The mathematical models of space and time suggest that there might be a philosophical stance where "spacetime" itself is a physical object. What this means, really, is that one might want to talk about situations where two choices of spacetimes differ in configuration.
The problem with this POV is that "internally" we're only able to perceive certain things and, indeed, these things are ignorant to changes in spacetime configuration. This is exactly the power of this mathematical formulation.
So the Hole is a thought experiment where you construct two differently configured spacetimes, ones you might want to distinguish between, and then show that the perceptions of these two cannot differ in meaningful ways.
And then one should question as to whether or not they want to believe with any fervor that spacetime has a physical sense.
As a philosophy major I'll try to give the simplest way I know how to explain this. If you are testing a scientific theory, what might be some criteria for evaluating that theory? First you want the theory to be verifiable, probably also falsifiable, you also want it to be able replicate your results, independent observation is another. There are other criteria obviously but I'm not going to be able to explain an entire branch of philosophy in one post, so bear with me. The Hole Argument comes in as a thought experiment where you have testers in different spacetime "holes" who are independent observers, replicating the results of a scientific experiment, the question to be answered is whether or not independent observation is a good enough criteria for evaluating a theory since the testers are epistemically blind to one another or if theories should be held to some higher standard. That's the short of it.
So basically you want to know whether you're interested in something without actually bothering to understand it?
I'm increasingly frustrated with this mindset. Yes, you don't have the time to read everything. The answer to this, in my estimation, is gear your reading toward information sources with higher density of quality. If, instead, you only read things with titles that summarize the content for you, you're limiting yourself to ideas which can be summarized in a 5- to 20-word blurb. These ideas and simple, and consequently, frequently wrong. Reality is often complicated and it's not possible to dumb it down into a "1 weird metaphysical argument that will make your brain grow 10 inches"-style clickbait headline.
I do think it's a courtesy to the reader to provide keywords in a title that make it easy to reference and that create an effective vocabulary for talking about the topic (which this title does). I don't think that authors have any responsibility to dumb down their titles into summaries for those who can't be arsed to hear them out.
As an aside: generally stuff published on Stanford's website is written by top professionals in various fields, which makes it a high-density source of good information.
voidz|10 years ago
tel|10 years ago
The problem with this POV is that "internally" we're only able to perceive certain things and, indeed, these things are ignorant to changes in spacetime configuration. This is exactly the power of this mathematical formulation.
So the Hole is a thought experiment where you construct two differently configured spacetimes, ones you might want to distinguish between, and then show that the perceptions of these two cannot differ in meaningful ways.
And then one should question as to whether or not they want to believe with any fervor that spacetime has a physical sense.
n0us|10 years ago
rrmm|10 years ago
It certainly wouldn't be the first time. Mostly, people just get used to it and live with "Nature is a perverse bastard."
I don't know how much I like the tone: I may be reading it with a bias. But hey, who knows where the next insight will come.
paulpauper|10 years ago
copsarebastards|10 years ago
I'm increasingly frustrated with this mindset. Yes, you don't have the time to read everything. The answer to this, in my estimation, is gear your reading toward information sources with higher density of quality. If, instead, you only read things with titles that summarize the content for you, you're limiting yourself to ideas which can be summarized in a 5- to 20-word blurb. These ideas and simple, and consequently, frequently wrong. Reality is often complicated and it's not possible to dumb it down into a "1 weird metaphysical argument that will make your brain grow 10 inches"-style clickbait headline.
I do think it's a courtesy to the reader to provide keywords in a title that make it easy to reference and that create an effective vocabulary for talking about the topic (which this title does). I don't think that authors have any responsibility to dumb down their titles into summaries for those who can't be arsed to hear them out.
As an aside: generally stuff published on Stanford's website is written by top professionals in various fields, which makes it a high-density source of good information.