ideas about time. He merely notes our
limitations.
In the broader sense, he also deals with the myth of objectvity, showing that it
is indeed a myth. He then confronts us with a joice: limit science to the
pseudo-objective or discard the subject/object boundary we try to maintain.
> The problem has been that everyone has been assuming it would
> work the other way around; that the subjective would be derived in some way
> from the objective/computable. That makes no sense because one can't derive
> the more general case from the more specific, yet the two can interact in
> significant ways.
>
> -----------------------------------------------
> John J. Kineman, Physical Scientist/Ecologist
> National Geophysical Data Center
> 325 Broadway E/GC1 (3100 Marine St. Rm: A-152)
> Boulder, Colorado 80303 USA
> (303) 497-6900 (phone)
> (303) 497-6513 (fax)
> jjk@ngdc.noaa.gov (email)
Respectfully,
Don