Absolute and Relative Time

[Mike Helland]

Einstein also tells us what these observers would record if one of them was moving at, say, c/2 with respect to the the other one and the light source. Their records would no longer differ by a second (or if we use intervals, they would no longer observe the same interval). Einstein tells us that, not Everett.

I got the impression Everett expected relativistic effects when his observers were in relative motion.

That's pretty impossible to know until such a massive simulation gets made.

So when you claim that relativity uses idealised observers, you still haven't told us how that makes a practical difference.

Assuming:

1. the purely physical observer is made of atoms
2. atoms are made of subatomic particles
3. the positively charged nuclei and negatively charged electrons exchange photons to stay bound

Whereas an idealized observer isn't represented by all its constituent particles, and thus doesn't require internal virtual photons for its continued existence.

I'm pretty sure that's why Everett stressed "purely physical" over and over. It's when the physics that govern the measurement interaction also govern the interaction that make the observer's internal structure, that interesting things happen.

You keep saying that, but you never show us what these mathematics that represent both are, and you never will, because no such maths exists.

Not yet. Hence my interest in building an Everettian observer. When he died, he was working on computer vision and computer hearing. Most of the pieces required to complete his vision are becoming available today.

The relative state formulation is not trying to solve the problem you think it is. To understand the problem it is trying to solve, you need to understand QM to at least graduate level. And you don't. It is not saying anything about the physics of time as addresssed by Einstein in relativity. It really, really isn't.

First paragraph:

The task of quantizing general relativity raises serious questions about the
meaning of the present formulation and interpretation of quantum mechanics
when applied to so fundamental a structure as the space-time geometry itself.
This paper seeks to clarify the foundations of quantum mechanics. It presents
a reformulation of quantum theory in a form believed suitable for application
to general relativity.

Second and third to last paragraphs:

While our theory ultimately justifies the use of the probabilistic interpre-
tation as an aid to making practical predications, it forms a broader frame in
which to understand the consistency of that interpretation. In this respect
it can be said to form a metatheory for the standard theory. It transcends
the usual “external observation” formulation, however, in its ability to deal
logically with questions of imperfect observation and approximate measure-
ment.

The “relative state” formulation will apply to all forms of quantum me-
chanics which maintain the superposition principle. It may therefore prove a
fruitful framework for the quantization of general relativity. The formalism
invites one to construct the formal theory first, and to supply the statistical
interpretation later. This method should be particularly useful for inter-
preting quantized unified field theories where there is no question of ever
isolating observers and object systems. They all are represented in a single
structure, the field. Any interpretative rules can probably only be deduced
in and through the theory itself.

----

His goal was quantum gravity, believe it or not.

Newton had no concept of relative time in the sense that Einstein has.

Relative time is what a clock measures. Same concept in both.

What is different between them is spacetime invariance.

"Time is relative" is not the same thing as "spacetime is invariant".

Maybe it's morphed into that, but "relative" has meant determined by the senses through relation to other objects and events for centuries prior to SR.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

But if I choose to identify at rest, or in motion, does my wrist watch run any different?

Your wrist watch runs the same in either case. If the watch is perfectly accurate, it displays its proper time, but your description of its accuracy depends upon your choice of coordinate system. If you choose to use a Minkowskian coordinate system in which you and your watch are at rest, your coordinate system agrees with your watch, so you say your watch is accurate.

If you choose to use a Minkowskian coordinate system in which you and your watch are not at rest, you are choosing to use a coordinate system that says your watch is running slow.

That may be easier for you to understand if you consider how your choice of coordinate system affects your description of someone else's watch that is at rest in the coordinate system that says you are moving.


In the following quotation, I wrote "absolute (as opposed to relative!!!)" to highlight Mike Helland's equivocation of the words "absolute" and "relative".

That choice is already a choice, but that choice does not fully determine their choice of reference frame, since they must still choose the directions of spatial dimensions and the absolute (as opposed to relative!!!) time of some event they experience.

How do they determine the absolute time of some event?

They don't determine the absolute time of that event, they choose the absolute time of that event.

Suppose, for example, that I choose to use a Minkowskian coordinate system in which I am at rest. Deciding to use coordinates in which I am at rest does not fully determine the coordinate system. I must still choose the x and y spatial directions (which, taken together, imply a unique z direction in accord with geometric convention), and I must still choose my absolute coordinates for all three of those spatial directions, and I must still choose my absolute time coordinate.

I could, for example, choose my absolute time coordinate as t=1638381775. Alternatively, I could choose my absolute time coordinate as t=46975. Both of those would be a perfectly valid choice of absolute time coordinate. (It so happens that t=46975 corresponds to the number of seconds that have elapsed since the start of 1 December 2021 in Eastern Standard Time, while t=1638381775 happens to correspond to the number of seconds that have elapsed since 00:00:00 UTC, January 1, 1970, but the legitimacy of my choice of absolute time coordinate does not depend upon any such coincidence between my choice and equally arbitrary choices made by recognized standards.)

In like manner, I could choose my absolute x, y, and z coordinates to be 0, or I could choose my absolute spatial coordinates to be x=17, y=-2150152, and z=10⁹⁴. The reason I am absolutely free to choose any values whatsoever for my absolute coordinates is that all of the coordinates that matter for physics or everyday life will be relative to my choice of absolute coordinates.

Which is to say, absolute coordinates are relative in the sense of being arbitrary and therefore relative to others' arbitrary choices of absolute coordinates.

If you take the time and trouble to understand what I have written above, you should arrive at a better understanding of Newton's and Einstein's remarks. (That is not, however, an outcome I would wager.)

 

[Mike Helland]

Which is to say, absolute coordinates are relative in the sense of being arbitrary and therefore relative to others' arbitrary choices of absolute coordinates.

If you take the time and trouble to understand what I have written above, you should arrive at a better understanding of Newton's and Einstein's remarks. (That is not, however, an outcome I would wager.)

It doesn't sound like you are using "absolute" the way Newton or Einstein would.

If your absolute time coordinate is just an arbitrary origin, it still correlates to clock readings, aka relative time.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

Which is to say, absolute coordinates are relative in the sense of being arbitrary and therefore relative to others' arbitrary choices of absolute coordinates.

If you take the time and trouble to understand what I have written above, you should arrive at a better understanding of Newton's and Einstein's remarks. (That is not, however, an outcome I would wager.)

It doesn't sound like you are using "absolute" the way Newton or Einstein would.

Einstein would have understood what I wrote, and I don't think he would have disputed my terminology.

(Einstein understood the distinction between linear and affine transformations. He even wrote a paper titled The Theory of the Affine Field, which I haven't read but appears to be about the affine connection known as the Levi-Civita connection. And there's a good reason why §2 of Hermann Weyl's Raum Zeit Materie is about the "Foundations of Affine Geometry".)

Newton wouldn't have understood what I wrote until he got up to speed on special relativity, but I don't think that would have taken him too long. After all, Newton had some background in calculus.

Here are some possibly relevant translations of things Einstein wrote in 1920, as collected in a book for general audiences published as Relativity: The Special and the General Theory.

As a matter of fact, according to classical mechanics, time is absolute, i.e., it is independent of the position and the condition of motion of the system of coordinates. We see this expressed in the last equation of the Galilean transformation (t' = t).

The four-dimensional mode of consideration of the "world" is natural on the theory of relativity, since according to this theory time is robbed of its independence. This is shown by the fourth equation of the Lorentz transformation....

That's a pretty clear statement of what Einstein meant by saying the "absolute" time of classical mechanics gave way to the relativistic notion of time. It is also clearly consistent with what hecd2 has been writing in this thread.

In Part II of that book, Einstein moves on to discuss the general theory of relativity.

In gravitational fields there are no such things as rigid bodies with Euclidean properties; thus the fictitious rigid body of reference is of no avail in the general theory of relativity....

For this reason non-rigid reference-bodies are used which are as a whole not only moving in anyway whatsoever, but which also suffer alterations in form ad lib. during their motion. Clocks, for which the law of motion is of any kind, however irregular, serve for the definition of time....This non-rigid reference-body, which might appropriately be termed a "reference-mollusk," is in the main equivalent to a Gaussian four-dimensional coordinate system chosen arbitrarily....The general principle of relativity requires that all these mollusks can be used as reference-bodies with equal rights and equal success in the formulation of the general laws of nature; the laws themselves must be quite independent of the choice of mollusk.

Part of what Einstein is saying here is that all observers get to choose their own mollusks (coordinate systems or, in more modern terminology, charts). That arbitrary choice of mollusks includes the arbitrary choice of numerical (absolute!) coordinates for each event, subject only to a few constraints (to which Einstein alludes in text I have elided).

I should perhaps point out that while the numerical coordinates themselves are almost completely arbitrary, descriptions of the particular space-time manifold (including most critically the description of its pseudo-metric tensor field, aka the Levi-Civita connection) in terms of any particular admissible coordinates one might have chosen are not at all arbitrary.​

If your absolute time coordinate is just an arbitrary origin, it still correlates to clock readings, aka relative time.

The absolute time coordinate you choose to assign to some specific event is completely arbitrary, but you are still talking as though you think relative time is invariant.

Newton's notion of relative time is invariant under Newtonian transformations.

Einstein's notion of relative time is not at all invariant under relativistic transformations, even in special relativity.

Please try to understand Einstein's words quoted above.

 

[Mike Helland]

The absolute time coordinate you choose to assign to some specific event is completely arbitrary, but you are still talking as though you think relative time is invariant.

When I google "absolute time coordinate" and "special relativity", I don't see any examples that use the same terminology you are using:

https://www.google.com/search?channel=fs&client=ubuntu&q=special+relativity+absolute+time+coordinate

 

[hecd2]

I got the impression Everett expected relativistic effects when his observers were in relative motion.

I don't know what would give you that impression, but I stronly suspect Everett would have no problem with that, because, so far as I know, he accepted relativity. But he had nothing to say about the effects on time of relative motiuon different from what Einstein had already set out in 1905. It is Einstein's physics that tells us what happens in that case, not Everett's.

But why did you go to all the trouble of setting out that scenario, if you abandon the discussion of it as soon as I respond - the scenario was supposed to explain why you think "idealised" observers in relativity makes a practical difference - you haven't explained that yet.

That's pretty impossible to know until such a massive simulation gets made.

What's pretty impossible to know? That the records would no longer differ by a second if one observer is moving with respect to the light source and the other isn't, and that the interval between two light pulses would not be measured to be the same by the two in that case? That experiment is done billions of times everyday.

Assuming:

1. the purely physical observer is made of atoms
2. atoms are made of subatomic particles
3. the positively charged nuclei and negatively charged electrons exchange photons to stay bound

Whereas an idealized observer isn't represented by all its constituent particles, and thus doesn't require internal virtual photons for its continued existence.

So what? What is the practical difference? How is the physics of relativity different for a physical as opposed to an idealised observer?

Hint: it isn't because the nature of the observer is irrelevant to relativity.

I'm pretty sure that's why Everett stressed "purely physical" over and over. It's when the physics that govern the measurement interaction also govern the interaction that make the observer's internal structure, that interesting things happen.

You're pretty sure are you? You've been pretty sure about a lot of things on this forum that have turned out to be pure bunkum. Everett is stressing a physical observer because it is the effect of the quantum measurable on the quantum state of the observer that interests him. Quantum measurables are things like electron location and momentum, spin, and so on. Not where the second hand on your watch is. Maybe you can tell us what interesting things happen to measurements of time in relativity with a physical observer rather than a "idealised" observer.

Not yet. Hence my interest in building an Everettian observer.

Good luck. You'll need specialist understanding of QM to do that. The mathematics of QM is not trivial or intuitive. At the moment your understanding is at about kindergarden level. How do you plan to bridge the gap?

First paragraph: rest snipped

An ultimate goal might be a theory of quantum gravity but your quote is clear: "This paper seeks to clarify the foundations of quantum mechanics." As such it has nothing, zero, zilch to say about Einstein's theory of relativity. There is no Everettian theory of relativity.

Newton had no concept of relative time in the sense that Einstein has.

Relative time is what a clock measures. Same concept in both

Wrong. The key concepts of special relativity and the dependence of measured durations on motion (and other things) are completely alien to Newton who believed the nature of time was universal and absolute and, for example, durations were the the same seen from all places and under all conditions of motion. Einstein's concept of time relative to motion is not the same as saying clocks are imperfect. You are conflating two ideas that are fundamentally different.

 

[Mike Helland]

But why did you go to all the trouble of setting out that scenario, if you abandon the discussion of it as soon as I respond - the scenario was supposed to explain why you think "idealised" observers in relativity makes a practical difference - you haven't explained that yet.

Idealized observer, interacts with photons

Mechanical observer, interacts with photons, and is held together by photons

Let's say you and I are floating around in space, with nothing else around.

I see you cruise by me at c/2.

You see me cruise by at c/2.

Since the speed of light to me is always c, and you're traveling at c/2, then from my view, your electrons and protons are being held together by photons that a traveling at a mere twice the speed as the electrons and protons themselves.

Seems to me that would be a pretty big difference between the idealized observer and the purely physical one.

An ultimate goal might be a theory of quantum gravity but your quote is clear: "This paper seeks to clarify the foundations of quantum mechanics." As such it has nothing, zero, zilch to say about Einstein's theory of relativity.

The whole intro paragraph, for those interested:

"The task of quantizing general relativity raises serious questions about the meaning of the present formulation and interpretation of quantum mechanics when applied to so fundamental a structure as the space-time geometry itself. This paper seeks to clarify the foundations of quantum mechanics. It presents a reformulation of quantum theory in a form believed suitable for application to general relativity."

 

[W.D.Clinger]

The absolute time coordinate you choose to assign to some specific event is completely arbitrary, but you are still talking as though you think relative time is invariant.

When I google "absolute time coordinate" and "special relativity", I don't see any examples that use the same terminology you are using...

Does that mean my prose wins a prize for originality?

My own Google search on "absolute numerical value of the time coordinate" uncovered a Google Books hit for the English translation of Hermann Weyl's Raum Zeit Materie, to which I alluded earlier today. From page 109, which is in §13 (Tensors and Tensor-Densities in any Arbitrary Manifold):

Conception of Tensor-density.—If ∫Wdx, in which dx represents briefly the element of integration dx₁, dx₂, . . . dx_n, is an invariant integral, then W is a quantity dependent on the co-ordinate system in such a way that, when transformed to another co-ordinate system, its value become [sic] multiplied by the absolute (numerical) value of the functional determinant.

In that quotation, Weyl is using "absolute" as synonym for "numerical" in the same way I was. I was of course speaking of a particular coordinate, while Weyl was speaking of a (doubly) coordinate-dependent determinant, but the usage is otherwise the same.

That and similar searches also found numerous examples in which it is stated that physical experiments cannot detect any preferred absolute (i.e. numerical) value for various coordinates in various state spaces, which of course implies that one's choice of numerical (i.e. absolute) values for those coordinates is arbitrary.

For example:

Newton believed that the classical conception of space requires there to be absolute spatial locations through time nonetheless, and that some special coordinate systems or physical objects will indeed be at ‘absolute rest’ in space.....However, it is generally accepted that classical physics makes absolute space undetectable. This means, at least, that in the context of classical physics there is no way of giving an operational procedure for determining absolute position (or absolute rest) through time.

Another example:

Gauge symmetry requires that the laws of physics be invariant under the transformation V → V + C, which implies that no experiment should be able to measure the absolute potential, without reference to some external standard such as an electrical ground. But the proposed rules E₁=qV₁ and E₂=qV₂ for the energies of creation and destruction would allow an experimenter to determine the absolute potential, simply by comparing the energy input required to create the charge q at a particular point in space in the case where the potential is V and V + C respectively. The conclusion is that if gauge symmetry holds, and energy is conserved, then charge must be conserved.

And then there's this, wherein "absolute time" is defined by comparison to an arbitrary origin (the present) that will change over time, although too slowly to matter:

Absolute time - numerical ages, often expressed in "millions of years before present".

 

[theprestige]

When I google "absolute time coordinate" and "special relativity", I don't see any examples that use the same terminology you are using:

https://www.google.com/search?channel=fs&client=ubuntu&q=special+relativity+absolute+time+coordinate

As a long-time "devops" professional, it seems to me that 80% of software development these days is based on the cargo-cult model: You plug your problem into Google, grab hold of whatever StackOverflow answer comes up at the top of the search, cross your fingers, and move on.

Physics, as practiced by real physicists, is on a completely different level from this kind of amateur-hour investigoogling.

 

[Mike Helland]

My own Google search on "absolute numerical value of the time coordinate" uncovered a Google Books hit for the English translation of Hermann Weyl's Raum Zeit Materie, to which I alluded earlier today. From page 109, which is in §13 (Tensors and Tensor-Densities in any Arbitrary Manifold):

Doesn't really say anything about the time coordinate, but the numerical part was added by the translator.

https://archive.org/details/raumzeitmateriev00weyl/page/98/mode/2up?view=theater

"absoluten Betrag"

Is that to say, take the absolute value (as in y = |x|)?

Does the "(numerical)" warn to not be taken as absolute in the metaphysical way?

Dunno. But if "choose an absolute time coordinate" was something people said in special relativity, I'm guessing it would have shown up in more physics references.

That and similar searches also found numerous examples in which it is stated that physical experiments cannot detect any preferred absolute (i.e. numerical) value for various coordinates in various state spaces, which of course implies that one's choice of numerical (i.e. absolute) values for those coordinates is arbitrary.

You just assumed your conclusion.

Everyone agrees that absolute space and time is not detectable.

That doesn't mean you can pick an arbitrary spot and call it absolute.

I mean, you can. You can call it Napoleon or Mars, but that doesn't make it so.

Nothing about that implies that all, unless you don't see any real distinction between absolute and relative (which are antonyms in most dictionaries).

And then there's this, wherein "absolute time" is defined by comparison to an arbitrary origin (the present) that will change over time, although too slowly to matter:

I'm worried that this might not be a joke. That you think this is actually relevant.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

I'm worried that this might not be a joke. That you think this is actually relevant.

This entire thread has been a joke. You demonstrated your ability to formulate a Google search that wouldn't find any relevant results. I played along. Any criticism I get for humoring you will be deserved.

As anyone can confirm by looking back through today's posts, your Google search was designed to avoid these facts:

The absolute time coordinate you choose to assign to some specific event is completely arbitrary, but you are still talking as though you think relative time is invariant.

Newton's notion of relative time is invariant under Newtonian transformations.

Einstein's notion of relative time is not at all invariant under relativistic transformations, even in special relativity.

Conclusion: The concepts of "relative time" discussed by Newton and Einstein cannot possibly be the same.

Equivocation. Lots of English words have multiple meanings. The words "absolute" and "relative" are examples of words that have multiple meanings. Mike Helland's argument in this thread is based upon interpreting those words without regard to their context or the meanings intended by Newton, Einstein, or Everett when they used those words. That mode of argument is known as equivocation when it is deliberate, but it is entirely possible that Mike Helland is so ignorant of the relevant physics that his apparent equivocation amounts to nothing more than his usual confusion.

 

[Mike Helland]

Equivocation. Lots of English words have multiple meanings. The words "absolute" and "relative" are examples of words that have multiple meanings.

Yeah, of course all those words are true, but in the tradition of physics, that's a total cop out.



Absolute and Relational Space and Motion: Classical Theories

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spacetime-theories-classical/

Absolute and Relational Space and Motion: Post-Newtonian Theories

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spacetime-theories/

 

[W.D.Clinger]

Absolute and Relational Space and Motion: Post-Newtonian Theories

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spacetime-theories/

You haven't read that article. You couldn't possibly have read that article. As stated in its introduction:

The reader should note at the outset that this article presupposes familiarity with some of the basic concepts of relativity theory; in addition, section 3 presupposes familiarity with some relativity standard machinery from theoretical physics (e.g., Lagrangian mechanics).

Most of that article is philosophical gobbledygook, but it does state a few scientific facts that are relevant to this thread, such as this sentence at the end of Section 2.3:

STR undermined Newton’s absolute time just as decisively as it undermined his absolute space.

As anyone can confirm by looking back through today's posts, Mike Helland is trying to deflect attention from these simple facts:

The absolute time coordinate you choose to assign to some specific event is completely arbitrary, but you are still talking as though you think relative time is invariant.

Newton's notion of relative time is invariant under Newtonian transformations.

Einstein's notion of relative time is not at all invariant under relativistic transformations, even in special relativity.

Conclusion: The concepts of "relative time" discussed by Newton and Einstein cannot possibly be the same.

 

[hecd2]

Idealized observer, interacts with photons

Mechanical observer, interacts with photons, and is held together by photons

Let's say you and I are floating around in space, with nothing else around.

I see you cruise by me at c/2.

You see me cruise by at c/2.

Since the speed of light to me is always c, and you're traveling at c/2, then from my view, your electrons and protons are being held together by photons that a traveling at a mere twice the speed as the electrons and protons themselves.

Seems to me that would be a pretty big difference between the idealized observer and the purely physical one.

Really? I keep asking you for a practical difference and you keep diverting the question. In SR, what is the practical difference between an "idealised" and a physical observer? In the scenario above, what would the practical difference of the observatrions be?

And actually your argument above is for the difference between a physical and an idealised observed object not an observer.

And anyway, you don't know any QFT (how could you given the difficulty of the maths and concepts involved) so you conflate virtual photons with real photons.

And finally, your argument fails spectacularly when we consider that actual observations of "idealised" predictions of relativity by real physical observers match the predictions exactly. Including observations of objects moving with respect to us at c/2 and higher speeds.

The whole intro paragraph, for those interested:

"The task of quantizing general relativity raises serious questions about the meaning of the present formulation and interpretation of quantum mechanics when applied to so fundamental a structure as the space-time geometry itself. This paper seeks to clarify the foundations of quantum mechanics. It presents a reformulation of quantum theory in a form believed suitable for application to general relativity."

Exactly. It is a reformulation of quantum theory (along the lines that I described in rather more detail in an earlier post) that Everett hopes can be applied to general relativity (but is not actually applied). Well, first of all, that hope has not materialised, and secondly his thesis, in and of itself, has nothing to say about relativity. Which you would realise if you could understand it. There is no such thing as Everettian mechanics as an alternative to classical mechanics or relativity.

 

[hecd2]

Absolute and Relational Space and Motion: Classical Theories

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spacetime-theories-classical/

Absolute and Relational Space and Motion: Post-Newtonian Theories

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spacetime-theories/

There is a religion and philosophy forum on this board. This is not it. This is the science forum. I suggest you take your philosophising to the appropriate place.

 

[Mike Helland]

As anyone can confirm by looking back through today's posts, Mike Helland is trying to deflect attention from these simple facts:

The absolute time coordinate you choose to assign to some specific event is completely arbitrary

That absolute time coordinate thing is something you made up, and no other source confirms.

That Weyl reference was clearly about absolute value (turning a negative into a positive) and not about what you claimed.

 

[Mike Helland]

Really? I keep asking you for a practical difference and you keep diverting the question. In SR, what is the practical difference between an "idealised" and a physical observer? In the scenario above, what would the practical difference of the observatrions be?

An idealized observer has no physical structure, no internal mechanisms, and no reliance on the EM force for existing.

Therefore, it should be able to move without any restriction, and a perfect, ideal, intact thing.

A physical observer has all those things. It's made of atoms, held together by the EM force. if it's particle are moving close to the same speed as the photons that hold it together, it should probably start to fail somehow.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

Mike Helland is having trouble with the forum's quote tag, so I'll help him out by quoting my post correctly and in context:

As anyone can confirm by looking back through today's posts, Mike Helland is trying to deflect attention from these simple facts:

The absolute time coordinate you choose to assign to some specific event is completely arbitrary, but you are still talking as though you think relative time is invariant.

Newton's notion of relative time is invariant under Newtonian transformations.

Einstein's notion of relative time is not at all invariant under relativistic transformations, even in special relativity.

Conclusion: The concepts of "relative time" discussed by Newton and Einstein cannot possibly be the same.

 

[Mike Helland]

Conclusion: The concepts of "relative time" discussed by Newton and Einstein cannot possibly be the same.

In Newton's view, time and space were independent.

In Einstein's view, they are not.

There are obvious differences between Newton's time and Einstein's time.

But the definition of "relative" doesn't change though.

Relative time is a clock reading. My only point was that Newton defined it as such, and if you use the same definition in the relative state formulation, it would be present in the measurement records of the internal observer.

Whether that clock reading is intertwined with space or not is what makes it "relativistic", not "relative".

 

[hecd2]

An idealized observer has no physical structure, no internal mechanisms, and no reliance on the EM force for existing.

Therefore, it should be able to move without any restriction, and a perfect, ideal, intact thing.

A physical observer has all those things. It's made of atoms, held together by the EM force. if it's particle are moving close to the same speed as the photons that hold it together, it should probably start to fail somehow.

You do realise that this idea reveals your underlying and fundamental misconception that there is a preferred frame with respect to which we can measure our speed. There is no such preferred frame.

Every observer is at rest in the frame in which they are at rest. That sounds like a tautology, but it is one that seems to have escaped you.

And you repeat your mistaken ideas about virtual photons.

What a crock.