Some critics have claimed that light from distant stars would've taken billions of years to have traveled here, so the Earth and the universe cannot be approximately 6,000 years old for even some of our closest stars are over 6,000 light-years away, so how could light have traveled here within the biblical timescale?
Upon answering a critic within a video I had watched on YouTube who had asked "Aren't we looking back in time whenever we are looking at the stars?" and my answer and comment in the comment section was, "Rather or not you are 'seeing' back in time depends on which synchrony convention you use. Any choice on this will depend on how you define what it means to be 'synchronized' which is always subjective. If you had chosen the Anisotropic Synchrony Convention (ASC), then you'd be looking at the star in real time. Atheistjunior [his YouTube designation] simple begged the question with distant starlight." I got back a few responses, but one in particular, was from a guy by the name "Sam" (his real name), and his comments, and a paraphrase of my responses is as follows. Sam's comments, as usual, will be in red and mine will be in black. I will offer my conclusion at the end, also in black.
Sam: ASC isn't physics. It's a really lame attempt to use a different coordinate system to get around fatal flaws in YEC claims. Fundamentally it's no different than geocentrists [sic] using a coordinate system with the entire universe revolving around a stationary Earth. You can make the math work but in doing so you violate almost every known law of physics. Same with ASC.
Brian: Right off the bat I could tell he wasn't very familiar with the topic. This will become even more clear as we move forward. ASC is apart of Relativity which is a widely recognized branch of physics, and the concept of the ASC wasn't invented by a young-earth creationist. It goes back to Albert Einstein. A lot of laymen are under the impression that ASC was invented by Dr. Jason Lisle. However, this is false. Dr. Lisle invented the ASM (Anisotropic Model) by which is based upon the ASC (Anisotropic Synchrony Convention), but the ASC was invented by Albert Einstein, or at least the concept of anisotropic one-directional beam of lights. He seemed, at first, completely unaware of this which made me realize at the start that he has really read the literature on this.
It is a different coordinate system, but both the ESC and the ASC are coordinate systems. No matter which one you are choosing to use, you are still using a coordinate system. He accused me and YECs of "trying to get around" the so-called "Distant Starlight Problem" but this is not an attempt to get around the "problem" especially when, in truth, this "problem" doesn't actually exist, but is just us recognizing a known branch of physics called Relativity, which he seemed unfamiliar with. Since it depends upon which system you are using, light can get here within the biblical timescale, so the so-called "Distant Starlight Problem" is really not a problem at all. It's just people who don't fully understand physics. The claim that it is the same or "no different than" geocentricism is false, a strawman argument, and the fallacy of false analogy. It is not the same as geocentricism which claims that everything in the solar system revolves around the Earth, so geocentricism is not based upon coordinate systems at all. Maybe frames of reference, but that understanding permeates all of physics, including Relativity. We don't violate any known laws of physics. Again, Relativity is a known branch of physics, and the one-way speed of light cannot be measured. Not only could you make the math work at either end, but there is no known law of physics that would prohibited it. What law of physics would it violate exactly? Since we cannot measure the one-way speed of light, and scientist come to the realization that Einstein was right, the one-way speed of light appears to not be a property of nature the way they had realize that the two-way speed of light is a property of nature. It does agree with known physics. It isn't just about making the math work.
Sam: Sorry but having the speed of light in a vacuum vary by direction is impossible by the known laws of physics. One good example is GPS. It the speed of light varied by direction GPS simply wouldn't work. GPS relies on a constellation of satellites all broadcasting a tightly time synchronized repeating DSSS signal. Receivers on the ground lock on to at least 4 of the satellite signals and use differences in Time Of Arrival (TOA) to calculate the distance to the satellites, then use geometric triangulation to plot the location of the receiver on the ground. If the speed of light varied by direction the TOA and the distance would all be screwed up and you'd never get the proper position on the ground. How in the world would a beam of light know what direction it was travelling so it would know how fast it was supposed to go under ASC rules?
Brian: Both the ASC and the ESC shows that the roundtrip speed of light to be c (just over 186,282 miles/second), right? Neither claims the roundtrip is any different. He is making a strawman argument here. We don't claim a difference in c (the roundtrip speed of light). He seems to be unaware of this fact, or the fact that the one-way speed of light cannot be measured. This is, of course, referring to the one-way speed of light as it is directed to an observer. Again, we are looking at coordinate systems. Just two different ways of looking at the same thing. You could either used the ESC to make such calculations (GPS or E=mc2) or the ASC and you'd still come up with the same result. There is no "right" or "wrong" answer to this, it's just a matter of preference we choose how we define what is "synchronized" in the first place. Ironically, his objection must choose a synchrony convention, and by using that to argue against the ASC he was begging the question. Physicist have discussed this in the literature for nearly half a century. Again, this is part of known physics. I would recommend him and others, and did, to read the peer-review literature on this. Dr. Jason Lisle has a peer-reviewed paper on this (located at: https://answersresearchjournal.org/anisotropic-synchrony-distant-starlight/), and I had an interview on my channel, Apologetics 101, with Dr. Jason Lisle (https://youtu.be/B38pwF8q07A). Go check that out as well.
Sam: Another sure sign ASC exists only in Lisle's mathematical fantasy world is Einstein's famous relativity equation e = mc2. This equation has been empirically measured and verified to over 99.9999996 accuracy using real world measured masses and c being a constant 299,792,458 m/s. See the 2005 Nature paper "A direct test of E = mc2". What do you think would happen if the value of c was really infinity?
Brian: Again, he is making another strawman argument. We are not fighting against Einstein, we are just agreeing with him. We agree, for example, that c is a constant. If we are using the ASM (Anisotropic Model), we are still arguing that the speed of light in a vacuum is a constant at 186,282 miles/second as I had already stated. We do not claim anything differently from this! The roundtrip speed of light in a vacuum is that speed, and I agree with this critic that this is indisputable. The one-way speed of light, however, has never been measured, and is not a property of nature like the roundtrip speed of light. Again, we are dealing with synchrony conventions. Also, this is not based upon "Lisle's fantasies" as he had claimed but is part of Relativity. Albert Einstein had said: "There is only one demand of the definition of simultaneity, namely, that in every real case it must supply us with an empirical decision as to whether or not the conception that has to be defined is fulfilled. That my definition satisfies this demand is indisputable. That light requires the same time to traverse the path A --> M as for the path B --> M is in reality neither a supposition nor a hypothesis about the physical nature of light, but a stipulation which I can make of my own freewill in order to arrive at a definition of simultaneity" (Albert Einstein, "Relativity: The Special and The General Theory", p. 34, italics in the original) This is why I keep saying he really lacks knowledge in the subject of Relativity. I don't think he fully understands Relativity, at least not on this, nor the model proposed by astrophysicist, Dr. Jason Lisle.
Sam: How did Lisle determine light velocity was c/2 in one direction and infinite in the other? Why not 0.9c in one direction or 10c in the other? Seems like he picked values specifically to match his YEC beliefs and not for any scientific reasons. That alone disqualifies his claims as being worth consideration. FYI Answers Research Journal isn't a peer-reviewed science journal. It's put out by Answers In Genesis and only publishes unsupported YEC claims.
Brian: He's making a partial strawman here, probably from his lack of understanding of Relativity and synchrony conventions. In both cases, ESC or ASC, the roundtrip is always c, meaning just over 186,282.3 miles/s. This is true no matter what synchrony convention you use. So, whatever synchrony convention you use, the speed of light would never go over the roundtrip speed of light. Thus, "10c" is literally ten times faster than the roundtrip speed of light. Obviously, regardless of synchrony conventions, you can't get the speed of light to go faster than this. However, it would be true that you could choose a synchrony convention that had the one-way speed of light do all of the roundtrip toward an observer, and zip back away from the observer instantaneously. The one downside to this is that the observer would no longer be the reference frame, but the star that emitted the starlight would be the reference frame. However, as long as the roundtrip speed of light still equaled c, this synchrony convention would be equally valid.
However, the flaw here would not be his choice of synchrony conventions (with the exception of his claim to "10c" which revealed his failure to understanding physics, Relativity, and synchrony conventions), but in his overall argument. Since ESC (Einstein Synchrony Convention, aka, Isotropic Synchrony Convention) is, also, a synchrony convention. His point is to claim that such values ascribed to the ASC are arbitrary. However, since they are based upon an equation, they are not arbitrary. But let's say that it was, would the ESC not have "arbitrary" values? Are they not assuming that the one-way speed of light is the same in both directions? Einstein called it a "stipulation" which he made of his own freewill. He said this was necessary in order to arrive at some kind of definition for what we are calling "synchronized." Unlike the roundtrip speed of light, the one-way speed of light is not a property of nature (meaning it is not required to make the laws of nature work). Essentially, his argument is self-refuting, and since he would never argued the same thing for the ESC, then he is also special pleading.
Again, we are looking at coordinate systems. Just two different ways of looking at the same thing. You could either used the ESC to make such calculations or the ASC and you'd still come up with the same result. There is no "right" or "wrong" answer to this, it's just a matter of preference we choose how we define what is "synchronized" in the first place. Ironically, his objection must choose a synchrony convention, and by using that to argue against the ASC he is begging the question. Physicists have discussed this in the literature for nearly half a century. Again, this is part of known physics. I had recommended he read up on the peer-review literature on this. Dr. Jason Lisle has a peer-reviewed paper on this (located at: https://answersresearchjournal.org/anisotropic-synchrony-distant-starlight/), and I had an interview on my channel, Apologetics 101, with Dr. Jason Lisle (found at: https://youtu.be/B38pwF8q07A).
In addition to this, Einstein said it was observant-dependent and what synchrony convention you had taken was a matter of preference. Dr. Lisle also has an equation here in his peer-reviewed paper (which I had linked above) whereby he cited his equation factoring in time dilation. He also wrote a book about it called "The Physics of Einstein." He picked the values based upon Relativity and his choice of a synchrony convention. All of this was discussed in the literature long before Dr. Jason Lisle picked up on it, and this concept goes back to Albert Einstein, who was not a young-earth creationist. Relativity is branch of science, so this has scientific reasons. At this point I was wondering if he's picked and choose what he believed from Relativity. As if he was only interested in the things in Relativity that agreed with how he thought as an evolutionist, but whenever it came down to stuff that didn't "fit" his evolutionary paradigm, well those things were rejected. It was like he was cherry-picking Relativity.
Then, I told him, there was no reason to reject the ASC. It is OK to reject the ASM which claims that this is the synchrony convention the biblical authors are most likely using. His model is subject to being challenge. However, the ASC is not since it is a synchrony convention just like the ESC. I mean, does he have any reason to think the one-way speed of light is the same in both directions? Again, this isn't a question of "right" and "wrong" but a matter of personal preference. The same would be true even if you had chosen the ESC, which I presumed from his arguments that he had, because it, too, was also a synchrony convention.
We don't claim that c is infinite in one direction, rather, we claim that the one-way speed of light is infinite. The factor "c" is the roundtrip speed of light. I think he kept conflating the one-way speed of light with "c" which is just a variable that comes from Relativity that represents the roundtrip ("two-way") speed of light, but not the one-way speed of light. Another example of him not understanding this concept from Relativity is whenever he stated: "How in the world would a beam of light know what direction it was travelling so it would know how fast it was supposed to go under ASC rules?" he's treating this like it is up to the beam of light in our argument, but as Einstein pointed out, this has nothing to do with the physical nature of light, but how we define synchronization, which is always subjective. No matter how you sliced the cake, he must choose a synchrony convention.
Also, Answers Research Journal is a peer-reviewed journal. YECs have PhD scientists as well, who reviews these articles and papers and who approves them under peer-reviewed status. This is stated on the very first page of their website (located here: https://answersresearchjournal.org/). What makes him think that it is not peer-reviewed?
Sam: I notice you had no answers for my GPS example or the e=mc2 empirical evidence for c. You also didn't explain what would possibly make the speed of light vary by direction in the real world. I suspect one of us here doesn't grok basic physics and it isn't me. We agree, for example, that c is a constant. Lisle doesn't agree. He says c is really c/2 one direction and infinite in the other.
Brian: Actually, I did already dealt with this in one of my above replies whenever I spoke about the calculations would be the same since we are not claiming anything different with c (roundtrip speed of light) and thus the calculations would be exactly the same. He is straw-manning us again. I told him that both the ASC and the ESC would derive at the same calculation because both claims the two-way (roundtrip) speed of light is c. He was also begging the question, but I did respond. I also, have now, stated several times, that I agree with known physics that the roundtrip speed of light is c and that it is constant. Dr. Jason Lisle has also gone on record saying this. He just didn't understood synchrony conventions. Yes, Dr. Jason Lisle does agree. He has argued that when light goes toward an observer it is instant and half c when going away from the observer, but if you'd measure the roundtrip speed of light (for example, from your flashlight, bouncing off the mirror at the end, and back to your eyes--this is known as the two-speed of light, aka, the roundtrip speed of light, is a property of nature, a constant, and can be objectively measured) then it would always come to just over 186,282.3 miles/s beyond question.
Sam: Obviously you don't comprehend any of this and are just repeating Lisle's claims with no hope of defending them. You certainly didn't address any of the many fatal flaws I brought up (GPS, e=mc2, not having a physical mechanism to make light drastically change speed by the direction it travels).
Brian: I only repeated Lisle's claims in light of his strawman arguments, but I cited Albert Einstein in reference to the concept. I comprehend it very well, which is why I accurately represented known physics. However, he did not. Again, none of these are flaws, and I did address them. My last reply to him had repeated my answer. You would derive at the same conclusion for either GPS or E=mc2. Since both the ESC and the ASC claims the roundtrip speed of light is c you wouldn't get a different calculation nor conclusion with either synchrony convention. As Einstein noted, this has nothing to do with the physical nature of light, but which synchrony convention you just happen to use out of personal preference, so a "physical mechanism to make light drastically change speed" is a red herring--it is irrelevant to the point. It may also be him assuming a strawman argument since we don't claim any change in c. None of these are "fatal flaws" in either the ASC nor the ASM. He has just misrepresented the arguments, and, by extension, Relativity itself.
He was trying to falsify a synchrony convention. You cannot falsify a synchrony convention because it is just two different ways to look at the same thing. To even began to try and "falsify" it you'd need to assume a synchrony convention which would begged the question. I told him that he does not understood this. Every time he tried to argue against the ASC he shows that he does not understand Relativity. This was starting to become clearer and clearer to me as we moved forward in our conversation.
Sam: Please explain why no other scientists anywhere accept Lisle's claim the ASC isn't just math but represents the actual physical world.
Brian: All physicist who specialize in Relativity, and even just physicists in general, do accept Einstein's claim about synchrony conventions. It is a part of relativity. In both Lisle's book and in his peer-review paper on this, he does cites secular physicists as well. I heard Maddie from Science Side Up YouTube channel, who's a secular scientist, and who does not agree with YECs, actually admit this fact about synchrony conventions in a video she had made on this (found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-Dm9UDxqlU&t=1920s). Peer-review literature is covered in this. Lisle's paper has peer-reviewed status which means other physicists had reviewed it. One that I found said:
"Since Einstein stated the constancy of the speed of light to be a mere “stipulation … to arrive at a definition of simultaneity”, theorists argued that it could be possible for the speed of light to differ in different directions since there are many anisotropies like the amount of matter vs antimatter. However, this assumption has not been confirmed yet. No experiment has been proposed that measures the one-way speed of light; all experiments to date measure the round-trip speed of light" ("the Journal of Student Research", Found at: https://www.jsr.org/hs/index.php/path/article/view/2540).Yes, they do acknowledge this, but not all scientists are physicists nor experts on Relativity.
Sam: we [sic] don't claim any change in c. You most certainly claim light in a vacuum changes it speed drastically depending on the direction it goes. You can't even dream up a potential real world mechanism which would cause that effect. Sorry but Lisle is just one more creationist loon with a silly "rescue device" even other YECs won't touch.
Brian: Dr. Jason Lisle, nor any creationists who uses this argument, claims a change in c, "c" being the variable for the roundtrip speed of light. His knowledge was so limited in Relativity and synchrony conventions that I had to explain this several times to him. It was almost like, not only was he not getting it, but he didn't want to get it either. Instead, he just kept repeating his strawman argument in various ways. In addition to that strawman, he makes another, namely assuming that this has anything to do with the physical nature of light. Assuming that we would need a "physical mechanism" by which to change light's speed in a one-way direction seemed to strongly imply this strawman, but we have gone on record saying we agree with Einstein and this had nothing to do with the physical nature of light, but the way in which one measures the passing time, which will depend upon which synchrony convention he'd used on how he defines what it means to be "synchronized." I had to also correct him on this one several times as well. This, of course, was not a "rescue device" but was grounded in the known branch of physics called Relativity, which he failed to understand. Btw, Dr. Lisle's ASM is the most popular view among YECs, so why does he think that "other YECs" won't touch it?
Sam: Yet more evidence ASC is just a math based folly and not the real world is gravitational lensing. The light path from the distant supernova Refsdal is bent around a massive galaxy so that the light arrives here by four different paths at different times. The light from the supernova is estimated to be up 60 years slower arriving in one of the four paths because of the extra distance the light had to travel. By ASC all four light paths should be identical and instantaneous. Once again the real world data disproves Lisle's ASC game playing.
There's nothing more to discuss here. It's obvious you want to live in your creationist fantasy world. More power to you but don't expect anyone with a science education to be duped like you were.
Brian: First of all, "gravitational lensing" would never disprove either the ASC o(Anisotropic Synchrony Convention) or the ASM (Anisotropic Synchrony Model) since this is always dealing with bent light, and the ASC claims that light is only instantaneous whenever it is directed at an observer. He is making another strawman argument here, and an obvious one. Thus, he is misrepresenting the ASC and the ASM which incorporates the ASC. Furthermore, he has gotten his facts wrong. The supernova had issued five images, not four, and four of them arrived simultaneous of each other, not at different times like he had claimed, while the fifth one took a different path and arrived a year later.
Dr. Jason Lisle has already answered this several times, even in our interview. Some laymen on the Internet had thought that this disproved the ASC but it didn't. Since the light beams started their paths at an angle they were not directly toward Earth. Both the ASC and the ESC would've predicted their paths the same based upon their angles of trajectory. It is only when the angles of light when directly toward the observers on Earth that the beams would've been instantaneous. A fifth one took a longer path, and based upon its angle of trajectory, took a year to get around it. If you follow Dr. Lisle's equation on this, the beam of light that took a longer path would've taken a year to get around before it hit toward Earth which then it would've been instantaneous. There has only been a few peer-review papers published on this, but the ones that are that talk about this event do not even mention the one-way speed of light nor claim that this disproves the ASC. In fact, the speed of light is never even mentioned. He is guilty of an error called confirmation bias. In other words, he had failed to considered or take in what the other side even says on the matter to see if they would've predicted the same results. Most of the people using that claim are non-physicists on the internet or someone like Hugh Ross who's an astronomer but has no real training in physics, and certainly not in Relativity. His statement "By ASC all four light paths should be identical and instantaneous" is both false and a strawman argument. Again, the light beam is only instantaneous whenever it is directed toward an observer because it is observer-dependent. Remember, I said this earlier. He failed to take into account and properally understood both the ASC and the ASM which led him to a misrepresentation, and which also led to the error of confirmation bias as well.
Once again, he is trying to falsify a synchrony convention. It would be like someone trying to disprove the metric system over the imperial system of feet and inches. It wouldn't make any sense. They are just two different ways of looking at the same thing. Even if you choose the ESC you'd still have to choose a synchrony convention, which is what ESC is. It isn't "a fantasy world" it's just physics. It sounded to me like there were parts of Relativity he wanted to accept, and parts that he didn't. Either way, nothing that he'd said here has "disproven" the ASC. Of course, I had no doubt that he would not be able to. Smarter people in the past than either of, had tried to disprove the Conventionality Thesis in Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity, but had always failed. Most physicists today don't even try any more since, like Relativity, it is considered well-established.
Of course, if anyone did figured out how to measure the one-way speed of light they'd win the Nobel Peace Prize. Had anyone won that? No, because they still cannot objectively measure, nor demonstrate, the one-way speed of light. People that have "science education" particularly in physics, already know about this. You could even Google it and lots of people are talking about it. His previous statement about "no scientists knowing about" the one-way speed of light being immeasurable and concerning synchrony conventions told me that he had never even bother searching the literature at all on of this, as well as how little he knew about it. Peer-review literatures have very few claims of trying to resolve the one-way speed of light at present, but not that many even bring it up any more since scientists view Relativity and what Einstein claimed about it to be pretty well-established. Most of the claims of figuring out ways to try and measure the one-way speed of light come from the Internet, mostly from laymen, and, on occasion, a non-physicist scientist or a non-specialist in Relativity. I'm sure that everyone would want to win that Nobel Peace Prize, but it hasn't happened yet. Apparently, the only one being "duped" is him.
Sam: the [sic] beam of light that took a longer path would've taken a year to get around before it hit toward Earth which then it would've been instantaneous. HAHAHAHA!! That's the classic creationist method called "making it up as you go". Also known as "pulling it straight out of your nether regions." Let me get this straight. According to you the light from the supernova moseyed along in deep space at c/2 until it reached the galaxy causing the gravitational lensing. Then the light suddenly realized someone on Earth may be watching and accelerated to infinite speed. You and Lisle should write for The Bozo Show...
the [sic] beam of light that took a longer path would've taken a year to get around before it hit toward Earth which then it would've been instantaneous. HAHAHAHA!! That's the classic creationist method called "making it up as you go". Also known as "pulling it straight out of your nether regions." Let me get this straight. According to you the light from the supernova moseyed along in deep space at c/2 until it reached the galaxy causing the gravitational lensing. Then the light suddenly realized someone on Earth may be watching and accelerated to infinite speed.
Brian: No, this has to do with frames of references not "the light suddenly changing its 'mind' mentality" he had seemed to think it was. The light in a one-way trip is based on its trajectory of its angle. Closer the light beam gets to "0" the faster it gets until it is directed at an observer. He really doesn't seem to know that much about Relativity. Btw, the last thing he had said in this post was an ad hominem fallacy.
No, I didn't make it up. Dr. Jason Lisle, who is an astrophysicist, provided the equation in his peer-reviewed paper and in his book, "The Physics of Einstein", whereby he had shown how the ASC in a one-way trip could've gotten light here (the math behind this is shown here: https://biblicalscienceinstitute.com/apologetics/distant-starlight-in-a-young-universe-objections-to-the-conventionality-thesis/). Dr. Jason Lisle had also responded to this on his website (found here: https://biblicalscienceinstitute.com/refuting-the-critics/refuting-the-critics-distant-starlight-and-asc/). This claim isn't made up. It is based off of an equation. It had seemed to me that because he had been shown that Sam, essentially, knew nothing about Relativity, he had just laughed it off instead. Not very rational. Instead of just trying to rebut me because he doesn't like young-earth creationism, he should just try and read up on it instead. If he kept responding the way he did, from a physics standpoint, he'll keep on looking like he has no idea of what he is talking about.
Sam: It's remarkable you can still be so stoop id [sic] as to not realize a mathematical frame of reference does not equate to real world velocities, times, and distances.
Brian: Calling me "stupid" is another ad hominem fallacy. It seems like the ad hominem fallacies are coming in stronger now, probably because he is growing more desperate at this point. This is not just a "mathematical" frame of reference. If we are talking about something that is observant-independent (which means the observer is the frame of reference), and we are, how is this a mathematical frame of reference? This appears to be a self-refuting argument. He is trying to claim that an ASC does not represent "real-world" scenarios, but if that is true then neither does the ESC which he has obviously adopted, since this, too, is a synchrony convention. He also is special pleading which, if you recall, is the logical and rhetorical version of a double standard. He wants to grant "real-world support" for the ESC, but then assume that the ASC is invalid because it uses equation, although ESC also uses equations. In fact, since nearly all of Relativity works off of reference frames (with the exception of the roundtrip speed of light), you'd pretty much downgrade all of Relativity to a "mathematical", or "non-real-world" claims which would not be grounded in reality, which would make any of his claims to the contrary self-contradictory. In addition to that, what makes him think that if it's "mathematical" that means it's not connected to the "real-world" anyway? Numbers are conceptional, but they are apart of the real world, effects the real world, and they are even found in nature. Even the E=mc2 is an equation and it is apart of reality, grounded in Relativity, which he seemed to support.
By the way, from light's point of view, the one-way trip is always instantaneous regardless of what synchrony convention you are using. These are "real-world" frames of references. In fact, check out that link I had referenced above for Lisle's equation which factor's in things like time dilation, velocity (that's the "v" in his equation), and so forth. I am telling him these things, quoting them, and even sending him the links to the sources and he is absolutely refusing to check them out. Why is that?
Sam: Here's one last try to educate you out of your ign0rance [sic]. Suppose you drop an egg from a height of 1m. It falls to the ground at rate of 9.8m/sec^2. Now it is possible to make a mathematical frame of reference when the egg remains stationary and the Earth itself accelerates upward at the same 9.8 m/sec^2. But according to the laws of physics it would take a huge amount to energy to accelerate the entire 5.97e10^24 kg of Earth's mass up to hit the stationary egg, something we know doesn't happen in real life. Lisle is playing the same sort of mathematical games with c. He's made a frame of reference which he can do mathematically but which invalidates our known laws of physics just like the Earth flying up to hit the stationary egg does. All frames of reference are not equal, some describe the real world much better than others. If you can't grasp that then you're just too stoop id to try and educate.
Brian: OK, his analogy fails here for a number of reasons. First, technically speaking, taking an enormous amount of energy to do something doesn't violate the laws of physics as long as that energy is there to accomplish the task. The movement of a planet upwards, for example, could be apart of a planet's orbit around the Sun. There are planets, for further example, that "wobbles" around the Sun such as Neptune, and Uranus rotates on its side. Granted Uranus isn't moving, but secularist think that it was hit by something massive that changed its orbit around the Sun. Granted I think this is speculation, and there is no evidence of this (I don't think this even happened), it does, at least, mean that secular scientists agree that large planets can be physically moved significantly without such movements violating the known laws of physics.
Secondly, this is an fallacy of false analogy. The speed of light is much faster than the movement of gravity, thus the speed of light would be under Relativistic effects, where as gravity in the situation that he's talking about would be under Newtonian physics. Therefore, these two would not even be remotely relating. Third, he is making a strawman argument as well. Since we do not claim that light is traveling faster than c (that light isn't traveling faster than the roundtrip speed of light), we are not claiming anything that is violating known laws of physics. I have corrected him on this several times now. For a split second, I thought he understood, but he had shown that he did not, nor did he seemed to want to fully understand this. Having the one-way speed of light infinite in one direction does not violate any known laws of physics which is why all physicists accept that possibility. In fact, since Relativity is apart of known physics, and since this is according to Relativity, this does not violate known physics at all.
Also, notice how he seemed to be assuming that this is something that Dr. Lisle is doing. He is fighting against the synchrony convention, ASC (Anisotropic Synchrony Convention), but he keeps conflating it with the ASM (Anisotropic Synchrony Model). Ther model goes back to Lisle, but the synchrony convention goes back to Einstein. This effect on Relativity was discovered by Einstein, not Dr. Lisle. By keep insisting this false assertion the critic is trying to make you think that this concept is something that Lisle invented, and thus, violate known laws of physics, but as soon as you realize that this concept goes back to Einstein, then you know that this is apart of known physics, not something is there to work against it. At this point, he is being deceptive. As you've seen, I had to correct him several times on this. I even quoted both Einstein and a modern physicist research journal. At this point, I started realizing that his deception might have been self-instituted. His unbelief wasn't because I hadn't been clear enough, he didn't want to believe in it because of its implications for YEC positions.
All frames of references are real-world frames of references, and there is no such thing as degrees of validity with reference frames either. A reference frame simply takes the "point of view" from a particular angle, and then determines the situation and the laws of physics from that perspective. This showed that he did not fully understood reference frames in physics. In addition to that, he was special pleading again. Would he had argued that the ESC, which he adopted, was just a "mathematical reference frame" that does not represent "real-world" references? His special pleading was due to the fact of the self-refuting nature of his argument, his lack of comprehension of reference frames, and him wanting the ESC to be based off of "real-world" references, but not the ASC. However, the ESC must assumed that the one-way speed of light is the same in all direction, of which, Einstein had concluded that this was a stipulation and had nothing to do with the physical nature of light, but something he had chosen based upon a preferred (subjective) definition of simultaneity (Einstein, p. 34). It was just a matter of preferences, not differences in the laws of physics. Therefore, this doesn't violate known laws of physics. Synchrony conventions are just two different ways of measuring time across two points separated by distances. Einstein had discovered that there was no objective way to determine this since this was based upon one's own preferred definition of what it means to be "synchronized" not laws of physics. I really don't think he fully understands that. His attempts at trying to "falsify" this run in the same area as if someone was trying to falsify the metric system because they like the imperial system of feet and inches. It has that level of absurdity.
Again, we agree that the roundtrip speed of light is c. It does not take an infinite amount of energy for light to be infinite in one-way direction. Physicists have noted this in the past. This would only be true if you try and make light faster than c, which we are not. In ASC, it is the observer that is the reference frame, the equation is just used to describe how all of the variables work out. This is a reference frame that involves Relativity. Einstein had explained this.
I am going to provide a link to the video where I had interviewed Dr. Jason Lisle. I did it for him as well, ending our discussion as well. So far, he haven't checked out any source I presented to him, and I doubt he'd check this one out as well, but I think it would be easier for him to watch a video on it than to read literature on it, so I will include the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B38pwF8q07A. Please go check it out, it was a really cool interview that I had with an astrophysicist on this very topic. I hope he does further research on this topic, as well as you, it is quite fun and cool to learn it. However, he has to be willing to learn it, and so far, he is so militant against us that he refuses to even study Relativity which he claims to agree with.
In conclusion, as I stated originally, whether or not you are "looking back in time" or seeing the universe in real-time is a matter of what synchrony convention you are using. These are different ways in which you can measure two different points separated by distances based upon how you would define what it means to be "synchronized" which Einstein had concluded that there was no objective way to do this, either with the ESC nor with the ASC. This is not violating any law in physics since we cannot objectively measure the one-way speed of light. We can, however, measure the two-way, or roundtrip, speed of light which is often designated as "c", but there was no way to objectively measure the speed of light in a one-way direction.
Throughout me and Sam's conversation, I got the feeling that he did not understand these concepts, nor wanted to. He was so bent in his direction that it seemed, to me that is, that he wouldn't even check out any of the sources nor links that I had sent him. He was misrepresenting physics and my arguments, as well as Dr. Jason Lisle's arguments, every step of the way, showing clear misunderstandings with both the arguments in view and with the physics in question. Most of these kinds of challenges to ASC come from people on the Internet that lacks the knowledge and the proper background to assess them. Instead, they throw out things, such as with the supernova, that has nothing to do with synchrony conventions, and exposes his ignorance of the subject. This is unfortunate, but it happens a lot.
Comments