Obama’s Foreign Policy: Enemy Action
Obama’s Foreign Policy: Enemy Action | FrontPage Magazine.
It’s often hard to determine whether a series of bad policies results from stupidity or malicious intent.
Occam’s razor suggests that the former is the more likely explanation, as conspiracies assume a high degree of intelligence, complex organization, and secrecy among a large number of people, qualities that usually are much less frequent than the simple stupidity, disorganization, and inability to keep a secret more typical of our species. Yet surveying the nearly 6 years of Obama’s disastrous foreign policy blunders, I’m starting to lean towards Goldfinger’s Chicago mob-wisdom: “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times, it’s enemy action.”
Obama’s ineptitude started with his general foreign policy philosophy. George Bush, so the narrative went, was a trigger-happy, unilateralist, blundering, “dead or alive” cowboy who rushed into an unnecessary war in Iraq after alienating our allies and insulting the Muslim world. Obama pledged to be different. As a Los Angeles Times editorial advised him in January 2009, “The Bush years, defined by ultimatums and unilateral actions around the world, must be brought to a swift close with a renewed emphasis on diplomacy, consultation and the forging of broad international coalitions.” Obama eagerly took this advice, reaching out not just to our allies, but also to sworn enemies like Syria, Venezuela, and Iran, and serially bowing to various potentates around the globe. He went on the apology tour, in which he confessed America’s “arrogant, dismissive, derisive” behavior and the “darker periods in our history.” And he followed up by initiating America’s retreat from international affairs, “leading from behind,” appeasing our enemies, and using rhetorical bluster as a substitute for coherent, forceful action. Here follow 3 of the many mistakes that suggest something other than inexperience and a lack of knowledge is driving Obama’s policies.
Russia
Remember the “reset” button Obama offered to Russia? In September 2009 he made a down payment on this policy by reversing George Bush’s plan to station a radar facility in the Czech Republic and 10 ground-based missile interceptors in Poland. Russia had complained about these defensive installations, even though they didn’t threaten Russian territory. So to appease the Russians, Obama abandoned Poland and the Czech Republic, who still live in the dark shadow of their more powerful former oppressors, while Russia’s Iranian clients were emboldened by their patron’s ability to make the superpower Americans back down. As George Marshall Fund fellow David J. Kramer prophesized at the time, Obama’s caving “to Russian pressure . . . will encourage leaders in Moscow to engage in more loud complaining and bully tactics (such as threatening Iskander missiles against the Poles and Czechs) because such behavior gets desired results.”
Obama followed up this blunder with the New START arms reduction treaty with Russia signed in 2010. This agreement didn’t include tactical nuclear weapons, leaving the Russians with a 10-1 advantage. Multiple warheads deployed on a missile were counted as one for purposes of the treaty, which meant that the Russians could exceed the 1550 limit. Numerous other problems plague this treaty, but the worst is the dependence on Russian honesty to comply with its terms. Yet as Keith B. Payne and Mark B. Schneider have written recently, for years Russia has serially violated the terms of every arms-control treaty it has signed, for obvious reasons: “These Russian actions demonstrate the importance the Kremlin attaches to its new nuclear-strike capabilities. They also show how little importance the Putin regime attaches to complying with agreements that interfere with those capabilities. Russia not only seems intent on creating new nuclear- and conventional-strike capabilities against U.S. allies and friends. It has made explicit threats against some of them in recent years.” Busy pushing the reset button, Obama has ignored all this cheating. Nor did Obama’s 2012 appeasing pledge to outgoing Russian President Dmitri Medvedev–– that after the election he would “have more flexibility” about the proposed European-based anti-missile defense system angering Russia––could convince Vladimir Putin to play ball with the U.S. on Iran and Syria. Obama’s groveling “reset” outreach has merely emboldened Russia to expand its influence and that of its satellites like Iran and Syria, at the expense of the interests and security of America and its allies.
Syria
Syria is another American enemy Obama thought his charm offensive could win over. To do so he had to ignore Syria’s long history of supporting terrorists outfits like Hezbollah, murdering its sectarian and political rivals, assassinating Lebanon’s anti-Syrian Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005, and facilitating the transit of jihadists–– during one period over 90% of foreign fighters–– into Iraq to kill Americans. Yet Obama sent diplomatic officials on 6 trips to Syria in an attempt to make strongman Bashar al Assad play nice. In return, in 2010 Assad hosted a cozy conference with Hezbollah terrorist leader Hassan Nasrallah and the genocidal Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, where they discussed “a Middle East without Zionists and without colonialists.” Despite such rhetoric, even as the uprising against Assad was unfolding in March 2011, Secretary of State Clinton said, “There’s a different leader in Syria now. Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he’s a reformer.”
In response to the growing resistance against the “reformer” Assad, Obama once again relied on blustering rhetoric rather than timely action to bring down an enemy of the U.S. Sanctions and Executive Orders flew thick and fast, but no military aid was provided to Assad’s opponents, the moderates soon to be marginalized by foreign terrorists armed by Iran. As time passed, more Syrians died and more terrorists filtered into Syria, while Obama responded with toothless tough rhetoric, proclaiming, “For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside.” Equally ineffective was Obama’s talk in 2012 of a “red line” and “game-changer” if Assad used chemical weapons. Assad, obviously undeterred by threats from the world’s greatest military power, proceeded to use chemical weapons. Obama threatened military action, only to back down on the excuse that he needed the permission of Congress. Instead, partnering with the Russian wolf his own weakness had empowered, he brokered a deal that in effect gave Assad a free hand to bomb cities and kill civilians at the price of promising to surrender his chemical stockpiles. The butcher Assad magically changed from a pariah who had to go, into a legitimate partner of the United States, one whose cooperation we depend on for implementing the agreement. Given such cover, he has continued to slaughter his enemies and provide invaluable battlefield experience to tens of thousands of terrorist fighters.
Of course, without the threat of military punishment for violating the terms of the agreement––punishment vetoed by new regional player Russia––the treaty is worthless. Sure enough, this month we learned that Assad is dragging his feet, missing a deadline for turning over his weapons, while surrendering so far just 5% of his stockpiles. And those are just the weapons he has acknowledged possessing. In response, Secretary of State John Kerry has blustered, “Bashar al-Assad is not, in our judgment, fully in compliance because of the timing and the delays that have taken place contrary to the [Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons]’s judgment that this could move faster. So the options are all the options that originally existed. No option has been taken off the table.” You can hear Assad, Rouhani, Nasrallah, and Putin rolling on the ground laughing their you-know-what’s off over that empty threat.
Iran
Now we come to the biggest piece of evidence for divining Obama’s motives, Iran. The Islamic Republic has been an inveterate enemy of this country since the revolution in 1979, with 35 years of American blood on its hands to prove it. Even today Iranian agents are facilitating with training and materiel the killing of Americans in Afghanistan. The regime is the biggest and most lethal state sponsor of terrorism, and proclaims proudly a genocidal, anti-Semitic ideology against Israel, our most loyal ally in the region. And it regularly reminds us that we are its enemy against whom it has repeatedly declared war, most recently in February when demonstrations celebrated the anniversary of the revolution with signs reading, “Hey, America!! Be angry with us and die due to your anger! Down with U.S.A.” At the same time, two Iranian warships crowded our maritime borders in the Atlantic, and state television broadcast a documentary simulating attacks on U.S. aircraft carriers.
Despite that long record of murder and hatred, when he first came into office, Obama made Iran a particular object of his diplomatic “outreach.” He “bent over backwards,” as he put it, “extending his hand” to the mullahs “without preconditions,” going so far as to keep silent in June 2009 as they brutally suppressed protests against the stolen presidential election. But the mullahs contemptuously dismissed all these overtures. In response, Obama issued a series of “deadlines” for Iran to come clean on its weapons programs, more bluster the regime ignored, while Obama assured them that “We remain committed to serious, meaningful engagement with Iran.” Just as with Russia and Syria, still more big talk about “all options are on the table” for preventing the mullahs from acquiring nuclear weapons has been scorned by the regime.
Doubling down on this failed policy, Obama along with the Europeans gambled that sanctions would bring Iran to its knees before it reached breakout capability for producing a weapon. Odds of success were questionable, but just as the sanctions appeared to be pushing the Iranian economy, and perhaps the regime, to collapse, in November of last year Obama entered into negotiations that resulted in a disastrous agreement that trades sanction relief for empty promises. This deal ensures that Iran will become a nuclear power, since the agreement allows Iran to continue to enrich uranium in violation of numerous U.N. Security Council Resolutions. Finally, in an act of criminal incoherence, Obama threatened to veto any Congressional legislation imposing meaningful economic punishment for future Iranian cheating and intransigence.
Given this “abject surrender,” as former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton called it, it’s no surprise that the Iranians are trumpeting the agreement as a victory: “In this agreement, the right of Iranian nation to enrich uranium was accepted by world powers,” the “moderate reformer” Iranian president Hassan Rouhani bragged. “With this agreement … the architecture of sanctions will begin to break down.” Iranian foreign minister Mohammed Javad Zarif, agreed: “None of the enrichment centers will be closed and Fordow and Natanz will continue their work and the Arak heavy water program will continue in its present form and no material (enriched uranium stockpiles) will be taken out of the country and all the enriched materials will remain inside the country. The current sanctions will move towards decrease, no sanctions will be imposed and Iran’s financial resources will return.” Memo to Mr. Obama: when the adversary loudly brags that the agreement benefits him, you’d better reexamine the terms of the deal.
As it stands today, the sanction regime is unraveling even as we speak, while the Iranians are within months of nuclear breakout capacity. Meanwhile the economic pain that was starting to change Iranian behavior is receding. According to the International Monetary Fund, Iran’s economy is projected to grow 2% in fiscal year 2014-15, compared to a 2% contraction this year. Inflation has dropped over 10 points since last year. Global businesses are flocking to Tehran to cut deals, while Obama blusters that “we will come down on [sanctions violators] like a ton of bricks.” Add that dull cliché to “red line,” “game-changer,” and the other empty threats that comprise the whole of Obama’s foreign policy.
These foreign policy blunders and numerous others––especially the loss of critical ally Egypt–– reflect ideological delusions that go beyond Obama. The notion that aggressors can be tamed and managed with diplomatic engagement has long been a convenient cover for a political unwillingness to take military action with all its dangers and risks. Crypto-pacifist Democrats are particularly fond of the magical thinking that international organizations, summits, “shuttle diplomacy,” conferences, and other photogenic confabs can substitute for force.
But progressive talk of “multilateralism” and “diplomatic engagement” hides something else: the Oliver Stone/Howard Zinn/Noam Chomsky/Richard Falk self-loathing narrative that the United States is a force of evil in the world, a neo-colonialist, neo-imperialist, predatory capitalist oppressor responsible for the misery and tyranny afflicting the globe. Given that America’s power is corrupt, we need a foreign policy of withdrawal, retreat, and apologetic humility, with our national sovereignty subjected to transnational institutions like the U.N., the International Court of Justice, and the European Court of Human Rights ––exactly the program that Obama has been working on for the last 5 years. Given the damage such policies are serially inflicting on our security and interests, it starts to make sense that inexperience or stupidity is not as cogent an explanation as enemy action.
Bruce Thornton is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, a Research Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, and a Professor of Classics and Humanities at the California State University. He is the author of nine books and numerous essays on classical culture and its influence on Western Civilization.
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WarSclerotic 
February 21, 2014 at 3:50 PM
Bang on that i like the quotes from me,
February 21, 2014 at 3:56 PM
If I were a sworn enemy of the USA , wanting to destroy all that makes the USA the USA ( Democracy, freedom, being built on trust in the God of the Bible ) I would probably do more or less what Mr BHO is doing because what he has done so far has proven to very efficiently taking down this once great nation….Now, what are the true US citizens doing to stop the USA from becoming a dictatorship under Mr BHO…..?
There is probably not much time left, so whatever they plan to do they should do fast, before its too late, but I think that this train has left already and it could be in a short while that the USA will have stopped for good being the home of the free and the brave. Indeed, I think that future is looking grim for all of us in the western world.
February 21, 2014 at 8:11 PM
Wingate, the problem is the US main stream media which allows Obavez to get away with pretty much everything.
Benghazi, IRS, NSA, ‘Fast and Furious’, ObavezCare and too many other scandals to mention would each be enough to bring down any other US president. If it were any other president they would scream bloody murder.
Whether Obavez controls the media or those who control the media want so badly to keep him in power makes no difference.
The result is the same. They have become the propaganda tool of the administration.
Therefore it is unrealistic to expect a dramatic turn.
I tell you what is realistic.
Since the mainstream media have become worthless it is the task of the alternative media, meaning us, to spread the thruth.
But even many, if not the most, people that we can reach will not change their mind or their behaviour.
Only those who are open to reasonable argument, those who want to know the truth, those who are willing to consider the evidence and those who are willing to test their own assumptions can be influenced.
I’m sure that you know people who will not change their views regardless of how much reason, common sense, logic, evidence and data they are presented with.
They will not change their views, no matter how much they are shown to be inconsistent and logically impossible.
Often you will find that they base their view not on the motivations and assumptions they profess outwardly and that’s why their view is inconsistent with the professed basis of it.
If someone wants to believe that the sky is not blue but green no amount of argument can change his view.
And so I estimate that it is only 5% of those you can reach which can be influenced.
Now, this might sound hopeless but it is not. We have reasons to be hopeful.
History was always shaped by single individuals and never by the masses. It were always a few men who changed the course of history.
And who knows who reads your words? Maybe it is one of them.
In the end it doesn’t matter how many you convince but who you convince.
February 21, 2014 at 8:44 PM
“Only those who are open to reasonable argument, those who want to know the truth, those who are willing to consider the evidence and those who are willing to test their own assumptions can be influenced.”
“But what IS truth? Not easy to define! We both have truths! Are yours the same as mine?”
Jesus Christ Superstar
February 21, 2014 at 9:46 PM
Truth is that which corresponds to reality.
Here we go again. I’ve answered that a long time ago (your truth vs. my truth) and shown that this claim is selfrefuting. I’m not going to repeat myself.
The very fact that you talk to me makes only sense if truth is true for both of us. Otherwise it would be pointless to even talk with each other.
But it is easier to find what cannot be true. Two mutally exclusive statements cannot both be true at the same time.
I hope this helps.
February 21, 2014 at 10:12 PM
A wise man knows he knows not.
February 21, 2014 at 10:25 PM
Socrates was indeed a wise man.
He used his famous saying “I know that I know nothing” for teaching people valuable lessons.
But this saying is selfrefuting because if you know that you know nothing then at least you now one thing which is more than nothing.
I see no point in further discussion.
Have a nice evening.
February 21, 2014 at 10:40 PM
Indeed.
February 22, 2014 at 1:06 AM
“Truth is that which corresponds to reality”
Quantum Introduction The Quantum Casino Quantum Entanglement Quantum Decoherence Reality Is Relative The Block Universe
The Arrow of Time The Anthropic Principle The Mathematical Universe Is the Universe
a Computer? Living in the Matrix The Intelligent Universe
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Reality Is Relative
On this page we will consider the implications of relativity in the most general sense, the idea that everything in the universe can only be defined in terms other things in the universe. We will see that the implications of this apparently unremarkable statement are quite astounding. We will also reveal surprising links between the two great theories of relativity and quantum mechanics!
“There is nothing outside the universe”
In his excellent book Three Roads to Quantum Gravity, Lee Smolin introduces a simple maxim: there is nothing outside the universe. This statement is fairly self-evident and should not be controversial. If we define the “universe” to be the sum total of absolutely everything that exists, then there can clearly be nothing “outside” the universe. But this seemingly unremarkable maxim has astounding implications for our picture of nature – implications which are not generally realised.
If there is nothing outside the universe, then everything “inside” the universe can only be defined in terms of other objects “inside” the universe: every object in the universe is defined in terms of every other object in the universe.
“Isolated material particles are abstractions, their properties being definable and observable only through their interactions with other systems”
– Niels Bohr
There is simply no other way to define the properties of an object other than by how it relates to the rest of the universe. There is no absolute measurement scale outside the universe by which we can unequivocally say “The object is five metres long”, or “The object is blue”, or even “The object exists”. In the absence of any external absolute scale, the only way we can define an object’s properties is by, for example, measuring it with equipment already located inside the universe, i.e., the object’s properties are defined by its relationships with other objects inside the universe. The object’s properties simply cannot be defined in any other way.
It was Wilhelm Leibniz who first rejected Newton’s ideas of absolute space and time. Leibniz believed that space arose due to the relationships between objects – space did not exist as an entity in its own right. If there is “nothing outside the universe” then Leibniz was surely correct. As we see in the diagram below, the men define their positions in terms of each other, and the notion of “space” arises purely as a result of these relationships:
If there could be such a thing as absolute space, with coordinate axes “outside the universe” then space would exist in its own right as a box, containing the men. Absolute space would exist even if there were no objects in it. This is perhaps our intuitive notion of space. The diagram below shows the same men, this time positioned in a box of absolute space. This time they give their positions individually, as coordinates in absolute space, with no reference to their friends:
However, space is not a box. This unfriendly picture is wrong. Objects cannot be considered as isolated entities. With “nothing outside the universe” this must surely be the wrong model of space.
This principle, of space emerging purely from the relationships between objects, is a guiding feature of the theory of loop quantum gravity where it is called background independence.
And the next step we can take in analyzing the relative universe is rather remarkable. In the absence of any absolutes in the universe, absolutely everything must be relative. This means not only the location property must be relative to other objects, but every property must be defined relative to every other object in the universe!
Multi-Valued Reality
We all have an intuitive picture of why an object is a particular type of object. For example, we might recognise an object as a duck. And we imagine that that duck has an innate, unvarying quality about it which makes it a duck (let’s call it “duckness”) so that object always has been a duck and that object always will be a duck. We imagine that if we could isolate that duck from the rest of the universe, it would still be a duck. It’s duckness is in-built, is intrinsic to the object, and requires no support from any other object to be recognised as a duck.
But, of course, with a little bit of thought you realise that it is impossible to completely isolate an object from the rest of the universe, to remove it to a position “outside” the universe (remember: “There is nothing outside the universe”, and see the Niels Bohr quote further up this page: “Isolated material particles are abstractions”). More to the point, we realise that the only way we recognise a duck object is by that object’s interactions with the rest of the universe. For example, we recognise the sound of the duck quacking by intercepting the sound waves produced by the duck, or we recognise the shape of the duck by intercepting the light waves which reflect off the duck. We actually recognise the duck not by any innate “duckness”, but instead we recognise it purely by its interactions with the rest of the universe.
“If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck.” – James Whitcomb Riley
Bearing in mind what we have just said, we’re going to conduct a thought experiment to illustrate the remarkable implications of this principle that an object is defined purely in relation to the other objects in the universe. We’re going to be using a simplified, idealised model of the universe which is capable of behaving in a rather bizarre manner, but this is just to illustrate the general principle. It’s worth it – the conclusion is going to be fairly mind-bending.
Let’s just ask a few questions about one of the objects in the diagram below – the object indicated by the red question mark. Firstly, let’s just ask how long it is by trying to measure its length:
Bear in mind that in order to obtain our measurement we are limited by the tools we have at our disposal. And, as the previous discussion has just indicated, this we can only use objects already present inside the universe. This means we can only use the rulers, gauges, etc. which exist inside the universe. There is no alternative way to obtain this reading. There is no absolute axis of length outside the universe which we could use to obtain an absolute, unequivocal reading.
Ok, so now let’s say we use our ruler to measure the object, and, according to the ruler, the object is one metre long. Now, bear with me on this, let’s presume something really strange happens. Let’s imagine every object in existence in our peculiar universe – apart from our mystery object – bizarrely shrinks by 50% (the reason why this happens is unimportant for this discussion). We now find that our mystery object has become two metres long – according to our ruler.
But this is to be expected, you might argue. There is nothing surprising here. The mystery object has not really doubled in size, you might argue, it is merely our ruler which is giving an incorrect reading. Our mystery object was previously measured as being one metre long and, in the absence of any external influence acting on the object, it is always going to be one metre long. The property of being “one metre long” is an intrinsic, unvarying property of the object. At least, that is what you are arguing …
Well, you’d be wrong. Remember that any object in the universe can only be defined in terms of every other object in the universe – there is no other way of defining it. There is no absolute axis of size outside the universe to which we can refer. If the universe tells us the object has doubled in size then, by definition, the object really has doubled in size!
So we are left with an apparently bizarre conclusion which goes against all intuition. No force has acted on the object, and yet it has doubled in size. It’s as though some self-contained internal magic of the object has made it change its state, whereas nothing could be further from the truth. A property of the object which should have been innate and unvarying has been radically modified, purely because of this principle that objects can only be defined solely in terms of their relationships with other objects.
So this makes us doubt that objects have in-built, unvarying properties at all. Instead, these properties could any value from the range of possible values, and it is only through that property’s interactions with the rest of the universe that those properties get “tied-down” and determined to a final value. It is as though the object is initially multi-valued, and it is the universe which selects the final value from the range of possible values.
But does all this madness ring a bell with you? It should do if you have read the previous pages on quantum mechanics, because this is pure quantum mechanical behaviour:
On the Quantum Casino page we saw that – before observation – a particle’s properties are multi-valued in just the same way as we have seen on this page. In a relative universe, the property values of a particle are not intrinsic to the object, but instead emerge as the particle interacts with the rest of the universe. Before observation, the particle’s property value must be considered as being in a superposition of all possible states. Hence, we find peculiar behaviour such as particles appearing to be in two places at once. In the relative universe model we can see that this is due to the position property of the particle not yet being completely defined.
Then on the Quantum Entanglement page we saw that when two particles interact they form a single “entangled” state, and you then have to consider the system as a whole rather than considering just a single particle. This is why in a relative universe you cannot consider particles in isolation – objects are defined in terms of all other objects in the universe. There was also a discussion about Bell’s Inequality which revealed that objects do not have intrinsic property values – just as we have found on this page when we have considered the implications of the relative universe.
This principle that objects’ property values are determined when we measure them – measurement creates reality – has now been proven experimentally: “We now have to face the possibility that there is nothing inherently real about the properties of an object that we measure. In other words, measuring those properties is what brings them into existence. Rather than passively observing it, we in fact create reality” (see here).
Then on the Quantum Decoherence page we saw how the environment (i.e., the rest of the universe) can reduce a superposition state to a single value. In other words, in a relative universe it is the rest of the universe which decides the property values of a particle after measurement.
We also saw how various interpretations of quantum mechanics have arisen, such as the “many-worlds” parallel universe interpretation and Bohm’s pilot wave interpretation, in order to explain the counter-intuitive nature of multi-valued reality in quantum mechanics. None of these interpretations have appreciated the full implications of the relative universe, these interpretations being locked into a closed mind-set in which particles can be considered as being isolated from the universe, as entirely independent entities with inherent property values of their own. However, it is the idea described on this page – that all of reality is relative – which explains quantum behaviour as being an inevitable consequence of objects having to be defined in terms of all other objects in the universe.
So are there any more similar connections between relativity and quantum mechanics …
Observer Dependence
Let’s consider the simple principle of relative velocity, which underlies Einstein’s theory of relativity. And let’s start by asking a simple question: how fast is the spaceship travelling in the image below?
It’s not such an easy question as you might imagine. As we have discussed earlier on this page, in the absence of any absolute measurement scale outside the universe we cannot assign any absolute speed to the ship – we have nothing to measure it against. We cannot assign a speed to the spaceship on which all observers in the universe will agree. In fact, the only way we can assign any numerical value to the speed of the ship is by giving up all hope on finding an absolute, observer-independent speed, and by considering its relative speed instead.
So, if we want to obtain a numerical value for the speed of the spaceship, we have to first define our observer (or, more precisely, our observer’s frame of reference):
In the image above, we have defined a position for our observer and we can now obtain a value for the velocity of the spaceship (relative to our observer) which happens to be 600mph, travelling to the right.
Now let’s make things a bit more interesting by imagining we have a second observer on a second spaceship travelling to the left at 400mph:
According to this second observer, the first rocket is in fact travelling to the right with a relative velocity of 1000mph (the sum of 600mph + 400mph). So we’ve got two different observers, and they’re both getting two different measurements for velocity of the spaceship, showing just how observer-dependent this measurement is.
So now we see how observer-dependent relativity is, and we already know the importance of the act of observation in quantum mechanics, so why has not more been made of this apparent commonality between the two theories? Carlo Rovelli has commented on this link: “Quantum state and values that an observable takes are relational notions, in the same sense in which velocity is relational in classical mechanics (it is a relation between two systems, not a property of a single system). I find the consonance between this relationalism in quantum mechanics and the relationalism in general relativity quite striking. It is tempting to speculate that they are related.” (see here).
Why has this not triggered more investigation into the possibility that this indicates a shared fundamental principle behind the two great theories of physics? In a relative universe, the observer is everything.
But having two different answers to our question “How fast is the spaceship travelling?” is not a very satisfactory answer. Can’t we do any better? Can’t we get an observer-independent, absolute value for the velocity of the spaceship – before any observer-dependent measurement is taken? Well, the standard answer is, no, in our universe only relative velocity has a meaning. But, you might say, that’s totally unsatisfactory. Before any measurement is taken, the spaceship clearly has a velocity – we know it’s moving. So why can’t we determine its value before observation? Its velocity clearly has a reality before observation – why can’t we assign a value to it?
Well, I suppose the best we could do is assign the spaceship with a potential velocity which has to take any possible value from zero up to the speed of light. For example, if the purple spaceship is travelling at a million miles an hour, we now find our final measurement of the grey spaceship’s relative speed is 1,000,600mph. With an infinity of potential observers in the universe in the universe, we could say that the before-measurement, observer-independent velocity of the spaceship is any possible value.
So let’s recap: Before measurement, we know the spaceship’s velocity has a reality (we know the spaceship is moving), but we cannot assign a value to it. If we want to obtain a measurement then we have to specify an observer as the value is completely observer-dependent. But if we want to assign a velocity to the spaceship before observation we have to assign all possible velocity values to it. So where have we heard all this before? There are clear parallels with quantum mechanics!
Let’s see how accurately this scenario follows quantum mechanics. In an example from quantum mechanics, let’s say we want to measure the location of a particle. We can only obtain a value for the location of the particle by measuring it, and this means defining an observer (which takes the form of some sort of measuring apparatus). Before measurement, we cannot say it has any particular value for location – the only description we have of the particle before observation is a wavefunction, which is arguably just a mathematical tool. If we are going to be controversial and try to assign any form of reality to the location property of the particle before observation then we have to assign some form of reality to the wavefunction. But, on studying the multi-valued nature of the wavefunction, this means we can only come to the conclusion that before observation the value of the object’s position must be a superposition of all possible values (hence, we observe strange phenomena such as particles apparently being in two places at once, and passing through two slits).
So clearly the two scenarios – relative velocity (which leads to relativity) and quantum mechanics – show astounding similarities! So much so that I’m fairly astonished that, as far as I can see, no one has pointed this out before. And it is all because relativity and quantum mechanics share a common root to their behaviour: a universe in which everything must be defined in terms of everything else, and in which all of reality is relative.
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February 23, 2014 at 4:46 PM
A statement that is selfrefuting cannot be true.
Example: “There are no English sentences with more than 3 words.”
This statement is selfrefuting and can obviously never be true.
Let’s look at the statement “I have my truth and you have your truth.”
Is THIS statemnt also my truth? In other words: Is this statement also true for me?
If it is, then it refutes itself because then your truth is also my truth and we have both the same truth.
If it is only your truth, if it is only true for you then it is not true for me.
This means that the statement “I have my truth and you have your truth” is false for me.
If it is false for me then I don’t have my own truth.
Again the statement refutes itself. It cannot be true.
Case closed.
Now, you can copy and paste all the stuff in the world.
You can’t get around this fact. Anything that you post cannot refute it.
Time and again you have been exhibiting the same behaviour. Whenever you are shown to be wrong you come up with a lot of stuff that is totally irrelevant to the topic.
The mere attempt to use science to prove your point is an exercise in absurdity.
Why?
Because the whole concept of science is based on the idea that there is no such thing as “your truth” and “my truth” but THE truth.
Show me the scientist who says: “Hey, the laws of thermodynamics are true for you but they are not true for me.”
Your behaviour is utterly absurd.
In order to prove that you have your truth and I have my truth you try to prove that all your claims are not only true for you but for both of us.
In other words: In order to prove that you are right you try to prove that you are wrong.
Normally I would call anyone who behaves this way a stupid idiot.
Now, whether you are really a stupid idiot or not, I don’t know but, frankly, I have neither the desire and, considering my age and the work that I have to do, neither the time to find out.
I’m not interested in discussions with people who are behaving this childishly.
As much as I disagree with Justice’s style of discussion and his views on religion, on one thing he is 100% correct.
You are behaving totally irrational.
The motivation for this irrational behaviour is transparent for me.
You try to prove that you have your truth and I have my truth because, if successfull, this allows you to deny reality while still claiming to be rational.
You cling to views and supposed ‘factS’ and repeat them endlessly even when they have been refuted or shown to be false.
The only thing that could possibly justify such behaviour, is “I have my truth and you have your truth”.
Unfortunately for you, this has been shown to be false and there is no rational excuse to behave in such a manner.
If you still want to believe that the sky is green go ahead. I won’t answer.
The more desperate you try to show that you are right, the more you prove my point.
Finally, I have a suggestion.
As any good scientist will tell you, one experiment is more worth then thousand hours of discussions.
And so I suggest a simple experiment:
– If you wear a helmet, please put it away
– Position yourself at a distance of 25 meters from a brickwall
– Run as fast as you can towards the wall
– Bang with your head at full speed against the wall.
My truth is that it will hurt terrible and that you will injure yourself.
Tell me afterwards, if you can, of course, if your truth is not the same as my truth.
Good luck.
February 21, 2014 at 10:02 PM
BS
February 21, 2014 at 10:05 PM
i don’t mean bs to taxes i mean it to john and his JCS if JCS was more than a figment of some schizophrenics imagination these things wouldn’t be happening
February 21, 2014 at 10:13 PM
A wise man knows he knows not.
February 22, 2014 at 12:12 PM
Is that an absolute or relative observation ?
February 23, 2014 at 12:04 AM
TNX Artaxes – you are right, we must trust that in the end good will prevail and by focusing on that we must act. At present, evil seems to flood the globe.It just dawned on me how much evil is at work and how much more we all will be affected by this in the future. But basically I know that evil will not prevail – its just the struggle which worries me ( I’d rather live a quiet, relaxed live…..).
February 23, 2014 at 7:38 PM
Right on!
February 23, 2014 at 9:39 PM
True words are not necessarily beautiful.
Beautiful words are not necessarily truthful.
One who is achieved does not argue.
One who argues is not achieved.
One who knows the deepest truth does not need segmented information.
One who knows vast amounts of information may not know the truth.
One of whole virtue is not involved with amassing material goods.
Yet the more he lives for others, the richer his life becomes.
The more he gives, the more his life abounds.
The subtle truth of the universe is beneficial and not harmful.
The nature of an integral being is to extend virtue to the world unconditionally, and to contend with no one.
Tao Te Ching, Ch.81
– Lao Tzu
February 24, 2014 at 3:53 AM
Ironic if you consider wisdom such as this coming out of today’s China.