Summations Only

Stenger is unimportant other than to demonstrate that you know diddly squat about the topic at hand. I note again that despite being shown statements from general relativity text books essentially identical to Stenger's statements on GRAVITATIONAL FORCE, that you refuse to acknowledge your error. In short it appears that the statements are only wrong because Stenger says them. I can easily demonstrate that you are charlaton and a fraud based solely on your posts to these forums. For now, I'll note here that not even my citing of papers on the topic can get you to engage in a discussion of the science behind fine tuning, and that you won't answer basic questions about the papers you have supposedly read.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Those two statements express the identical concept. No attraction means no attractive force. But thanks for making clear that you are denying that GR says that the gravitational force is fictitious. After all, it is the gravitational force and not the field that Stenger compares to the coulombic force in making his point.So let's address the notion, explicitly denied by you several times, that the gravitational force is fictitious. When you were performing your research on wikipedia, how did you avoid reading this sentence which was on the same page. (Emphasis added by me.)

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In such a model one states that matter moves in certain ways in response to the curvature of spacetime,[1] and that there is either no gravitational force,[2] or that gravity is a fictitious force.[3]

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Wikipedia gives the following references for the above statement:[2]Grn, ‘yvind; Hervik, Sigbjrn (2007). Einstein's general theory of relativity: with modern applications in cosmology[3] J. Foster, J. D. Nightingale, J. Foster, J. D. Nightingale; J. Foster, J. D. Nightingale, J. Foster, J. D. Nightingale (2006). A short course in general relativity (3 ed.). What is the mechamism Stenger gives for changing the value of the fictitious force? Was it perchance a change of units akin to the method for setting values of h and C to unity? Why don't you present Stenger's argument rather than sound biting it as you do here?My proposition is that you will not do this because it will reinforce the fact that your attacks on Stenger are not credible. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Don't you think it would have reasonable to perform even the tiniest bit of verification before calling me a liar?

I have to disagree. When scientists write papers about the subject, they are referring to the limited range of variability for some parameter to allow some desirable or necessary result.What designtheorist cannot do is translate fine tuning by this definition into probabilities. I don't believe that anybody can do that. You cannot even get to the point of arguing about a fixed lottery until you can talk about probability. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Nosy originally thought you were self-deluded, but has now concluded that you are behaving not unlike a charlatan. Neither position expresses the idea that you are right.

I'm suggesting that there is nothing wrong with the scientists' usage. The manner that scientist use the term 'fine tuning' is completely correct. What is incorrect is concluding that fine tuning means that there is a Fine Tuner. Similarly, we can speak of a universe that is characterized by order without inferring an Orderer.From the wikipedia article on 'The Universe'

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It appears that many of the properties of the Universe have special values in the sense that a Universe where these properties differ slightly would not be able to support intelligent life.[52][53] Not all scientists agree that this fine-tuning exists.
[54][55] In particular, it is not known under what conditions intelligent life could form and what form or shape that would take. A relevant observation in this discussion is that for an observer to exist to observe fine-tuning, the Universe must be able to support intelligent life. As such the conditional probability of observing a Universe that is fine-tuned to support intelligent life is 1.

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According to the above, fine tuning is about the values of constants being of importance and not about whether somebody set them to important values.I think the fine tuning argument to be entirely circular. It requires that you first accept that the purpose of the universe's existence is life, despite the fact that so much of the universe is hostile to life. After accepting that first premise, it does becomes difficult to accept that an omnipotent being having such a purpose would not intervene to increase astronomical odds against his purpose being achieved. But of course, the question becomes, what purpose would such an argument serve? It could only convince someone who was already convinced that an omnipotent being had intervened.And of course, as we both agree, we know nothing about the odds anyway.

I don't think that's true. Depending on what the characteristic in question is, there may be a wide range of properties that can produce that characteristic. And maybe there is something to be learned by evaluating how much the characteristic can be varied.But even given your statement, your argument is only that fine tuning is of no particular import. It's not really a criticism of the definition.

And I'm suggesting that you are arguing about a fallacy surrounding fine tuning and not about fine tuning per the scientific usage. It is perfectly legitimate to explore the results of varying one or more constants, and to speak whether some outcomes are sensitive or insensitive to such variations.Yes it is possible reach some bad conclusions from such an investigation, but let's actually do that before we start insisting that the investigation is a Texas Sharpshooting Fallacy.

I'm going to be a little slower on the trigger with the word lying. But I will say that DT's characterization of Stenger's argument does not match what I find in the text of Stenger's book. DT's argument is, in fact a quote mine. To make the further showing that DT is lying would require a belief that he has read and understands Stenger's book. I am going to take him at his word that he was unable to finish the book.I support my accusation of quote mining with the discussion below:From designtheorist's OP in Message 10First of all, it should be understood that saying that something is contrary to what is found 'in most physics textbooks' is not the same as saying that something is contrary to mainstream science. By count, and by weight, most physics textbooks still describe gravity completely in Newtonian terms, maybe including a mention of Einstein's theory. Most physics textbooks do not discuss advanced physics topics such as the speed of light, Planks constant, and of course the gravitational constant G being set to unity by a choice of measuring units.And yet that type of dimensionless analysis is a part of mainstream graduate level physics. Son Goku referred to that analysis earlier in this thread.ABE:
I'll also note, without making a showing, that electrostatic forces are NOT fictitious in the same way that either gravitational or centrifugal forces are.
end ABE.Designtheorist claims that Stenger equivocates on the term fictitious in order to make an argument that the force of gravity is arbitrary. Let's explore that claim.Stenger correctly states that gravity is a fictitious force in the same way as centrifugal force. It is not clear whether designtheorist agrees with this correct statement, but what is clearly stated is designtheorist's accusation that Stenger equivocates on the word 'fictitious' to argue that gravity can be set to whatever value we want. The claim is present in the DT quote above, and is made more explicitly in other of his postings.DT's fictional-based argument is complete hogwash. I picked up a copy of Stenger's book and I will quote here Stenger's actual argument, which we can see is infinitely more reasonable that might be gathered from DT's sound bite and 'summary'. Typos in the following are likely, and are mine.Stenger from Chaper 7.2 of the 2011 edition of 'The Fallacy of Fine Tuning.'

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We see that this is wrong. Recall that the gravitational force is fictional like the centrifugal force. No one compares the value of the centrifugal forces with other forces. It's value depends on the circumstances. So it is with gravity. The gravitational force [Stenger here means the the gravitational force relative to the electrostatic force] depends on the masses and charges of the particles. N1 is only the ratio of the two forces for a system made up of a proton and an electron. It is not the relative strength between the gravitational and the electrical forces in all cases. In fact, there is no universal way to describe the strength of the gravitational force

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In the above, only the final statement should appear the least bit controversial, and as I will show, it is only controversial when the context is removed. Continuing from 'Fallacy' Stenger continues his contrasting of the electrostatic force with the gravitational force.

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The strength of the electromagnetic force is measured by the dimensionless parameter alpha, called historically the fine structure constant, which in standard international units is [forumula not cited]. The value of alpha in our universe is currently 1/137 independent of units.

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... remove stuff of some interest, but not related to argument...

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The gravitational constant is not dimensionless, and, as we have seen is an arbitrary number, like hbar and c, that just sets the unit system. We can define a dimension less parameter [formula] to represent the gravitational force strength, but that depends on some mass m. Conventionally the proton mass is used, so [yet another forumula]. However the proton is not even a fundamental particle but is composed of quarks. In short the strength of gravity is an arbitrary number and is clearly not fine tuned. It can be whatever we want it to be.

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Stenger continues to make his point in the next chapter, but the above is enough to make my point. The short summary of the above is that when people compare the strength of gravity to the strength of the electrostatic attraction, they make that comparison using arbitrary masses and arbitrary units.Note that Stenger does talk directly about a gravitational force, so what was the purpose of labeling the force fictitious. Was it part of his argument about the relative magnitude of the fictitious force as DT says? Clearly not. That argument is based on dimensional analysis and the arbitrariness of the involved masses and charges. Instead, Stenger uses the argument to diminish the importance of the comparison, by making an analogy with the centrifugal force. That is the sole use of the fictitious forces truism.Now Stenger's ultimate conclusion may be wrong. Some of the criticisms by the authors DT cites may be correct. But you'd be a fool to take DT's word for anything. Best that you look for yourself. There is no equivocation on the term fictitious in Stenger's argument. The problems if any, lie elsewhere.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

I'd be happy to discuss Barnes comment. But let's first note that the position that you posted here earlier is not consistent with Barnes position. You completely denied that gravity was a fictitious force until you were pressed by Admin with the threat of not getting your thread promoted. In fact, you acted as though calling gravity fictitious was enough to render Stenger a fool. If we review your old post, it is quite obvious that you had no idea what that terminology meant. In fact, you still don't.And what Barnes says is nearly irrelevant. What you need to show here is not that Barnes disagrees with Stenger, but that he agrees with those clearly incorrect statements you made and that I and others called you on.And Barnes is not correct (or at least your summary here is not a correct statement of physics. I attempted to look at Barnes paper, but your link did not work) Gravity in general relativity is always a fictitious force. There is no action at a distance. The problem Barnes describes surrounds a naive application of the equivalence principle. That is, we can distinguish between gravitational fields (generated from spherical or point sources) and motion in accelerated frames because of the gravitational tidal forces which would not be generated using any kind of accelerated frame. Accordingly we cannot replace a gravitational field with an accelerated frame. In other words, Barnes is discussing the limitations of applying the equivalence principle.Yes, Barnes is correct as far as that goes, and indeed that would be enough under Newtonian Mechanics to say that gravity is not fictitious exactly as in centrifugal force. But the fix for that is not to make gravity a non-fictitious force, but to correctly apply Einstein's theory.And in Einstein's theory both the tidal forces and the gravitational force towards the center of mass are generated by the curvature of space-time generated by the mass/energy/stress Tensor. There is no real force 'sometimes' as you state. And in fact is definitely not what Barnes says. Whoa, bro. In your haste to make Stenger wrong, did you see the assumptions underlying Stenger's statement? I'll admit that I have not done the calculation, but did you actually try calculating the dimensionless constant associated with gravitation using the planck mass in place of the proton mass? Do even you know how to do that? If not, then how are you sure that Stenger is incorrect? Your link does not mention gravity at all. I presume the information there is correct. You are quite confused about the direction of Stenger's argument. Stenger's alternate values for the strength of the gravitational force have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not gravity is fictitious.Stenger makes comments about the usefulness of calculating the ratio of electric to gravitational strength. He does not dismiss the usefulness other than for the particular purpose of discussing fine tuning. Further, he is not the only scientists to discuss setting G,c, and hbar to 1 by an appropriate choice of units, nor the only scientist to note that the comparison of strengths uses teeny tiny masses. Why should we use a proton mass in the comparison? Again, you are misconstruing this argument completely. The answer to what the strength of gravity should be is calculated by Stenger and others using Newtonian physics. Apparently, Stenger's argument regarding the use of dimensionless constants flew over your head completely. Perhaps you should take another look at that part of the book.ABE:Link to calculation of strength of gravity and comparison to electrostatic strength.http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0707/0707.0058.pdfSee page 2. for calculation. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Two observers can indeed be in the same inertial frame. I would suggest that two inertial observers experiencing no relative motion between them, but merely separated in position are actually in the same inertial frame.An observer in an accelerating elevator is in a non-inertial frame. And a single observer looking at two objects in a gravitational field around a spherical body can indeed conduct experiments that distinguish between an accelerating elevator in free space, and an elevator in an inertial frame under the influence of gravity. In the later case, a single well-instrumented observer would see two dropped objects move towards each other as they fell.Now, to answer your question, I think there is some room to argue the meaning of the phrase "gravity is fictitious exactly as is centrifugal force". Centrifugal force and gravity are obviously two different phenomenon produced by different circumstances. But, the phenomenon are alike in that, as is the case for all fictitious forces, the apparent force of gravity and that of centrifugal force are proportional to the mass 'acted on' so that all masses experience the same acceleration in the same circumstances.[1] They differ in that one originates from curved space-time, the other from a change in coordinate systems. So, perhaps 'perfectly analogous' is a better word choice than 'exactly'. But then that depends of the precise definition of 'fictitious'. It is, in my opinion, an error to simply chose a definition that makes Spencer wrong when the conventional description of gravity as a fictitious force is well established. And there is the fact that Spencer's argument is more of an appeal to reason than a proof, anyway.ABE:Or expressed another way, it is perfectly legitimate for Barnes to raise distinctions between gravity and centrifugal force. We can weigh the persuasive force of that distinction and perhaps agree or disagree with Spencer. It is quite another thing entirely to call Spencer a fool for being right.[1] Son Goku covered this in more detail in his post.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Not so sure about that. Some retellings I have seen do suggest that, but not all. I've never seen a description of the original thought experiment using Einstein's own words.There is nothing scientifically wrong with your approach. But I think Einstein's thought experiment instead considered a uniform gravitational region in which the tidal forces did not exist. He understood this picture would not represent real situations, and working out how to accommodate those situations mathematically was the bulk of 8 years work.I don't believe Einstein defined 'inertial frame' differently from the way he did in special relativity. But I also don't see any difference that would result from the approach you suggest.Added by edit. I think even a uniform gravitational region requires curvature of space-time. Without that curvature, how would we explain the trajectory of a bullet without introducing real forces? Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Some of them at least.At some point we have to move beyond the thought experiment to deal with non-homogeneous fields. So I don't think we can dismiss everything Barnes says on the basis of the specific wording of the thought experiment.But I think his comment that those real non-homogeneous situations require real forces is not just moot; its wrong. Exactly. Nicely said. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Thanks. Your link is a keeper!!!

The assumption that a particular value or range of values of parameter is "rare" is an undemonstrated premise. And simply telling us that people have written papers based on constants having different values does not answer the question of whether those parameters can actually be varied, and independently varied, over any range. Are those answers to be found in those papers? I doubt that, and I've asked designtheorist to provide evidence from the papers he relies on.Well, designtheorist refuses to discuss any of those papers giving the excuse that he'd have to review/discuss all of them. Well how about picking one or two papers and answering the question?Without being able to convert paramater ranges into probabilities, we cannot even get to the point of saying that one parameter or a combination of parameters is 'rare', and thus we cannot even get to the point of accusing designtheorist of making the Texas Sharpshooter error, which would surely be a possible next step.So what level of fine tuning would move me to the point of accusing designtheorist of making the sharp shooter fallacy or to the point of bringing out other possible explanations for why fine tuning does not imply design?My answer:No level of fine tuning that is not tied to probabilities instead of merely comparing ranges of potential variability, when the potential for varying the parameters independently is itself is not assessed, should grab my attention.