Some More Thoughts About The Reality Of Space
PROOF THAT SPACE IS NOT A THING
If space were a thing, then nothing could move. A state of nothingness has to exist, along with a state of something (the standard model of particle physics and resulting emergent stuff like atoms, molecules and human beings), in order for those somethings to get from Point A to Point B unhindered. If space were a thing then the somethings part and parcel of the standard model would be akin to 100 people jammed into a standard elevator (or lift), or say 200 people crammed onto a what would have to be defined as a crowded bus. You couldn't move from the back of the elevator to the front; from the back of the bus to the front door of the bus. There's no state of nothingness for the people at the back to move through. You can only move because there is some nothingness for you to move into or shove other stuff into to make room for you. If space is a thing then there is no nothingness at all in the Universe; the Universe is entirely full of stuff (the standard model plus space-as-a-thing) and no motion is possible.
SECOND PROOF THAT SPACE IS NOT A THING
Energy, hence matter, comes in discrete packets called quanta (hence quantum mechanics or physics). You can have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. packets of energy, but not 1.9 or 4.7 or 2.5 packets of energy. Question: if energy is not a continuous thing, but a discontinuous thing with required breaks between those discontinuous packets, what lies between those energy packets; between one quanta packet and the next? The answer has to be absolutely nothing.
Two quantum packets are by definition discontinuous. They are separate and apart. They are separated by absolutely nothing. There's no requirement that they be in actual contact, in fact they can't be and still be separate and apart and a quanta. If there was something between them they wouldn't be separate and apart but joined by that something in-between them. Or to use another example, if you have two photons separated by two Planck Lengths, what is between them? Absolutely nothing.
Harking back to the state of absolute nothingness between quanta energy packets, one further example crossed my mind. You have one electron in 'orbit' around a nucleus - that's one quanta. You have another electron in a higher 'orbit' - that too is a quanta. The question is, what can exist in the forbidden territory between the two 'orbits' which by definition are a no-man's land? Of course that raises another Twilight Zone question - when an electron quantum jumps from one 'orbit' to another' where the hell is it between orbits? It can't be an instantaneous jump for that violates the finite speed of light. It can't be in between since that corresponds to a forbidden energy state! Specials effects perhaps courteous of simulation software?
THIRD PROOF THAT SPACE IS NOT A THING
Cosmologists tell us that at the time of the Big Bang event the cosmos started out within a volume less than that occupied by that of a pinhead. Now I don't personally swallow that cock-and-bull tale for a nanosecond, but let's take them for sake of argument at their word - that the Big Bang was a quantum event. The question is, how do you cram the cosmos down to that size?
Even if roughly 75% of the cosmos has been created after that Big Bang event (i.e. - dark energy) that still leaves roughly 25% of the cosmos (5% matter plus 20% dark matter) that was present and accounted for at the time of the Big Bang. That's still a lot of stuff to occupy a volume of a pinhead. So in order to squeeze roughly 25% of our cosmos down into a volume less than that of a pinhead must require there to be an awful lot of nothingness in which to cram that 25% down into! Nothingness would have to account for 99.9999% of the cosmic volume in order to get something-ness down to pinhead size.
It's also interesting to read that when breaking up the cosmos into bits, you get roughly 5% matter, 20% dark matter and 75% dark energy. 0% is allocated to space itself - funny 'bout that. Recall that dark energy does not equal space. Dark energy creates additional space (creates nothing from something) and in turn space creates more dark energy (nothing creates something). IMHO cosmologists proposing this read too much science-fantasy and/or they like to smoke the good stuff!
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Define 'thing'.
Coffeo
Level 8
Oct 29, 2018
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@johnprytz I suggest using some other word than 'thing', since the word does not really have a universally accepted meaning. Your first two 'proofs' appear to echo the thinking of the 1st century BC philosopher Lucretius, but I think we might have moved on a bit from there. I am of the opinion that gravitational waves strongly indicate that space-time, at least, is a Thing.
@johnprytz My main issue is with the meaning of "thing".
Consider these two statements, the first of which is yours;
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Space is not a thing.
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There is no such thing as space.
Are these statements equivalent? If not, does the word "thing" mean something different in each of them?
My other question is: what do you make of the vacuum zero-point energy? Is it possible for that which is not a thing to have energy?
@johnprytz I suppose I just wonder why you are so anxious to prove that space is not a thing. You have defined "thing" in such a way as to exclude space from the class of things (at least to your own satisfaction, although I still think there are questions regarding the energy of the vacuum). But where does this lead? Does it help us to understand anything (or even any-not-thing)? Does it enable you to refute anything? Does it lead to any predictions? What is your reason for offering these "proofs"?
@johnprytz You see, I don't really understand what difference it makes whether space is a thing or not. How does it affect things one way or the other?
I also fail to understand your phrase "actual nature of reality". Are you seeking a description or explanation in terms of something else?
The Standard Model is great, and for now it seems to be the best we've got, but we also know that it's incomplete.
The Big Bang will, I think, turn out to be an oversimplification.
@johnprytz Whether or not the Sun goes around the Earth doesn't matter a great deal to me, but it would matter to me if I were an engineer working on a probe going to Mercury, say. It is not so much a matter of which is true as which is the best model to work with.
I try never to rule out anything, but of your four options I would definitely say that supernatural is the least likely, and natural the most likely. I do not believe reality to be either mental or simulated, but I can't disprove either, and I doubt they can be disproved.
Jon Cartwright wrote a very interesting article on the Big Bang in New Scientist of 14 March this year, entitled Why the big bang was not the beginning. I'll send the link, but I think you might need to be a subscriber to read it. Or perhaps you can access it in a library.
[newscientist.com]
I agree, space is not a thing. Space & time are how we intuit the world, without these "intuitions" there would be no world. Our need to order the world, to have coherent experiences, rests on our ability to represent the world in time and space. Defining these terms is problematical because they are the way we construct the world.
cava
Level 7
Oct 28, 2018
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Hmmmm, Higg's boson, anyone?
AnneWimsey
Level 9
Oct 28, 2018
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cava:
The god particle? I read a Neil deGrasse Tyson joke:
"Higgs boson walks into a church, and the priest says, 'I'm sorry we don't allow Higgs bosons to come to churches.'And [the Higgs] says, 'But without me, you can't have mass.'"
@johnprytz "space" is wall-to-wall (So to speak) Full of the rhings...there is no 'space'
@johnprytz Higg's bosons, wall-to-wall, so to speak, fill "space"...so there is no actual space! It is Not "empty"
@johnprytz nope....
@johnprytz unlike you, I do not bury a total lack of knowledge of the subject (which you do, a lot) under a thousand pretentious words. 2 minutes on Google reading about the Proven existence of The Boson would tell you that your woeful lack of knowledge, and unwillingness to learn, is embarrassing you. I love to debate someone who actually knows something about their subject! You, not so much.
@johnprytz 1. you would not be babbling on about "space" if you had Any knowledge of The Boson & the way it works. Which would take 3 minutes to research on Google, at best.
2. When I call you on it, you continue to Insist upon "space", clearly indicating you are Chosing to remain ignorant.
3. When I call you on That, you stoop to personal attack because I refuse to engage in a "debate" over false assumptions.
Really? I mean, Really?
@johnprytz my dear, dear man...since the Boson was actually only Proven to exist in the last 5 years or so, I doubt any of your books are very accurate in their theories.......the Boson has changed the Basics of how science looks at Everything (source: Stephen Hawking)!
I was lucky enough to participate in a teaching seminar about 2 years ago exploring the fundamental shift in thought caused by the discovery of an actual Boson. One example: of how things have changed from your obsolete books; the Boson has quite a large (relatively speaking) mass compared to many particles,..........science does have a way of moving on, ya know?
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