The conventionality of spatial and temporal relations given the special theory of relativity
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Abstract
Poincare's examination of the role of convention in the scientific description of nature issues in the conclusion that all natural knowledge contains a small element of convention. The result is that matters of natural fact cannot be instances of a priori knowledge. However, although any given statement may be affirmed or denied if one is willing to adjust the rest of one's statements concerning natural fact, it is experimentally determined which whole systems of statements concerning natural fact correctly characterize nature. Moreover experiment and experience single out those systems of statements which are most convenient. The objective character of this convenience serves to render alternative descriptions of nature "alternatives" only in the weak sense of logically but not practically possible.
Concerning the specific questions of simultaneity and distance relations Poincare, working within the classical conceptual framework, shows both of these relations to be matters of convention in the same sense. He shows such things as color matching, causal relations, and the number of dimensions of space, are matters of convention in this sense.
In Whitehead's philosophy of nature, space and time are the abstract expression of the uniform relations existing among events. Since Whitehead takes as his starting point the experience with which one is in fact faced, he only briefly refers to the possibility that nature could be characterized differently; for example, space might have a different number of dimensions or a different (uniform) geometry if there were experiences which required this. Whitehead is principally concerned to show first, that spatial and temporal relations are ingredient in experience, and second, that since the space-time field does express uniform relatedness it must not be confused with the physical field. [TRUNCATED]
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Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University
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