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    Carmelics

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    Made withinDC&Austin
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    Home/Original/inverse
    See Original
    Inverse View

    It is not the case that The Leibnizian-Machian view that all motion must be defined as motion relative to bodies is self-defeating in the general theory of relativity.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.A stationary, homogeneous elastic sphere set in rotation bulges at the equator and flattens at the poles.
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    • 2.This effect is caused by the state of motion of the body with respect to the local inertial-gravitational field, not by the state of motion of the body relative to other bodies.
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    • 3.Weyl's plasticine example demonstrates that the rotational effect cannot be attributed to motion relative to other bodies.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.In GR, spacetime itself has degrees of freedom (gravitational waves, vacuum solutions) irreducible to relations among material bodies.
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    • 2.Mach's Principle fails in GR because solutions like Gödel's rotating universe and de Sitter space contain inertial effects without a privileged matter distribution.
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    • 3.If spacetime can exist and structure inertia independently of bodies, then defining all motion relative to bodies is formally incomplete in GR's framework.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Einstein's hole argument shows that GR's diffeomorphism invariance requires spacetime points to bear properties not reducible to relational facts about matter.
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    • 2.Earman and Norton's analysis of the hole argument demonstrates that a purely Leibnizian relationist ontology generates radical indeterminism in GR.
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    • 3.A view generating indeterminism as a structural consequence of its own ontology is self-defeating by the standard of physical adequacy.
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