I slept on it and came up with a partial answer. As I said I spoke with Don Lincoln years ago on a forum and he impressed into my brain that space and time are two sides of the same coin; whatever problem you can solve using the time phenomena of relativity you can also solve using its symmetrical counterpart space. So I decided Greene's example was the space equivalent of the muon example.
A spacetime path must begin and end with the participants co-located. The muon's path does not begin co-located with earth, so the clocks are not sync'd, and there is no frame jump (only constant velocity) in that path. Hence, even though the muon ends up co-located with earth, there is no permanent twin paradox age difference. In fact any clocks that co-locate must have the same clock reading unless a frame jump has occurred.
So in the classic twin paradox example of Alice going and returning at .6c 3 ly out, Bob on earth will age 10 yrs and Alice only 8 when they re-unite. That age difference will be seen in a spacetime diagram. In the muon example, since the clocks did not start co-located and no frame jump occurred, the two clocks will not indicate that the muon aged less a la twin paradox but that its time dilated from an unknown start time. The spacetime diagram should have no difference between the clocks at co-location. Please don't confuse permanent age difference of 1 participant resulting from a frame jump with the reciprocal time dilation of both participants due to constant relative velocity.
Greene's example is very similar to the muon. The pole starts out unsync'd to the barn clocks so there can be no discernible permanent length difference when it's stopped in the barn. Just like the muon, there is a crash at the end but that doesn't constitute a frame jump when the clocks are co-located. A frame jump has to occur at an appreciable distance for there to be permanent effects on either the moving frame's time or space relative to the stationary frame which is chosen to be the barn in this case.
Greene's analysis may be wrong but what if he had properly done it for a true twin paradox example with a valid spacetime path. He'd have to start the pole and barn together, the pole then goes out and returns to the barn for a valid spacetime path. The pole would have to be permanently length contracted at the turn around point, not at the barn. One thing he did get right was the length contraction is not caused by a physical crushing of the pole but by the incremental relative simultaneity of the clocks as the pole is being stopped by subsequent hands.
Like I said, the clock handoff scenario of the twin paradox involves no crushing of the pole only the effects of relative simultaneity on measuring the pole's length. In the clock handoff, Alice going out meets Charlie returning the pole's measurements (not a physical pole) for her. Neither Alice or Charlie are affected by a frame jump but the data passing between them is.
Charlie coming in from deep space towards earth has no sync'd clock to earth's clock. He is the muon example incarnate. He sync's his clock to earth's when he gets Alice's clock data. Since neither Alice nor Charlie experience a frame jump, they do not experience a permanent age difference to earth, they just experience reciprocal time dilation relative to earth's clock. What does experience the frame jump is the data. So the data doesn't really represent that either Charlie or Alice have aged less during their journeys. All Charlie has really done is drag a distant time reading into the co-located present with earth when he reaches it. He has aged normally and earth can't really tell he has aged slower, only that his inherited clock data from Alice has aged slower.
So the question is has time and space itself been warped to cause the clock to take real measurements of time and length or has the info of time and space been warped by the delay of distance and the effect velocity has on rate of returning information. For example if a clock face were receding from you, the info from the clock face would have a rate of delay which you could easily misinterpret as time itself being slowed. If only the info is getting distorted, is there any real permanent age difference and permanent length contraction that comes out of a frame jump? Those who answer only permanent age difference is real are forgetting that there's a symmetry between time and space and their position breaks that symmetry. Relativistic effects can only be calculated for either space or time. The muon doesn't cross the atmosphere length contracted AND in a dilated time, it's one or the other. So if permanent age difference does exist according to the twin paradox, then the twin can't also return concurrently flatter as well, it's one or the other. That's my answer interpreting relativity but I'm now personally leaning to the belief that neither occur just as neither really occurs in the clock handoff example.
PS. No I'm wrong in my last paragraph. The muon example proves that it's not just the information of its clock that velocity affects, it's time itself that the muon's clock measures. Otherwise the muon would not be able to really make it to earth.
