What is space?

[Philosophy Explorer]

So once again I ask, what is (physical) space?
What are its main properties?

Good luck.

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

I've never ventured into the Phil. of Science space before; how bold am I.
If you knew what the main properties of physical space were, what would be the implications?
Be gentle with me.

For starters, we would have a better understanding of:

Black Holes
White Dwarves
Pulsars
Gravity Waves
What started the supposed Big Bang
Dark matter and dark energy
Why anti-matter disintegrated while matter remained

and many other phenomena (including whether or not they exist)

Then we come to the nature of space itself. Some people feel it's been around for infinity, others feel it's only been around since the Big Bang (about 13.8 billion years which is a very long time). I can keep on going and bring up many more things - I think it's a sure bet that many more discoveries await us which Leo may disagree with as many experiments are being conducted as I speak.

Do you have any specific questions about space?

PhilX

[Obvious Leo]

Marjoram. When it comes to matters to do with space I disagree with Phil on every point except for one. Once physics manages to solve the problem of what space is then all of its other problems will be solved in one fell swoop. Every single paradox and counter-intuitive absurdity implied by the current models of spacetime physics will vanish back into the luminiferous aether which gave birth to them. However it is no great mystery what space actually is because this has been well known to philosophy since the time of the pre-Socratics. Here is the answer.

Space is..........(insert drum roll).........


NOTHING

[marjoram_blues]

PhilX,
Thanks for the response. I am totally ignorant. So, should have loads of follow-up questions but it's beyond my scant science knowledge or philosophical inclination.
I am sure there will be lots and lots of further scientific discoveries - which will be argued over.
I guess my difficulty lies in that I don't get the 'philosophy' of it all. What are the philosophical implications of knowing the nature of physical space, if that was even possible.
Appreciate your patience.

[marjoram_blues]

Marjoram. When it comes to matters to do with space I disagree with Phil on every point except for one. Once physics manages to solve the problem of what space is then all of its other problems will be solved in one fell swoop. Every single paradox and counter-intuitive absurdity implied by the current models of spacetime physics will vanish back into the luminiferous aether which gave birth to them. However it is no great mystery what space actually is because this has been well known to philosophy since the time of the pre-Socratics. Here is the answer.

Space is..........(insert drum roll).........


NOTHING

That's wot I thought !!

[Obvious Leo]

The deep intuitive understanding of fundamental physics which the pre-Socratics had is quite remarkable, considering that they pre-dated the Pythagoreans and the invention of mathematics. To Heraclitus, Anaximander, Democritus and company space was just a conceptual placeholder representing a nothing separating two somethings. However these somethings were not objects but EVENTS. This world-view is completely consistent with all the discoveries made by science ever since, because the fact that the speed of light is finite proves that the universe is not a place in which objects move in space. It is a PROCESS in which events occur in time and it is only the observer who constructs this process into a cognitive MAP of events which have already occurred in his own past. The reason why the current models of physics make no sense is because it conflates this cognitive map of the observer's past with the territory it's supposed to be mapping.

[Philosophy Explorer]

Empty space is NOT empty:

https://youtu.be/J3xLuZNKhlY

PhilX

[Obvious Leo]

Empty space is NOT empty:

You're missing the point, Phil. Because the speed of light is finite it is physically impossible to observe the real world. The only thing the observer can observe is things which no longer exist in the form in which he is observing them. The notion of a space stretching between the observer and a non-existent object is a metaphysical absurdity so what the observer is doing within his own consciousness is applying a spatial extension to a purely temporal phenomenon.

The past no longer exists, mate, as pointed out by the immortal Persian.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

From “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam”

[Arising_uk]

Irrelevant

PhilX

Only to the hard of thought as it points out what 'space' is.

[Philosophy Explorer]

Empty space is NOT empty:

You're missing the point, Phil. Because the speed of light is finite it is physically impossible to observe the real world. The only thing the observer can observe is things which no longer exist in the form in which he is observing them. The notion of a space stretching between the observer and a non-existent object is a metaphysical absurdity so what the observer is doing within his own consciousness is applying a spatial extension to a purely temporal phenomenon.

The past no longer exists, mate, as pointed out by the immortal Persian.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

From “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam”

It's not physically possible to observe the real world right now. But we do see it as it was in the length of time it took the light to reach our eyes and translated into brain waves. Which means the real world must exist for this process to start.

PhilX

[Philosophy Explorer]

Irrelevant

PhilX

Only to the hard of thought as it points out what 'space' is.

Took you awhile to respond. Still irrelevant.

PhilX

[Arising_uk]

Took you awhile to respond. Still irrelevant.

PhilX

Try saying how.

[Philosophy Explorer]

Took you awhile to respond. Still irrelevant.

PhilX

Try saying how.

The topic is space, not fluid

PhilX

[Obvious Leo]

It's not physically possible to observe the real world right now. But we do see it as it was in the length of time it took the light to reach our eyes and translated into brain waves. Which means the real world must exist for this process to start.

Good. We're getting somewhere. Nobody in their right mind will deny that there is such a thing as a real world but this is not the question at issue here. The question at issue is what the hell it is that we're observing because the real world is what it most emphatically ain't. What we're observing is the world the way it WAS at a finite time in our own past and this is a world which no longer exists. If this world no longer exists then what can be the ontological status of the space we think we're observing? We are spatialising a time interval, which is exactly the same thing as spacetime physics does, but the space itself is entirely illusory.

[Philosophy Explorer]

It's not physically possible to observe the real world right now. But we do see it as it was in the length of time it took the light to reach our eyes and translated into brain waves. Which means the real world must exist for this process to start.

Good. We're getting somewhere. Nobody in their right mind will deny that there is such a thing as a real world but this is not the question at issue here. The question at issue is what the hell it is that we're observing because the real world is what it most emphatically ain't. What we're observing is the world the way it WAS at a finite time in our own past and this is a world which no longer exists. If this world no longer exists then what can be the ontological status of the space we think we're observing? We are spatialising a time interval, which is exactly the same thing as spacetime physics does, but the space itself is entirely illusory.

I don't agree with you that the world doesn't exist as you're not giving a basis for believing that. It would take more than a time interval to convince me that the world doesn't exist.

PhilX

[Obvious Leo]

Try and pay attention, Phil. Where did I say that the world doesn't exist? I just said that the world which we observe doesn't exist, which is hardly a controversial statement considering that the finite nature of the speed of light is an irrefutable FACT. If the world which we observe doesn't exist then neither does the space which we observe. QED.