Relativity and the Block Universe: What physics avoids facing
If we fix for more than 100 years the very way in which we are "allowed" to ask a question, it is no surprise that we keep getting the same answer — an answer locked within the original framework. You yourself, perhaps out of a kind of ipsedixitism (acceptance of a claim because it comes from an established authority), seem to perpetuate this method without questioning it. Yet it is entirely legitimate — and even necessary — to approach a subject from another angle in order to test its limits.
So I frame things differently, in three logical steps:
1. First question:
Does the "invariance of the speed of light in one-way propagation" imply the relativity of simultaneity "at the physical level", and not merely as a convention of dating events?
→ "Yes." And this should be recognized as a direct consequence of the postulate. However, on this point, ambiguity persists: simultaneity is indeed said to be relative, but "discussions often remain at the level of appearances or timing conventions", without ever clearly stating that this implies a relativity of the very "existence" of events.
Yet this is a known implication, since we routinely speak of the "block universe" model, in which past, present, and future coexist within a 4D structure.
In other words, the idea is accepted, but its full consequences are avoided.
As for me, I take this ontological aspect seriously, and I carry the reasoning through to the end — which, curiously, physicists do not. They stop at the operational level. That is a mistake.
2. Second question:
Does this relativity of simultaneity, when all its implications are taken into account — as in the shuttle and missile objection — not lead to a logical contradiction with itself, particularly regarding the existence or non-existence of an event depending on a change of reference frame?
→ "Yes." For if one and the same fact — a launched missile — can be said to be "real" in one frame and "not yet realized" in another, then we are dealing with a contradiction in being, not just in measurement.
3. Third question:
Does the affirmative answer to the first two questions lead us to challenge the invariance of the speed of light in a one-way direction, "at least as a universal axiom" applicable in all situations?
→ "Yes." For a logical contradiction in the consequences of a postulate calls into question the postulate itself.
Thus, like many physicists trained within this paradigm, you avoid asking the questions this way. You prefer to preserve the coherence of the inherited system, even if it means dismissing contradictions by relegating them to the realm of measurement or operational procedure.
Such resistance is understandable. However, the fact that a system has endured does not mean it is free of logical flaws. And if a flaw exists, someone must have the courage to expose it.