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How can something that doesn't really exist such as space and time possibly be warped? Physicists need to get a grip and understand that their model of the univ

by lottin 11y ago

How can something that doesn't really exist such as space and time possibly be warped? Physicists need to get a grip and understand that their model of the universe is completely wrong. There is no space or time and the universe has no shape.

xyzzyz 11y ago
> How can something that doesn't really exist such as space and time possibly be warped? Think of a surface of a ball: it locally looks flat, but globally is pretty warped. This is an example of a warped 2-dimensional space. The spacetime is just 4-dimensional analogue. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifold http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifold
drdeca 11y ago
Do you have a line of reasoning for that? Models which take spacetime to be able to be warped, /to my understanding/, make what are currently the predictions which are most matched by experiment. I don't know why one would suppose that space and time do not exist, other than as some philosophical idea, but even if one does suppose that, it still appears to work well to model the universe as if they do exist. One would not expect a Berkeleyan Idealist to complain on every article about nuclear fusion because they do not believe that atoms exist. If space and time "do not exist", it seems like speaking of them as if they do would be a useful shorthand, in any case (Provided that they yield a useful model, which they seem to.).
- lottin 11y ago
  The reasoning is very simple - If space does indeed exist, it must be somewhere, because everything that exists is somewhere, but space can't be anywhere, because if it's somewhere it must be contained in space. How can something be contained within itself? It can't.
  - stromgo 11y ago
    "Matter contained in space contained in space" might be a problem, but "matter contained in space and space existing directly" should be ok, especially if your alternative is "matter existing directly".
  - function_seven 11y ago
    > If space does indeed exist, it must be somewhere It's everywhere.

by lottin 11y ago

xyzzyz 11y ago

> How can something that doesn't really exist such as space and time possibly be warped? Think of a surface of a ball: it locally looks flat, but globally is pretty warped. This is an example of a warped 2-dimensional space. The spacetime is just 4-dimensional analogue. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifold http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifold

drdeca 11y ago

Do you have a line of reasoning for that? Models which take spacetime to be able to be warped, /to my understanding/, make what are currently the predictions which are most matched by experiment. I don't know why one would suppose that space and time do not exist, other than as some philosophical idea, but even if one does suppose that, it still appears to work well to model the universe as if they do exist. One would not expect a Berkeleyan Idealist to complain on every article about nuclear fusion because they do not believe that atoms exist. If space and time "do not exist", it seems like speaking of them as if they do would be a useful shorthand, in any case (Provided that they yield a useful model, which they seem to.).

lottin 11y ago
The reasoning is very simple - If space does indeed exist, it must be somewhere, because everything that exists is somewhere, but space can't be anywhere, because if it's somewhere it must be contained in space. How can something be contained within itself? It can't.
- stromgo 11y ago
  "Matter contained in space contained in space" might be a problem, but "matter contained in space and space existing directly" should be ok, especially if your alternative is "matter existing directly".
- function_seven 11y ago
  > If space does indeed exist, it must be somewhere It's everywhere.