Very much appreciate your post, and it is a fascinating subject.
That the point is that this doesn't change the absolute length of the object measured.
The measurement of a Lorentz contraction is real. I think it depends on whose frame of reference you take as "real" giving meaning to the term relativity. There's a lot more to this subject, some paradoxes and rigidity debates.. I'm way over my head pretty quick. But I see your point, I think. The object itself has not "changed."
The reason I asked how did Einstein define the speed of light is because in it there must be time.
You make me think of this result of relativity: From the reference point outside, say "at rest," how much time passes on an object raveling at the speed of light?
but the true nature of it is incomprehensible to us at this stage of our evolutionary capacity, and it may never become…We only know about it because our working models account for it.
I think you can draw a parallel with the part of theology we are discussing. Incomprehensible but capable of being more "known" using models.
For example, I see this in St. John Damascene:
"But the knowable belongs to one order, and the utterable to another; just as it is one thing to speak and another thing to know. Many of the things relating to God, therefore, that are dimly understood cannot be put into fitting terms, but on things above us we cannot do else than express ourselves according to our limited capacity; as, for instance, when we speak of God we use the terms sleep, and wrath, and regardlessness, hands, too, and feet, land such like expressions."The best thinkers or philosophers among scientific greats are aware of this, incomprehensibility and modeling, to evidenced by their writings on it outside pure science.
I think it does in the special theory of relativity.
From the reference point outside, say "at rest," how much time passes on an object raveling at the speed of light?
I am not aware that any object can travel at that speed without sucking up the energy of the whole universe.
as long as we understand that models are just that, not absolute truth.
The best thinkers or philosophers among scientific greats are aware of this, incomprehensibility and modeling, to evidenced by their writings on it outside pure science.
Well, that same St. John of Damascus says "This God, then, cannot be wordless..." (Exact Exp. of Orth. Faith, Book I, Chp VI). Are we to understand that God's Word is really not God's own begotten expression? They philosophers and scientists may be aware but they fall into their own pit.
The world is made up of many different levels, from molecular to galactic; they are often mutually exclusive and yet they are all true. We must never elect one level and declare it to be the absolute truth, i.e. as the world really is.