Someone posting as Paul Miller offered "A challenge to non-SRians" in the
following thread:
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=46...0posting .goo
gle.com

Paul claimed that he was " ... not a physicist, nor a mathematician, nor do
I claim any understanding of relativity." The only problem is that Paul was
somewhat unwilling to commit himself to any substantive negotiations in that
challenge.

Some people immediately tagged Paul Miller as a troll. Others thought he
was a pseudonym of a common Relativist poster, due to his wording style.
Others of us were willing to lend him a few fathoms of rope.


Paul Miller also followed Androcles into the thread "The Fundamental Flaw of
SR." After making noises about possible acceptances to Ken Seto / Androcles
on July 31 in
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=46...osting.g oogl
e.com
And promised a reply to me on Sept. 1st.
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=46...0posting .goo
gle.com

Paul Miller promised to reply shortly after September 13th, and it has now
been a full month. Despite repeated prompts in the thread, Paul Miller
remains 'missing in action.'


"Paul Miller" did briefly resurface on September 10th:
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=46...0posting .goo
gle.com

However, this post certainly does not sound like it is written by someone
who " ... is not a physicist, nor a mathematician, nor ... claim(s) any
understanding of relativity."

===========================
"All you are saying here is that you could build an adaptive controller
to make the corrections without having any knowledge of GR. So what?
The claim 'GPS wouldn't work without GR' means no more than 'the
controller would land up learning exactly the same corrections as
those predicted by GR'. This puts GR in the same category as any other
well-supported and well-accepted theory. You could train a neural
network to model the predictions of any theory, past or future, so you
'empirical' statement applies to all theories. It tells us nothing
about the status of those theories."
===========================

But whoever Paul Miller is, he is -- or was -- back from vacation. But he's
apparently decided he doesn't want to lose his money. Or the Relativist
involved decided there was a chance his pet theory had a chance of being
really tested.

I guess if he stays away, he really was just a pseudonymous Relativist
troll.

Back to you "Paul Miller"........................

--
greywolf42
ubi dubium ibi libertas
{remove planet for e-mail}

"greywolf42" wrote in message
...
Someone posting as Paul Miller offered "A challenge to non-SRians" in the
following thread:
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=46...0posting .goo
gle.com

Paul claimed that he was " ... not a physicist, nor a mathematician, nor
do
I claim any understanding of relativity." The only problem is that Paul
was
somewhat unwilling to commit himself to any substantive negotiations in
that
challenge.

Some people immediately tagged Paul Miller as a troll.

Yep. I was one of them.


Others thought he
was a pseudonym of a common Relativist poster, due to his wording style.
Others of us were willing to lend him a few fathoms of rope.

Yep. So did I. But I held the end of rope that was round his neck.



Paul Miller also followed Androcles into the thread "The Fundamental Flaw
of
SR." After making noises about possible acceptances to Ken Seto /
Androcles
on July 31 in
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=46...osting.g oogl
e.com
And promised a reply to me on Sept. 1st.
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=46...0posting .goo
gle.com

Paul Miller promised to reply shortly after September 13th, and it has now
been a full month. Despite repeated prompts in the thread, Paul Miller
remains 'missing in action.'


Well, of course. That was predicted. The guy placed a rope around his neck
and said "pull", so I pulled. Now he's dead. No money, though. He never was
willing to place it in escrow. Were you realistically expecting any? That
would be incredibly naive. Nah... you a posting to jerk a few chains.. cant
blame you for that. :-)




"Paul Miller" did briefly resurface on September 10th:
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=46...0posting .goo
gle.com

However, this post certainly does not sound like it is written by someone
who " ... is not a physicist, nor a mathematician, nor ... claim(s) any
understanding of relativity."

===========================
"All you are saying here is that you could build an adaptive controller
to make the corrections without having any knowledge of GR. So what?
The claim 'GPS wouldn't work without GR' means no more than 'the
controller would land up learning exactly the same corrections as
those predicted by GR'. This puts GR in the same category as any other
well-supported and well-accepted theory. You could train a neural
network to model the predictions of any theory, past or future, so you
'empirical' statement applies to all theories. It tells us nothing
about the status of those theories."
===========================

But whoever Paul Miller is, he is -- or was -- back from vacation. But
he's
apparently decided he doesn't want to lose his money. Or the Relativist
involved decided there was a chance his pet theory had a chance of being
really tested.

I guess if he stays away, he really was just a pseudonymous Relativist
troll.

Aww... c'mon. Even if he returns that won't change. He'll still be just a
lying relativist troll, pseudonymous or not.

Androcles


Back to you "Paul Miller"........................

--
greywolf42
ubi dubium ibi libertas
{remove planet for e-mail}

"greywolf42" wrote in message ...
Someone posting as Paul Miller offered "A challenge to non-SRians" in the
following thread:
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=46...0posting .goo
gle.com

Paul claimed that he was " ... not a physicist, nor a mathematician, nor do
I claim any understanding of relativity." The only problem is that Paul was
somewhat unwilling to commit himself to any substantive negotiations in that
challenge.

Some people immediately tagged Paul Miller as a troll.

Didn't you know? You were Paul Miller.

Dirk Vdm

"Androcles" wrote in message . uk...

"greywolf42" wrote in message
...
Someone posting as Paul Miller offered "A challenge to non-SRians" in the
following thread:
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=46...0posting .goo
gle.com

Paul claimed that he was " ... not a physicist, nor a mathematician, nor
do
I claim any understanding of relativity." The only problem is that Paul
was
somewhat unwilling to commit himself to any substantive negotiations in
that
challenge.

Some people immediately tagged Paul Miller as a troll.

Yep. I was one of them.

Nah. You were Paul Miller.

Dirk Vdm

"Dirk Van de moortel" wrote
in message ...

"greywolf42" wrote in message
...
Someone posting as Paul Miller offered "A challenge to non-SRians" in
the
following thread:

http://www.google.com/groups?selm=46...0posting .goo
gle.com

Paul claimed that he was " ... not a physicist, nor a mathematician, nor
do
I claim any understanding of relativity." The only problem is that Paul
was
somewhat unwilling to commit himself to any substantive negotiations in
that
challenge.

Some people immediately tagged Paul Miller as a troll.

Didn't you know? You were Paul Miller.

Why, hello again, Dinky.

I see you still can't post any physics. I guess Paul Miller would be your
kindred soul. You still won't take those bets, either.

Bye.

--
greywolf42
ubi dubium ibi libertas
{remove planet for e-mail}

Hey greywolf,

sorry, but the day job has taken over for a while, both for me and my
pal.

Paul claimed that he was " ... not a physicist, nor a mathematician, nor do
I claim any understanding of relativity." The only problem is that Paul was
somewhat unwilling to commit himself to any substantive negotiations in that
challenge.

Well, I would suggest that you specify the conditions of your
experiment that would predict the largest deviations from SR. In terms
of accuracy, as I'm offering 100-1 I would need accuracy at least one
order of magnitude larger, i.e. p 0.001 where p is prob. of getting
a wrongly falsifying result. I know I promised to get back to you with
more detail, but I really will. In the meantime, please show me some
reason to think that you have the resources to actually carry this
experiment out.


"Paul Miller" did briefly resurface on September 10th:
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=46...0posting .goo
gle.com

However, this post certainly does not sound like it is written by someone
who " ... is not a physicist, nor a mathematician, nor ... claim(s) any
understanding of relativity."
===========================
"All you are saying here is that you could build an adaptive controller
to make the corrections without having any knowledge of GR. So what?
The claim 'GPS wouldn't work without GR' means no more than 'the
controller would land up learning exactly the same corrections as
those predicted by GR'. This puts GR in the same category as any other
well-supported and well-accepted theory. You could train a neural
network to model the predictions of any theory, past or future, so you
'empirical' statement applies to all theories. It tells us nothing
about the status of those theories."
===========================

Sorry, but wrong again. If you must know, my background is in
cognitive science, not physics or maths. Just as I said first time
round.


Paul

"Paul Miller" wrote in message
om...
Hey greywolf,

sorry, but the day job has taken over for a while, both for me and my
pal.

It's nice to be friends with yourself.

Paul claimed that he was " ... not a physicist, nor a mathematician, nor
do I claim any understanding of relativity." The only problem is that
Paul was somewhat unwilling to commit himself to any substantive
negotiations in that challenge.

Well, I would suggest that you specify the conditions of your
experiment that would predict the largest deviations from SR.

That wasn't the agreement.

In terms
of accuracy, as I'm offering 100-1 I would need accuracy at least one
order of magnitude larger, i.e. p 0.001 where p is prob. of getting
a wrongly falsifying result. I know I promised to get back to you with
more detail, but I really will.

Sure, you will.

I presume a repeatable measurement of a value of the variation outside the
current 'best' value will be sufficient? That's all I'm asking for. Give
me a specific value of 'c' and a range of values around that main value.
Within that range you (and SR) will be declared the winner (and you will
receive $1,000 US from me). Outside of which, I will be declared the winner
(and receive $100,000 US from you). This is a trivial excercise for you and
your "pal."

I will then design an experiment (and you and your "pal" will approve) such
that the experimental precision will be tight enough to meet your
"challenge."

In the meantime, please show me some
reason to think that you have the resources to actually carry this
experiment out.

What a pathetic attempt at evasion. If I had no resources, you would not
have to risk any money. And how can I provide you with an estimate of the
resources required, when you won't provide even the minimum to design the
experiment? (Aside from the fact a few locals agreed to assist with
equipment scrounging and purchase.)


"Paul Miller" did briefly resurface on September 10th:

http://www.google.com/groups?selm=46...0posting .goo
gle.com

However, this post certainly does not sound like it is written by
someone who " ... is not a physicist, nor a mathematician, nor
... claim(s) any understanding of relativity."
===========================
"All you are saying here is that you could build an adaptive controller
to make the corrections without having any knowledge of GR. So what?
The claim 'GPS wouldn't work without GR' means no more than 'the
controller would land up learning exactly the same corrections as
those predicted by GR'. This puts GR in the same category as any other
well-supported and well-accepted theory. You could train a neural
network to model the predictions of any theory, past or future, so you
'empirical' statement applies to all theories. It tells us nothing
about the status of those theories."
===========================

Sorry, but wrong again.

Wrong that you posted something? You claimed that you did not have "any
understanding of relativity." Yet you posted an authoritative post on GR
and the support for physics theories in general. That appears to contradict
your prior claims.

If you must know, my background is in
cognitive science, not physics or maths. Just as I said first time
round.

A "scientist" without a math background? :-)

If you were "real", you would simply provide what you agreed to before.
After all, you want your money, right? Try again when you can simply live up
to your newsgroup claims. Like with a pass/fail criterion.

--
greywolf42
ubi dubium ibi libertas
{remove planet for e-mail}

"greywolf42" wrote in message . ..
"Paul Miller" wrote in message
om...
Hey greywolf,

[snip]

If you were "real", you would simply provide what you agreed to before.
After all, you want your money, right? Try again when you can simply live up
to your newsgroup claims. Like with a pass/fail criterion.

--
greywolf42
ubi dubium ibi libertas
{remove planet for e-mail}

Are you sure you're not talking to yourself here???

Dirk Vdm

It's nice to be friends with yourself.

sorry?

Paul claimed that he was " ... not a physicist, nor a mathematician, nor
do I claim any understanding of relativity." The only problem is that
Paul was somewhat unwilling to commit himself to any substantive
negotiations in that challenge.

Well, I would suggest that you specify the conditions of your
experiment that would predict the largest deviations from SR.

That wasn't the agreement.

As far as I know, we don't have an agreement yet. I thought we were
trying to work towards one. Like I said, that may take time.

In terms
of accuracy, as I'm offering 100-1 I would need accuracy at least one
order of magnitude larger, i.e. p 0.001 where p is prob. of getting
a wrongly falsifying result. I know I promised to get back to you with
more detail, but I really will.

Sure, you will.

I presume a repeatable measurement of a value of the variation outside the
current 'best' value will be sufficient? That's all I'm asking for. Give
me a specific value of 'c' and a range of values around that main value.
Within that range you (and SR) will be declared the winner (and you will
receive $1,000 US from me). Outside of which, I will be declared the winner
(and receive $100,000 US from you). This is a trivial excercise for you and
your "pal."

I will then design an experiment (and you and your "pal" will approve) such
that the experimental precision will be tight enough to meet your
"challenge."

As I understand it, we are trying to distinguish between two possible
worlds, one in which SR is correct, and one in which it is wrong. The
best way to distinguish between them is to find the conditions under
which they look as different as possible from each other. Setting the
range of acceptable values of c depends on many factors, such as: the
value of c that you would predict that differs from SR, the nature of
experimental noise etc. Without investigating these issues, it's not
'a trivial exercise' for us. I did say in advance that it would take
some time to sort this out, did't I? Given that I'm risking a
considerable amount of money, is it unreasonable for me to ask for
some discussion about these issues? Why don't you try telling me your
thoughts on this, rather than always trying to pick a fight?

In the meantime, please show me some
reason to think that you have the resources to actually carry this
experiment out.

What a pathetic attempt at evasion. If I had no resources, you would not
have to risk any money. And how can I provide you with an estimate of the
resources required, when you won't provide even the minimum to design the
experiment? (Aside from the fact a few locals agreed to assist with
equipment scrounging and purchase.)

What I'm talking about here is our time, not money. If this experiment
can't actually be done for real, then we're wasting our time. How
about you telling me about a couple of designs that could be done? At
least that would give me a start.


"Paul Miller" did briefly resurface on September 10th:

http://www.google.com/groups?selm=46...0posting .goo
gle.com

However, this post certainly does not sound like it is written by
someone who " ... is not a physicist, nor a mathematician, nor
... claim(s) any understanding of relativity."
===========================
"All you are saying here is that you could build an adaptive controller
to make the corrections without having any knowledge of GR. So what?
The claim 'GPS wouldn't work without GR' means no more than 'the
controller would land up learning exactly the same corrections as
those predicted by GR'. This puts GR in the same category as any other
well-supported and well-accepted theory. You could train a neural
network to model the predictions of any theory, past or future, so you
'empirical' statement applies to all theories. It tells us nothing
about the status of those theories."
===========================

Sorry, but wrong again.

Wrong that you posted something? You claimed that you did not have "any
understanding of relativity." Yet you posted an authoritative post on GR
and the support for physics theories in general. That appears to contradict
your prior claims.

Wrong about these rather odd 'conspiracy theory'-like comments. As I
said from the start, I'm not a physicist, but my friend is. My
background is cognitive science, which is a branch of psychology, so
it's typically taught without any maths. I know nothing about GR, and
there's nothing in that post to suggest otherwise. My comments in that
post come from a basic understanding of the philosophy of science,
which is a common element in a cog.sci. degree. I'm not sure why I'm
now having to convince you that I'm telling the truth about this.
Firstly, I'm not sure if I care - if you want to think I'm a physicist
with an invisible friend, that's fine by me. Secondly, I don't
understand the relevance of this to the bet.

If you were "real", you would simply provide what you agreed to before.
After all, you want your money, right? Try again when you can simply live up
to your newsgroup claims. Like with a pass/fail criterion.

Setting a pass/fail criterion depends on lots of factors, such as
experimental noise. That's one reason why I was asking whether you
have the resources to do this - it would be good to see how accurate
your measurements are able to be. Not on paper, but for real. Setting
up experiments like this isn't that straightforward - maybe we should
try to work together to define the criterion, rather than assuming
that I'm lying about everything. I would suggest that would involve
you talking to me about a few possible designs, then we can think
about what predictions SR would make, and what you would predict. Then
we can think about what kind of accuracy we can expect. We might even
have to collect some data before we set the criteria. This is how real
world experiments are done, at least in my experience. If you go back
to my original, first post, I did say that it was *your* job to
completely specify the experiment, in detail. The idea was that I
would take that experimental design - including criteria for
falsification - and talk to my pal about that. Now I can see that it's
going to take a bit more effort on our part, which is going to make
demands on our time. That's not a problem, as long as your willing to
work with us a bit. If you would rather assume that I'm lying about
all of that for some inexpicable reason, then walk away from the
challenge.

Paul

"Paul Miller" wrote in message om...
It's nice to be friends with yourself.

sorry?

Paul claimed that he was " ... not a physicist, nor a mathematician, nor
do I claim any understanding of relativity." The only problem is that
Paul was somewhat unwilling to commit himself to any substantive
negotiations in that challenge.

Well, I would suggest that you specify the conditions of your
experiment that would predict the largest deviations from SR.

That wasn't the agreement.

As far as I know, we don't have an agreement yet. I thought we were
trying to work towards one. Like I said, that may take time.

In terms
of accuracy, as I'm offering 100-1 I would need accuracy at least one
order of magnitude larger, i.e. p 0.001 where p is prob. of getting
a wrongly falsifying result. I know I promised to get back to you with
more detail, but I really will.

Sure, you will.

I presume a repeatable measurement of a value of the variation outside the
current 'best' value will be sufficient? That's all I'm asking for. Give
me a specific value of 'c' and a range of values around that main value.
Within that range you (and SR) will be declared the winner (and you will
receive $1,000 US from me). Outside of which, I will be declared the winner
(and receive $100,000 US from you). This is a trivial excercise for you and
your "pal."

I will then design an experiment (and you and your "pal" will approve) such
that the experimental precision will be tight enough to meet your
"challenge."

As I understand it, we are trying to distinguish between two possible
worlds, one in which SR is correct, and one in which it is wrong. The
best way to distinguish between them is to find the conditions under
which they look as different as possible from each other. Setting the
range of acceptable values of c depends on many factors, such as: the
value of c that you would predict that differs from SR, the nature of
experimental noise etc. Without investigating these issues, it's not
'a trivial exercise' for us. I did say in advance that it would take
some time to sort this out, did't I? Given that I'm risking a
considerable amount of money, is it unreasonable for me to ask for
some discussion about these issues? Why don't you try telling me your
thoughts on this, rather than always trying to pick a fight?

In the meantime, please show me some
reason to think that you have the resources to actually carry this
experiment out.

What a pathetic attempt at evasion. If I had no resources, you would not
have to risk any money. And how can I provide you with an estimate of the
resources required, when you won't provide even the minimum to design the
experiment? (Aside from the fact a few locals agreed to assist with
equipment scrounging and purchase.)

What I'm talking about here is our time, not money. If this experiment
can't actually be done for real, then we're wasting our time. How
about you telling me about a couple of designs that could be done? At
least that would give me a start.


"Paul Miller" did briefly resurface on September 10th:

http://www.google.com/groups?selm=46...0posting .goo
gle.com

However, this post certainly does not sound like it is written by
someone who " ... is not a physicist, nor a mathematician, nor
... claim(s) any understanding of relativity."
===========================
"All you are saying here is that you could build an adaptive controller
to make the corrections without having any knowledge of GR. So what?
The claim 'GPS wouldn't work without GR' means no more than 'the
controller would land up learning exactly the same corrections as
those predicted by GR'. This puts GR in the same category as any other
well-supported and well-accepted theory. You could train a neural
network to model the predictions of any theory, past or future, so you
'empirical' statement applies to all theories. It tells us nothing
about the status of those theories."
===========================

Sorry, but wrong again.

Wrong that you posted something? You claimed that you did not have "any
understanding of relativity." Yet you posted an authoritative post on GR
and the support for physics theories in general. That appears to contradict
your prior claims.

Wrong about these rather odd 'conspiracy theory'-like comments. As I
said from the start, I'm not a physicist, but my friend is. My
background is cognitive science, which is a branch of psychology, so
it's typically taught without any maths. I know nothing about GR, and
there's nothing in that post to suggest otherwise. My comments in that
post come from a basic understanding of the philosophy of science,
which is a common element in a cog.sci. degree. I'm not sure why I'm
now having to convince you that I'm telling the truth about this.
Firstly, I'm not sure if I care - if you want to think I'm a physicist
with an invisible friend, that's fine by me. Secondly, I don't
understand the relevance of this to the bet.

If you were "real", you would simply provide what you agreed to before.
After all, you want your money, right? Try again when you can simply live up
to your newsgroup claims. Like with a pass/fail criterion.

Setting a pass/fail criterion depends on lots of factors, such as
experimental noise. That's one reason why I was asking whether you
have the resources to do this - it would be good to see how accurate
your measurements are able to be. Not on paper, but for real. Setting
up experiments like this isn't that straightforward - maybe we should
try to work together to define the criterion, rather than assuming
that I'm lying about everything. I would suggest that would involve
you talking to me about a few possible designs, then we can think
about what predictions SR would make, and what you would predict. Then
we can think about what kind of accuracy we can expect. We might even
have to collect some data before we set the criteria. This is how real
world experiments are done, at least in my experience. If you go back
to my original, first post, I did say that it was *your* job to
completely specify the experiment, in detail. The idea was that I
would take that experimental design - including criteria for
falsification - and talk to my pal about that. Now I can see that it's
going to take a bit more effort on our part, which is going to make
demands on our time. That's not a problem, as long as your willing to
work with us a bit. If you would rather assume that I'm lying about
all of that for some inexpicable reason, then walk away from the
challenge.

Paul

hm, you're not Mingst.
But you're not going to have a bet with any of these idiots,
that's for sure :-)

Cheers,
Dirk Vdm