Jeder Staatstyp produziert Argumente, die seine Überlegenheit gegenüber konkurrierenden Staatstypen dokumentieren sollen. So auch der «real existierende» sozialistische Staat. Die vorliegende Arbeit unterzieht diese Argumente einer kritischen Prüfung und versucht dabei, neue Gesichtspunkte in die Diskussion einzuführen.
Questions about personal identity and about time affect us all. The concern for «our» future and the fear of «our» death are based on (mostly vague) concepts of personal identity over time. Though the atomic components of our present body are not identical with the ones shown on our childhood photos, we have no doubts in recognizing ourselves on those pictures. Similarly, we are convinced that «we» will be able to recognize «ourselves» on our present passport-photos even in the future. Is this confidence justified? If it is not, our conception of life and death would be as faulty as was the image of the universe in the Middle Ages.
Imagine an Einstein-train is running at a velocity greater than that of light. When the last car of the train is passing the railway station, a light is flashed on the platform of the station and - simultaneously - in the last car of the train. For an observer on the train who is sitting in the first car the lightwaves approach at a velocity of c according to the law of the constant propagation of light. For a second observer on the platform of the railway station, however, the distance between the front of the lightwaves and the head of the train ist constantly growing according to the law of the constant propagation of light! But how do the lightwaves mange to reach the head of the train for one observer, while not reaching it for a second observer? As soon as it comes to velocities greater c (of two reference-systems), the relativistic paradox takes a new shape. Astonishingly, the existence of such reference-systems is not excluded by the laws of nature, provided the escape velocity of the two reference-systems is a consequence of the expansion of space. In this booklet a strict solution of the paradox is presented, which, in turn, entails drastic consequences for the nature of time. The first chapter contains a brief summary of the Special Relativity Theory for those readers who are not physicists.