Fifty
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Can an event have causal contact with another event faster than it would take for light to traverse the distance between the place where those events happened???
It would seem rather odd to call someone a widow when they are completely unaware that they are one. But anyway...Ok so here's something weird, and I'm curious as to whether this is actually true, or if I'm just muddling things up or what:
So suppose Mr. X lives on planet A, and his wife Mrs. X lives on planet B, which happens to be one light year away. They live this far apart because Mr. X is an intergalactic space-miner out on a mission for alien ore! Suppose that last Tuesday at midnight, Mr. X was killed in a terrible space-mining accident! Now consider this further event, the event of "Mrs. X's becoming a widow". Did Mr. X's dying cause Mrs. X to become a widow? I mean it seems like it does, but it also seems odd to suggest that she has to wait 1yr to be properly referred to as a "widow". And I'm not talking about whether or not she knows she is a widow,
The event was the death of the husband. Mrs X becoming a widow is the same event.I'm talking about whether she actually is one! It seems like, in that case, either two events have causal contact instantaneously despite the rules governing FTL, or Mrs. X isn't actually a widow until a year later, which seems absurd! Can we get out of this without supposing that there are such things as "non-physical events"????
Ok so here's something weird, and I'm curious as to whether this is actually true, or if I'm just muddling things up or what:
So suppose Mr. X lives on planet A, and his wife Mrs. X lives on planet B, which happens to be one light year away. They live this far apart because Mr. X is an intergalactic space-miner out on a mission for alien ore! Suppose that last Tuesday at midnight, Mr. X was killed in a terrible space-mining accident! Now consider this further event, the event of "Mrs. X's becoming a widow". Did Mr. X's dying cause Mrs. X to become a widow? I mean it seems like it does, but it also seems odd to suggest that she has to wait 1yr to be properly referred to as a "widow". And I'm not talking about whether or not she knows she is a widow, I'm talking about whether she actually is one! It seems like, in that case, either two events have causal contact instantaneously despite the rules governing FTL, or Mrs. X isn't actually a widow until a year later, which seems absurd! Can we get out of this without supposing that there are such things as "non-physical events"????
So, um, what the crap is going on here!?!?? I don't doubt that I'm wrong about something here, I'm just not sure what...?
The event was the death of the husband. Mrs X becoming a widow is the same event.
Ok so here's something weird, and I'm curious as to whether this is actually true, or if I'm just muddling things up or what:
So suppose Mr. X lives on planet A, and his wife Mrs. X lives on planet B, which happens to be one light year away. They live this far apart because Mr. X is an intergalactic space-miner out on a mission for alien ore! Suppose that last Tuesday at midnight, Mr. X was killed in a terrible space-mining accident! Now consider this further event, the event of "Mrs. X's becoming a widow". Did Mr. X's dying cause Mrs. X to become a widow? I mean it seems like it does, but it also seems odd to suggest that she has to wait 1yr to be properly referred to as a "widow". And I'm not talking about whether or not she knows she is a widow, I'm talking about whether she actually is one! It seems like, in that case, either two events have causal contact instantaneously despite the rules governing FTL, or Mrs. X isn't actually a widow until a year later, which seems absurd! Can we get out of this without supposing that there are such things as "non-physical events"????
So, um, what the crap is going on here!?!?? I don't doubt that I'm wrong about something here, I'm just not sure what...?
So suppose Mr. X lives on planet A, and his wife Mrs. X lives on planet B, which happens to be one light year away. They live this far apart because Mr. X is an intergalactic space-miner out on a mission for alien ore! Suppose that last Tuesday at midnight, Mr. X was killed in a terrible space-mining accident! Now consider this further event, the event of "Mrs. X's becoming a widow". Did Mr. X's dying cause Mrs. X to become a widow? I mean it seems like it does, but it also seems odd to suggest that she has to wait 1yr to be properly referred to as a "widow". And I'm not talking about whether or not she knows she is a widow, I'm talking about whether she actually is one! It seems like, in that case, either two events have causal contact instantaneously despite the rules governing FTL, or Mrs. X isn't actually a widow until a year later, which seems absurd! Can we get out of this without supposing that there are such things as "non-physical events"????
Well, I'd suggest that 'widowship' is not an absolute truth. Rather, as a concept based on human constructs (marriage, society, ectcetera) it would rely on society becoming aware of it before it could be argued as an objective fact.
The word "caused" has so many different meanings. On gut instinct I would say that it is ok to say "Mr. X's death caused Mrs. Y to become a widow". Since "caused" is not a technical term, and is not being used formally, gut instinct should be sufficient.Ahh! So you're sayin' that they are numerically identical, and that the utterance "Mr. X's death caused Mrs. Y to become a widow" is meaningless??? I like it!
What about tachyons?As far as we know: no.
It's usually expressed on the lines of "information cannot travel faster than the speed of light."
Tachyons are purely hypothetical.What about tachyons?
Nope. Since He's moving towards Mr X the light from Mr X reaches him first. Since He's equidistant and since the speed of light is constant, he must conclude that Mr X does in fact die first.Souron: "For simplicity, assume that Alice, Bob, and Claire were all equidistant from Mr X and Mrs Y when Alice saw both deaths. Then Bob, who is moving up toward Mr X, will observe Mr X die first, then Mrs Y die. Because he is equidistant form Mr X and Mrs Y"
If he's still equidistant then he isn't moving towards X and still thinks they happened at the same time.
Souron, can you draw a diagram? I saw it the same way Brennan did.