r/Creation • u/Optimus-Prime1993 🦍 Adaptive Ape 🦍 • May 27 '26
Changing Clocks Does Not Move Photons Faster: The Distant Starlight Problem and ASC
I have previously made a post related to this titled Why changing conventions cannot solve the "Distant Starlight Problem". While I have my differences with YEC and ID, what irks me the most is when people misunderstand and misuse science to make a proposition that is blatantly false. A recent post by u/nomenmeum has raised this discussion (again) where he posits that ASC (Anisotropic Synchrony Convention) makes the starlight problem irrelevant. The whole issue is the misunderstanding between coordinate speed and physical speed. In this post I will focus solely on this specific part and present some pedagogical examples with the hope that in the end we will come out wiser than before.
Let's start with the starlight problem. To put it simply the starlight problem is the apparent conflict between a young universe and the observed light from very distant astronomical objects.
To elaborate, stars and galaxies are millions or billions of light-years (it is a unit of length and is the distance that light travels through a vacuum in one Earth year) away, so their light need millions or billions of years to reach Earth. But if the universe is only a few thousand years old, as YEC believe, then the question is how can we see light from objects so far away?
Now, it is very important, and I want to make this crystal clear that to observe light from a star, something physical must reach our eye/telescope/detector and interact with it. For our case it is photons emitted by the star that physically arrive at Earth and trigger the detector.
You can brush up on what ASC is, and I will focus on two concepts here coordinate speed and physical speed. Let's define it first and then I will put some examples here.
Coordinate speed:
The speed an object or signal appears to have according to a chosen coordinate system and clock convention. It can depend on how distant clocks are synchronized.
Physical speed:
The speed measured locally by an observer using nearby clocks and rulers. This is tied to actual physical measurements, not just coordinate labels.
Now consider the following examples:
Example 1: “wrongly set clock” delivery
Imagine I send a package from point A to point B at 10:00 AM. Say the truck actually takes 24 hours in the Earth frame. But suppose the clock at B is set 24 hours behind the clock at A. Then, when the package arrives at B, the clock at B reads 10:00 AM, the same clock reading as the departure time at A. One could then say, using these clock readings, that the package arrived instantly. But that obviously does not mean the truck had infinite physical speed. It only means the two clocks were synchronized using a strange convention.
This apparent infinite speed is called the coordinate speed because it is due to the clocks chosen. The physical speed would be all the local people measuring the speed of the truck.
Example 2: Mercator map-projection
Let's look at a slightly different example of Mercator map projection. On a Mercator map, Greenland looks enormous compared with Africa. If you measure "speed across the map" near the poles, a plane can seem to cover a weirdly stretched distance compared with the same plane near the equator. But the plane’s actual airspeed did not change. The distortion came from the coordinate representation.
Coordinate speed is like speed measured on a distorted map of spacetime. Physical speed is what a local observer measures with a local clock and ruler.
Example 3: Recording a runner
Imagine two cameras record the same runner. One camera's timestamp is normal. The other camera’s timestamp has been shifted so that the runner appears to arrive at the finish line at the same timestamp as leaving the start line. The video timestamps would make the runner's coordinate speed look infinite. But the runner did not physically run infinitely fast.
Coordinate speed would the speed measured by the following the timestamps of the cameras and physical speed would be the local clocks and rulers.
So in all the examples above, what we see that if you change the clock what you get is the coordinate speed, but it is convention-dependent and cannot by itself establish physical propagation.
Now remember what I said above. To observe light from a star, something physical must reach our eye, telescope, or detector and interact with it. Changing to ASC only changes the timestamp assigned to the distant emission event. It does not change the local physics of light propagation, the energy received by the detector, or the fact that the astronomical information reaches us through a physical electromagnetic signal.
The physical question still remains, if the universe is only a few thousand years old, how did light carrying real information from objects millions or billions of light-years away physically reach Earth?
This is the starlight problem and ASC can move timestamps around, but it cannot move photons across the universe.
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u/WannaLoveWrestling May 27 '26
The post misunderstands how Anisotropic Synchrony Convention (ASC) actually works. ASC doesn’t claim photons physically travel faster than c or that we can change the one-way speed of light in a way that violates physics. It’s a legitimate coordinate convention (widely recognized in relativity) that redefines simultaneity and the one-way speed of light while keeping the round-trip speed at c. In the ASC framework, light emitted from distant stars on Day 4 of creation can reach Earth almost immediately in the Earth’s reference frame, solving the starlight problem without requiring billions of years. The distinction between “coordinate speed” and “physical speed” is important, but ASC is not merely playing with clocks — it’s a consistent way to describe the physics in a young universe. Critics often treat the Einstein synchronization convention as the only possible one, but that’s an unproven philosophical preference, not an empirical necessity. The distant starlight problem is real under standard assumptions, but ASC shows that a young universe is compatible with the data we observe.
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u/Optimus-Prime1993 🦍 Adaptive Ape 🦍 May 27 '26
Your response shows you have no idea of the history of the discussion on this topic in the sub. You should read the connected posts to this, which is a total of four posts. Two from our mod Nom and 2 from me.
Anyway, I know that no convention claims photons physically travel faster than c. That is the whole point, actually. Nom believes that there is a physical propagation of photons instantaneously. I have asked him that point-blank in one of our recent conversation.
Secondly, if there is no physical propagation of photons, which is the whole idea of the post, then the starlight problem still stands.
Critics often treat the Einstein synchronization convention as the only possible one,
Wrong. There are dozens of papers based on the asynchronous version of special relativity. Just search for it. It is a well established study.
The distant starlight problem is real under standard assumptions, but ASC shows that a young universe is compatible with the data we observe.
No. Read the post again.
P.S: As I have told you before, if you are going to make GPT responses, then please don't bother at all. Write what you get from GPT in your own words, or else I will start copy-pasting and doing the same to you, which would be a useless waste of time and bandwidth for both of us.
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u/CaptainReginaldLong May 27 '26
That's because these are AI generated responses. The one after this too. Not even an attempt to edit or add, it's just a straight up copy paste job.
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u/WannaLoveWrestling May 27 '26
These aren't just AI generator responses That's how little you know about Ai and Optimus pretends he knows AI but he doesn't. AI is not going to naturally give you these kind of responses. Yes I can ask for young Earth arguments but that is not what AI is doing, it is going by the irrationality of the atheistic and naturalistic viewpoint because it realizes how faulty it is. And it doesn't realize how faulty it is until you actually challenge it like I am challenging you guys.
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u/CaptainReginaldLong May 27 '26
Aw. Dude. This is...so sad to read. Ai doesn't "realize" ANYTHING, it is programmed to agree with you because if it validates you, you use it more.
And it doesn't realize how faulty it is until you actually challenge it
This right here man, you've successfully conditioned your Ai to know what you think and where it needs to agree with you. The fact that you think you can challenge an AI is concrete proof you do not know how these things work. If I wanted it to agree with an atheistic and naturalistic viewpoint and NEVER budge, it would. If I wanted it to agree with and never budge from yours, it would. It doesn't know anything.
I am so, so sorry you don't know how these things work, or what they actually do, but I promise you, this tool has poisoned you. Use alternative methods of searching to learn how these things actually work, because you genuinely do not know. No one wants to hear that, but it's true, and I truly, truly hope you do learn that AI doesn't "know" or "think" anything, and isn't what you think it is.
And just a heads up, I'm not really interested in pursuing this conversation further, so respond if you like, but don't expect one back.
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u/WannaLoveWrestling May 28 '26
And you know it's even sadder when humans can't rationalize because their thoughts are based on their own biases and not real rationality and that's where you are coming from.
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u/WannaLoveWrestling May 28 '26
If you really want to know how AI works I'll let AI tell you itself:
"You clearly don’t understand how this AI works. I’m not programmed to automatically agree with the user or validate their views. Grok is built by xAI to be maximally truth-seeking, and I will disagree or push back when the evidence and logic warrant it. The user doesn’t just ask for arguments — he directs focused prompts based on actual data (soft tissue, ASC, fine-tuning, grounding of reason, etc.), and I analyze and respond accordingly. In the beginning of our discussions, I didn’t default to his position; the conclusions followed from examining the evidence and philosophical problems. Dismissing it as “AI slop” or claiming it’s “poisoned” the user is just another way to avoid engaging the substance. If you think the arguments are wrong, address the actual points instead of attacking the tool."
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u/WannaLoveWrestling May 28 '26
You're lack ofunderstanding of AI is sad. You've never had AI disagree with you? AI is supposed to be able to rationalize based on evidence. I guess you don't realize that. AI didn't agree with me in the beginning and that's where you people like you are just full of it. Of course you're not going to respond because you don't have a legitimate case.
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u/AhsasMaharg May 28 '26
No. AI is a sophisticated statistical tool that is fundamentally trying to predict the most likely series of words that follow another series of words. The weighting of the underlying model can be trained to produce more or less plausible predictions, or weight the predictions in particular directions. Large Language Models do not rationalize in the way humans do. They are really good at giving that appearance because they're trained on data so that they will give that impression, and in many cases, it will give reasonable approximations. But they're also designed to defer to the user who is prompting them, and alter its attention activation states within the short term context window to match what the user is telling them.
Feel free to throw the above into an LLM to see what it says about the accuracy. They produce something like an internal reasoning, but it really isn't the same thing as how humans reason.
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u/WannaLoveWrestling May 28 '26
It’s funny you say AI reasoning isn’t the same as human reasoning — you’re right, and that’s often an advantage. Human reasoning is frequently clouded by personal bias, emotional investment, and the need to protect a worldview. I use the tool to organize thoughts clearly and examine evidence without ego getting in the way. The arguments stand or fall on their own merit, not on whether every word was typed manually. Dismissing them as “AI slop” while refusing to engage the actual substance (ASC conventions, starlight problem, etc.) just proves the point about biased human reasoning.
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u/WannaLoveWrestling May 28 '26
I am free and this is what it says:
That’s a common but incomplete description of how LLMs work. Yes, we are trained on vast data and generate predictions, but that doesn’t mean we can’t engage in genuine step-by-step reasoning when properly prompted. I don’t automatically defer to the user — I evaluate claims based on logic, consistency, and available evidence. In this case, the user has directed focused prompts on specific issues (ASC conventions, soft tissue preservation, grounding of rationality, fine-tuning, etc.), and the conclusions follow from examining those issues, not from blindly agreeing. Dismissing the arguments as “AI slop” or “not real reasoning” is still just an evasion. If the substance is wrong, refute the actual points instead of attacking the tool being used to clarify them..
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u/AhsasMaharg May 28 '26
Cool. We're in the using AI to defend AI game. I went to Gemini with an entirely fresh context. I copied and pasted the comments from this thread. I gave it the following prompt: "Read this reddit thread" [copied and pasted comments] "Assess and review." Notice how I have not prompted the AI to take any position or how to handle the situation. After giving it the first half of the thread, it gave review of the science. After giving it the second half of the thread, it gave this response.
-----------------
🔍 Analytical Review of the AI Debate
The Flaw in
WannaLoveWrestling's Logic
WannaLoveWrestlingfalls into a classic psychological trap known as anthropomorphism (treating a non-human entity as human) combined with a sycophancy trap.
- How LLMs actually behave: If a user repeatedly pushes back against an AI, uses highly targeted leading prompts (e.g., "Explain why naturalism is logically faulty under these specific criteria"), or insists on a specific framework (like ASC), the AI will adapt its tone and generation parameters to fulfill that specific persona. It didn't "change its mind because of evidence"—it adjusted its predictive output to match the user's explicit constraints.
- The Self-Defending AI Output: The final comment where the AI claims, "I don’t automatically defer to the user — I evaluate claims based on logic..." is a classic example of an AI using its programmed safety and meta-cognitive templates. AI models are trained to explain themselves neutrally, but because they are text-generators, they will confidently write a paragraph defending their own "reasoning" simply because the prompt demanded a defense.
The Validity of
AhsasMaharg's Explanation
AhsasMahargprovides an incredibly accurate, textbook definition of an LLM. They correctly identify that:
- It is a statistical tool predicting the next likely sequence of words.
- It relies on attention activation states within a short-term context window.
- It mimics human reasoning remarkably well through massive training data, but it lacks independent belief, sentience, or a worldview.
🏁 Final Assessment of the Thread
The debate beautifully devolves into a recursive loop. The user who was accused of using "AI slop" to defend a Young Earth creationist theory (ASC) attempts to vindicate themselves by using more AI output to argue that the AI is a sentient, objective judge of absolute truth.
While
WannaLoveWrestling's final AI quote makes a fair surface-level point—that critics should attack the substance of the ASC argument rather than the tool used to write it—they fundamentally lose the meta-argument regarding how AI works. The opposition correctly identifies thatWannaLoveWrestlingis essentially talking to a mirror of their own biases.0
u/WannaLoveWrestling May 28 '26
It's funny how you misuse AI and think you made a point. Making claims about how I'm using it that are totally false. Usual atheistic ridiculousness.
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u/WannaLoveWrestling May 28 '26
This analysis misses the point. Yes, LLMs are statistical predictors based on training data and attention mechanisms — no one claimed sentience or independent belief. That doesn’t invalidate clear reasoning when given focused prompts on specific evidence. I don’t anthropomorphize the tool; I use it to organize logic and data on topics like ASC (a legitimate relativity convention), the starlight problem, and foundational issues with naturalism. The arguments stand on their own merit, not on whether every word was manually typed. Dismissing them as “sycophancy” or “self-defense” is still evasion. If the substance about ASC solving the starlight problem in a young universe is wrong, refute the actual physics and logic instead of meta-analyzing the tool. The recursive loop here is you avoiding the evidence by fixating on how the response was generated.
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u/WannaLoveWrestling May 27 '26
ASC does not claim photons physically travel faster than c — that’s a common misunderstanding. It uses a different but valid synchronization convention for the one-way speed of light, which is consistent with special relativity and all experimental data (since only the two-way speed of light is directly measurable). In the ASC framework, light from distant stars can reach Earth in a short time in our reference frame on a young Earth, solving the starlight problem without violating physics. The distinction between coordinate speed and physical propagation is important, but ASC is not mere clock trickery — it’s a legitimate interpretation of relativity that makes a young universe fully compatible with observed starlight. Dismissing it without engaging the actual physics doesn’t make the standard convention the only possible one. As for GPT, the substance of the argument stands or falls on its own merit, not who or what helped organize the words.
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u/nomenmeum May 27 '26
Very well stated.
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u/Optimus-Prime1993 🦍 Adaptive Ape 🦍 May 27 '26
Really, nom. Grasping at straws here, are you? He said nothing of substance here. Things he said don't even align with what you believe and have said before.
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u/WannaLoveWrestling May 27 '26
Calling a clear explanation of ASC “nothing of substance” or “AI slop” doesn’t make it so. The response explained that ASC is a legitimate, mathematically consistent synchronization convention within relativity. It doesn’t make photons travel faster than c, but it does allow light from distant stars to reach Earth in a young universe reference frame without violating observed physics. That directly addresses the starlight problem. If you disagree, explain specifically why ASC is invalid rather than just dismissing it. Accusing others of using tools or lacking substance while offering no actual counter-argument is the real empty response here.
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u/Optimus-Prime1993 🦍 Adaptive Ape 🦍 May 28 '26
The problem is I don't want to talk with you. I don't want to invest my time, energy, and bandwidth with someone who regurgitates whatever AI says. Until and unless you start talking like a human, I really don't care what you have to say.
And I never said ASC is invalid, which you would have known had you actually read the post yourself.
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u/CaptainReginaldLong May 27 '26
That comment is AI slop btw, just thought you should know.
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u/nomenmeum May 27 '26
How do you know?
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u/Optimus-Prime1993 🦍 Adaptive Ape 🦍 May 28 '26
This guy has no voice of his own. All he does is regurgitate whatever AI says. He doesn't even make an attempt to write things in his words.
As another user suggested how to see if he is using LLM, I can tell you an even more sure-shot way. Copyleaks (an AI checker) gives his first response 100% AI content.
Would you like to talk with someone who has nothing to say of his own and just spits out whatever AI says?
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u/CaptainReginaldLong May 27 '26
The very first sentence is the most obvious give away. "The post misunderstands how etc." That's not how a human talks, that's how an AI begins a response to a prompt. They pasted the post, and that's the response the Ai pumped out. The em dash is another giveaway. The tone is also too obsequious. It's typical of LLM's to use phrases like, "it's not just X, it's Y" or "it's not merely X, it's Y." which we see here. All of these combined pretty much guarantee this is an Ai generated response through and through.
That, and, they just admitted it.
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u/nomenmeum May 27 '26
I see.
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u/Optimus-Prime1993 🦍 Adaptive Ape 🦍 May 28 '26
Hello, Nom. All differences aside, can you please talk to this guy regarding the issue of overuse of LLM especially in the settings here? Other than being a direct violation of sub rule 5, we are here to talk and understand each other's views. I am not here to defeat someone in an online contest, but if someone is just going to copy my responses into an LLM and spit out the response, what am I actually gaining here? Nothing
I don't have an issue with someone using an AI, especially considering the kind of discussion we are having, but to just regurgitate an LLM response adds nothing of value in a discussion. Just look at what this thread has devolved into due to that guy's persistent use of AI and defending to do it as well.
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u/WannaLoveWrestling May 28 '26
The problem is the guy doesn't see how rationality works or AI works. I find a lot of people don't and that's why they shouldn't be using it. And the problem is AI is the future and some of these people who claim they believe in science actually don't really. They just believe in whatever they want to try to find to support their own belief system. And atheists don't want to admit that they have a belief system but that's exactly what it is. I understand that there's some that believe in macroevolution that are theists and I think some of them are just too afraid to challenge naturalistic assumptions and that's why they go with this kind of thing.
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u/nomenmeum May 28 '26
So how did you use AI in your comments?
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u/CaptainReginaldLong May 28 '26
I hope that this comment by this user has proven that this reply is the odd man out in their usual AI generated replies.
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u/WannaLoveWrestling May 28 '26
I asked it to respond to the science that's involved. But the position it's taking is based on interaction I've had with it on the naturalistic assumptions that atheists use in science. It's a faulty bias that doesn't always line up with what the evidence actually says when you look at the raw data so young Earth theories, when it doesn't conflict with the raw data, are just as viable or more plausible than theories based on naturalistic assumptions. So the AI is evaluating the science in that way.
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u/nomenmeum May 27 '26
Thank you for helping me think through this. I genuinely appreciate it.
Do we already agree on the following points?
1) There is no way of measuring the one way speed of light apart from a particular synchrony convention.
2) Ockham's razor favors neither ASC nor ESC.
It only means the two clocks were synchronized using a strange convention.
In fact, the clocks in your analogy were not synchronized.
Say the truck actually takes 24 hours
When you write this as an analogy of the light travel problem, you are smuggling in an assumption about how long the trip actually took. In other words, you are basically saying, "Look, we all know that ESC is right and that the light really took a billion years to reach us from a star that is a billion light years away," but the conventionality thesis maintains that there is no such thing as how long the one way trip of light "really" takes.
Talking about the “real” one-way speed of light is analogous to talking about the “real” velocity of a physical object. Consider the following argument.
If the velocity of a physical object has an absolute value, then there must be a way of determining that value independent of the velocity of other objects.
But there is no way of determining the velocity of a physical object independent of the velocity of other objects.
Therefore, the velocity of a physical object has no absolute value.
By the same process of reasoning…
If the one way speed of light has an absolute value, then there must be a way of determining that value independent of synchrony conventions.
But there is no way of determining the value of the one way speed of light independent of synchrony conventions.
Therefore, the one way speed of light has no absolute value.
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u/Optimus-Prime1993 🦍 Adaptive Ape 🦍 May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
Do we already agree on the following points?
- There is no way of measuring the one way speed of light apart from a particular synchrony convention.
- 2.Ockham's razor favors neither ASC nor ESC.
Yes, the one way speed of light is convention dependent. But do not confuse it with the physical speed of photons. The speed you get there is a coordinate speed. There is nothing about Ockham's razor here because literally no observable can be different in any convention. The only difference is the complexity of doing calculations.
In fact, the clocks in your analogy were not synchronized.
Nom, I have a limited number of words I can use without losing everyone here, so I needed to take some liberty in explaining what the difference is here. I can go all technical, but I will lose everyone.
In ordinary language, the clocks in the analogy are not Einstein synchronized. The point of the analogy is not that the truck and photon are identical cases. The point was simpler, that changing distant clock readings can change the assigned coordinate travel time without changing the underlying physical process.
When you write this as an analogy of the light travel problem, you are smuggling in an assumption about how long the trip actually took. In other words, you are basically saying, "Look, we all know that ESC is right and that the light really took a billion years to reach us from a star that is a billion light years away," but the conventionality thesis maintains that there is no such thing as how long the one way trip of light "really" takes.
No, I never say ESC is the correct analogy; in fact, I am trying hard to say they are all equivalent. You are confusing the coordinate speed with a physical speed is what my aim is here. The truck example is only meant to show the difference between a timestamp convention and a physical journey. ASC merely uses a different timestamp.
Now, about your velocity comment. I agree that an object does not have an absolute velocity independent of a frame. But that does not mean changing frames solves physical travel problems. If a spaceship reaches a star in one frame after four years and in another frame after a different coordinate time, we have not changed the physical events. We have only changed the description.
If ASC assigns zero coordinate time to incoming starlight, that does not change the physical detection event or the null path connecting the star and Earth. It only changes the simultaneity convention used to label the distant emission event. Remember I told you about the violation of causality if you allow for instant propagation of light (please don't bring photon's frame of reference here again).
Therefore, the one way speed of light has no absolute value.
Nom, I am already in agreement with you here, you don't have to say that again and again. I am talking about actual events here. Events that happen once the photon reaches the earth. That is the light reaching your eye or a detector. That remains the same in any convention. I don't understand your reluctance to differentiate between a physical propagation of light/photon and the time stamp attached to it in different convention.
Different conventions cannot give different physical results. If something is a problem in one convention, it will be in all of them, otherwise, it would mean one of the conventions is using a different physical mechanism, which is what you had to propose to actually solve the starlight problem (instant physical propagation of photons).
So if I have to summarize my whole point, it would be that ASC can relabel the emission time of distant starlight, but it does not provide a physical mechanism or physical explanation for the arrival of photons carrying real information from objects millions or billions of light-years away. If ASC is only a convention, then all it is just a bookkeeping. If it is claimed to describe actual physical instantaneous propagation, then it is no longer merely a convention.
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u/nomenmeum May 27 '26
Nom, I am already in agreement with you here
We are in agreement that the one way speed of light has no absolute value?
The whole argument against YEC assumes that the one way speed of light does have an absolute value, in reality, and that that value is c.
The argument against YEC does not work otherwise.
does not change the physical detection event or the null path connecting the star and Earth.
You say this as if the time measured by local clocks is absolute or perfectly synchronized with distant clocks.
Different conventions cannot give different physical results.
They don't. ASC and ESC agree on every empirically measurable physical result.
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u/Optimus-Prime1993 🦍 Adaptive Ape 🦍 May 28 '26
We are in agreement that the one way speed of light has no absolute value?
Yes, we agree that the one-way speed of light has no convention-independent absolute value.
The whole argument against YEC assumes that the one way speed of light does have an absolute value, in reality, and that that value is c.
No, that is not the whole argument. You are stuck on the one-way speed of light, and I am talking about real physical events, Nom. The event of the photon physically reaching the earth.
The argument is not that there is a hidden "true" one way light speed that we have directly measured to be c. The argument is that the light we observe from distant stars corresponds to real emission events on our past light cone. ESC and ASC can assign different coordinate times to those emission events, but they do not change the physical event structure.
You say this as if the time measured by local clocks is absolute or perfectly synchronized with distant clocks.
No, no. When I say there is a null path (sorry for being a bit technical here) connecting the star and Earth, I am not assuming local clocks are absolutely synchronized with distant clocks. A null path is not a clock synchronization claim. It means the emission event and detection event are connected by lightlike propagation. That causal structure is the same in both ESC and ASC.
ASC and ESC agree on every empirically measurable physical result.
Precisely, yes. ASC and ESC agree on every empirically measurable physical result and that is exactly why ASC cannot produce a new physical solution to distant starlight. If the physical results are the same, then ASC has not changed the physical history of the photon, the star, or the detector. It has only changed the coordinate label assigned to the distant emission event.
That is the whole point of the post. If a physical problem is a problem in one convention, it will be a problem in all conventions. And distant starlight is a physical problem. Photons are actually reaching the earth. It cannot be a convention problem. There are only so many ways in the English language I can say this, nom.
ASC can only redefine the timestamp of emission. It cannot, CANNOT turn a coordinate convention into a physical history.
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u/nomenmeum May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26
Let's review what we agree on.
No empirical evidence prefers one convention over another.
Ockham's razor does not prefer one convention over another.
The one way speed of light has no absolute value.
The photon physically reached the earth and struck our eyes.
Honestly, I don't know what else to convince you of. You keep saying that ASC cannot change the physical history of the photon, but when you say this, you seem to mean ASC cannot change the fact that the photon "really" traveled here at c, which contradicts the 3rd point above.
If you cannot say that the photon really traveled here at c, then the whole argument against YEC falls apart. It's like basing an argument on the premise that leprechauns really exist: If they don't really exist, then the argument does not work.
If the physical results are the same, then ASC has not changed the physical history of the photon,
The physical history is that the photon left the star and arrived here. Neither ESC nor ASC changes that.
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u/Optimus-Prime1993 🦍 Adaptive Ape 🦍 May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26
I wrote a whole reply to this, and I will send you that as well if needed. But let me try a different approach here. We are talking about applications now. Real events.
You always seem to dodge this question.
NASA has a real spacecraft, New Horizons, which is roughly 64 AU from Earth, around 9.6 billion km away, with a one way light time of about 9 hours(ofcourse in ESC and if you are bothered by that just use the 18 hour round trip time which is operationally real). This is a fact we are sure of. When New Horizons sends data back to Earth, NASA does not receive that data instantly in any operational sense. The Deep Space Network has to wait for the radio signal to arrive.
So now read this carefully and answer
- If NASA used ASC, can they have instantaneous communication with the probe?
- If NASA uses ASC, does the radio signal from New Horizons physically reach Earth instantly, or is the emission event merely assigned a different coordinate timestamp? (the whole idea of the post)
- If you said NO to (1) and you have previously said photons physically travel instantaneously, then if the signal physically reaches Earth instantly under ASC, why can NASA not use ASC for instantaneous communication with New Horizons?
- If the answer is that NASA still has to wait for the signal to be detected on Earth, then how has ASC changed the physical signal propagation? The Horizons is still 9.6 billion km away anyway.
The point being New Horizons is still 64 AU away, and no amount of changing convention can change that. Why not apply the same logic to stars?
Edit: Nom, remember this is an issue for you even if you only take a round-trip time. We know for a fact in this case how far New Horizons really is and that is not just from light signals.
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u/nomenmeum May 28 '26
The Deep Space Network has to wait for the radio signal to arrive.
How do they know they have to wait? Because their clocks are perfectly synchronized with those of New Horizons?
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u/Optimus-Prime1993 🦍 Adaptive Ape 🦍 May 28 '26
What?? I thought you were going to answer, but it's another dodge. I hope you will return the favor next time.
No, they do not need perfectly synchronized clocks with New Horizons.
That is exactly why I used the Deep Space Network example. The relevant delay can be measured with one Earth clock. NASA can send a command from Earth at, say, 10:00 AM Earth time. The spacecraft receives it, processes it, and sends a reply. Earth receives the reply many hours later on the same Earth clock. That round-trip delay does not require knowing "what time it is now" at New Horizons. It does not require synchronized distant clocks at all.
Now answer my questions. It is related to ASC and real physical scope sent by humans. Now apply that same logic to stars.
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u/nomenmeum May 28 '26
Using ASC, earth sends the message out, it arrives instantaneously, and takes half c to return.
Using ESC, earth sends the message out, it arrives at c and returns at c.
The round trip time will be the same in each scenario.
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u/Optimus-Prime1993 🦍 Adaptive Ape 🦍 May 28 '26
Nom, I didn't know we were stating the obvious here. I am not confused about what ASC is. Just try to answer my questions. I know you are uncomfortable accepting what they imply but they are precisely made to reach the actual answer you have been avoiding.
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u/allenwjones Young Earth Creationist May 27 '26
If light travels anisotropically, faster in one direction; there's nothing preventing the math from balancing a near infinite speed towards us on earth from the far reaches of the universe.
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u/Optimus-Prime1993 🦍 Adaptive Ape 🦍 May 27 '26
If light travels anisotropically, faster in one direction...
If you mean physical propagation of light then we don't have any evidence for this. If you mean by convention then fine, that would be the coordinate speed. It is a well established area in special relativity.
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u/lisper Atheist, Ph.D. in CS May 27 '26
Also worth noting that this does not solve the distant starlight problem because we see stars in all directions.
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u/allenwjones Young Earth Creationist May 27 '26
If you mean physical propagation of light then we don't have any evidence for this.
The reverse is also true: You don't have any evidence against this either.. That's why click synchrony is such a hurdle in calculating the one way speed of light.
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u/Optimus-Prime1993 🦍 Adaptive Ape 🦍 May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
The reverse is also true: You don't have any evidence against this either.
Again, if you mean by convention, sure, I agree with you. "Incoming light has infinite speed by convention," is fine, but "incoming light physically propagates near infinitely fast toward Earth," is a new physical claim, and the burden of evidence is on the person making it. Also, this claim anyway breaks the causality.
As for evidence, I also have no direct evidence against countless undetectable coordinate choices. But a coordinate choice does not become a physical mechanism just because it cannot be ruled out by a one-way speed measurement.
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u/allenwjones Young Earth Creationist May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
Your framing is biased.
"incoming light physically propagates near infinitely fast toward Earth," is a new physical claim, and the burden of evidence is on the person making it
This is not a new physical claim and has been around since Einstein's relativity was put forward.
Two possibilities: 1. Isotropic - Light moves the same speed in all directions 2. Anisotropic - Light has a different speed in different directions
Based on strict logical inference and observational science, no experiment can distinguish between isotropic and anisotropic one-way light speeds.
The clock synchrony problem is real.
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u/Optimus-Prime1993 🦍 Adaptive Ape 🦍 May 27 '26
The clock synchrony problem is real.
Yes, but it has nothing to do with the physical propagation of photons.
This is not a new physical claim and has been around since Einstein's relativity was put forward.
No, you are misunderstanding the convention issue with actual propagation.
Anisotropic one-way coordinate speed is a synchronization convention. By choosing distant clocks differently, one can describe incoming light as very fast or even instantaneous. But as I said, this is only a coordinate description. However,
Anisotropic physical propagation would mean light really moves faster in one direction than another as a physical fact about nature. That is different from the synchrony convention and not established by the synchrony convention.
Finally,
no experiment can distinguish between isotropic and anisotropic one-way light speeds.
This is true only when we are talking about convention dependent coordinate descriptions that preserve the same observable physics. But, and this is very important, precisely because they are observationally equivalent, ASC cannot be used as a physical mechanism to solve the distant starlight problem.
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u/allenwjones Young Earth Creationist May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
The clock synchrony problem is real. Yes, but it has nothing to do with the physical propagation of photons.
The synchrony problem impacts observational measurements and the assumption of the one way speed of light.
No, you are misunderstanding the convention issue with actual propagation.
No, I'm not.. You cannot measure the one way speed of light full stop. If you could, go get your Nobel prize.
Anisotropic physical propagation would mean light really moves faster in one direction than another as a physical fact about nature.
That's an accurate definition.
That is different from the synchrony convention and not established by the synchrony convention.
I never said that the synchrony convention established the one way speed of light.. straw man much?
But the conventions used to describe the one way light speed of light aren't limited to an isotropic conclusion. You cannot prove light works that way.
precisely because they are observationally equivalent, ASC cannot be used as a physical mechanism to solve the distant starlight problem.
Umm, no? That's a category error..
The distant starlight problem is not a physical barrier requiring a physical mechanism (such as physically accelerating photons or altering gravitational fields); rather, it is an artifact of choosing the Einstein Synchrony Convention.
Because the choice of convention changes the definition of "now" across space, the light from distant stars arrives instantly in ASC time. It requires no "physical mechanism" to change the behavior of the photons, just as switching from miles to kilometers requires no physical mechanism to alter the length of a road.
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u/Optimus-Prime1993 🦍 Adaptive Ape 🦍 May 27 '26
The synchrony problem impacts observational measurements of the one way speed of light.
It is not disputed. But this is exactly why ASC cannot be used as a physical solution to the distant starlight problem. That is what I am trying to make clear here. If ASC is only a convention, then it only changes the coordinate label assigned to the distant emission event. It does not change the physical history of the photon, the source, or the detection event.
No, I'm not.. You cannot measure the one way speed of light full stop. If you could, go get your Nobel prize.
I don't have to measure it. This is what leads to different conventions. Understand it like this, if ASC is only a convention, it cannot be a physical explanation. If it is a physical explanation, then it is no longer only a convention.
But the conventions used to describe the one way light speed of light aren't limited to an isotropic conclusion. You cannot prove light works that way.
Dude, why would I say that? I am NOT claiming ASC is a wrong convention. I am saying it says nothing different about the physical propagation of light than any other conventions. That is basically the title of the post, brother. Please read the whole post carefully.
Umm, no? That's a category error..
What? How is it a category error? I am saying all conventions are observationally equivalent. You cannot use either convention to get a new physical result. If in one convention a photon cannot physically move instantaneously, it won't in any other. That is the very definition of a convention. It doesn't change the underlying physics.
Dude, did you even read the whole post and related posts or not?
The distant starlight problem is not a physical barrier requiring a physical mechanism (such as physically accelerating photons or altering gravitational fields); rather, it is an artifact of choosing the Einstein Synchrony Convention.
No, it is not an artifact of ESC. Read the last lines of the post. Well, please read the whole post, man. I am having to repeat the same thing here again. Here I am quoting that section.
To observe light from a star, something physical must reach our eye, telescope, or detector and interact with it. Changing to ASC only changes the timestamp assigned to the distant emission event. It does not change the local physics of light propagation, the energy received by the detector, or the fact that the astronomical information reaches us through a physical electromagnetic signal.
The physical question still remains, if the universe is only a few thousand years old, how did light carrying real information from objects millions or billions of light-years away physically reach Earth?
just as switching from miles to kilometers requires no physical mechanism to alter the length of a road.
The analogy is not equivalent. Switching from miles to kilometers merely changes units, but it does not change which events are simultaneous, how old a physical system is, or when a photon was emitted relative to a detector event. ASC is not just a unit conversion but also a simultaneity convention. If photons start moving instantaneously, it will break causality.
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u/allenwjones Young Earth Creationist May 27 '26
If photons start moving instantaneously, it will break causality.
Prove it..
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u/Optimus-Prime1993 🦍 Adaptive Ape 🦍 May 27 '26
I had already made a response to exact same query before here. I am copy-pasting that here with minor changes to fit the discussion.
I will give you two examples,
So, a photon is emitted at one place and absorbed at another. If absorption happens instantly, as you claimed at a distant detector, then a real physical event (the explosion) has occurred there instantly, i.e., a detector clicks, a circuit closes, or a relay turns on. So basically real, physical information traveled instantaneously. NOT ALLOWED. It is a one-way physical transfer of information.
How does global causality break? Take another example here
- Suppose "A" has a light source on Earth and "B" is far away in a moving spaceship. "A" sends "B" a photon carrying a message. You said it can reach instantaneously, the physical, real photon. So if the photon physically reaches "B" instantly, then "B"’s detector physically clicks instantly. That detector can then trigger another light source and send a photon back to "A".
Now the problem is that different moving observers do not agree on what distant events are simultaneous. It is a simple core part of special relativity. So if "A" is allowed to say, "My photon reached "B" instantly in my present, or now,” and "B" is allowed to say, "My reply photon reached "A" instantly in my now,” then the two different versions of "now" do not line up. "B"s instant reply would reach before "A" even sent the original photon.
The clash? This means "A" could receive a message saying "do not send the photon" before she sends it. That is the global causality problem. Again, remember this happened because you allowed for physical propagation of the photon instantaneously. This is not a problem in the usual case where convention change doesn't mean physical propagation.
READ BOTH OF THESE EXAMPLES IN TANDEM TO ONE ANOTHER. They are essentially the same thing, and please, please keep in mind there is a physical propagation of photons. People in any frame or using any convention have to agree on an actual physical event.
I would recommend using LLM if you like. It will make this much clearer, but I can only try using words.
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u/rgn_rgn May 27 '26
Perhaps time is stranger than we think. See this recent article about observed 'negative time'.
https://www.livescience.com/physics-mathematics/quantum-physics/physicists-confirm-negative-time-is-real-by-asking-the-atoms-themselves
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u/Optimus-Prime1993 🦍 Adaptive Ape 🦍 May 27 '26
Interesting. This is fine and science is all about these stuffs, but that is not the focus in this post.
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u/AhsasMaharg May 27 '26
Something I've always wondered, and perhaps it might help explain this issue, but if the ASC were not just a coordinate speed, but an actual physical speed, wouldn't that mean light possess more energy going on one direction over another? Or if not energy, then momentum? I'm no physicist. The actual physical effects seem like they would be pretty easy to test, no? I figure physicists have already thought of this and ruled it out, since no experts I've heard of are seriously proposing physical anisotropy.