Space II ...
The lines of debate has historically been drawn between those who think of space as a container which holds objects and those who think of space as nothing but the relation between objects. The major difference being that the former hypothesizes an ontological entity, a background entity, for objects while the latter does not.
Our Western tradition uses the word space both ways and the division of meaning is as old as our history. The Hebrew Genesis uses the term space, in the Creation, as more of a placeholder. The Greek notion of Cosmos is more about the relations between things. Outside of Cosmos is Chaos, which is unformed, but doesn't appear to exist in space. (Note - this is the hypothesis of a logical or, in some myths, temporal predecessor to things ... another kind of frame, another kind of ontological claim.)
I'll talk more on the history of notions relating to space later. For now i just want to setup the major dichotomy.
So ... ask yourself this this question ... at the origin of the history of things ... let us say one quantum particle came into existence first. What is your view of space and time at that moment of creation? Is the particle in space and time, is the particle co-existent with space and time, or are space and time meaningless concepts at this point?
My instinct says the last is the best description. I understand the pull of wanting a logical background as well as a logical precedent ... but i am going to stop short of postulating entities such as "space" or "creating agency".
Well enough ... but now let us step forward in time to the Absolutist-Relationalist debate at the time of Newton and Leibniz. How does it match-up with the thought experiment above?
I do not think very well.
One could certainly agree with me on the single quantum particle but then say, anyway, that space and time make sense as entities now (in the 17th century). The parallel i would draw would be with gravity (universal or no). The concept of gravity would be meaningless to a single quantum particle, but it is not meaningless to a universe of objects composed of quantum particles (not that we would be talking quantum talk in the 17th century ... we would be saying "atom", but meaning a very similar thing, the Democratis definition, in regards to this argument).
So, just as Universal Gravity may be a legitimate deduction from the interaction of things at a cosmic scale, so to may space and time be deducible and meaningful ... and one may treat them as "fields" in which things occur, just like gravity, even if the existence of these fields are not meant as ontological prior (to things) postulates.
And this is what i take to be the Newtonian move. He integrates them into his Laws of Motion (specifically to inertia). They are hypothesized as absolute, as a starting point, but they are amendable if the universe tells us differently as we play with it some more.
Newton, in this reading, really is not part of the relationalist-absolutist debate ... though his entities sound absolutist and he is often associated with that side of the debate.
More on this later, too.
A couple posts ago I noted Newton's statement "I do not feign hypotheses" ... and then here talk about a Newtonian hypothesis. Newton did pose frameworks as questioning devices ... for example ... he starts off with the hypothesis that planets move in circular (not elliptical) orbits, and then uses the deviations from that hypothesis to look for further forces in play ... and it is a highly succesful move. I am proposing the notion of space/time in Newton along a similar ground ... but no further factors were discovered in his time, or the next 200 years, that put much emphasis on the question. (Where-as he already knew the circular orbit hypothesis was wrong but was proposing it merely as a tool to be refined.)
Our Western tradition uses the word space both ways and the division of meaning is as old as our history. The Hebrew Genesis uses the term space, in the Creation, as more of a placeholder. The Greek notion of Cosmos is more about the relations between things. Outside of Cosmos is Chaos, which is unformed, but doesn't appear to exist in space. (Note - this is the hypothesis of a logical or, in some myths, temporal predecessor to things ... another kind of frame, another kind of ontological claim.)
I'll talk more on the history of notions relating to space later. For now i just want to setup the major dichotomy.
So ... ask yourself this this question ... at the origin of the history of things ... let us say one quantum particle came into existence first. What is your view of space and time at that moment of creation? Is the particle in space and time, is the particle co-existent with space and time, or are space and time meaningless concepts at this point?
My instinct says the last is the best description. I understand the pull of wanting a logical background as well as a logical precedent ... but i am going to stop short of postulating entities such as "space" or "creating agency".
Well enough ... but now let us step forward in time to the Absolutist-Relationalist debate at the time of Newton and Leibniz. How does it match-up with the thought experiment above?
I do not think very well.
One could certainly agree with me on the single quantum particle but then say, anyway, that space and time make sense as entities now (in the 17th century). The parallel i would draw would be with gravity (universal or no). The concept of gravity would be meaningless to a single quantum particle, but it is not meaningless to a universe of objects composed of quantum particles (not that we would be talking quantum talk in the 17th century ... we would be saying "atom", but meaning a very similar thing, the Democratis definition, in regards to this argument).
So, just as Universal Gravity may be a legitimate deduction from the interaction of things at a cosmic scale, so to may space and time be deducible and meaningful ... and one may treat them as "fields" in which things occur, just like gravity, even if the existence of these fields are not meant as ontological prior (to things) postulates.
And this is what i take to be the Newtonian move. He integrates them into his Laws of Motion (specifically to inertia). They are hypothesized as absolute, as a starting point, but they are amendable if the universe tells us differently as we play with it some more.
Newton, in this reading, really is not part of the relationalist-absolutist debate ... though his entities sound absolutist and he is often associated with that side of the debate.
More on this later, too.
A couple posts ago I noted Newton's statement "I do not feign hypotheses" ... and then here talk about a Newtonian hypothesis. Newton did pose frameworks as questioning devices ... for example ... he starts off with the hypothesis that planets move in circular (not elliptical) orbits, and then uses the deviations from that hypothesis to look for further forces in play ... and it is a highly succesful move. I am proposing the notion of space/time in Newton along a similar ground ... but no further factors were discovered in his time, or the next 200 years, that put much emphasis on the question. (Where-as he already knew the circular orbit hypothesis was wrong but was proposing it merely as a tool to be refined.)
posted by Thomas F. Schminke at 12:53 PM
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