What are space and time?

What sort of things are they if they are things?

One natural answer is that they comprise continua, three-dimensional
in the case of space, one-dimensional in the case of time; that is to
say that they consist of continuous manifolds, positions in which can
be occupied by substances and events respectively, and which have an
existence in their own right.

It is in virtue of the occupancy of such positions that events and
processes are to be seen as taking place after each other and
substances are to be seen in certain spatial relations.

Or do space and time have properties of their own independent of the
objects and events that they contain?

Did Einstein show, through his theory of relativity, that since space
and time can change in shape and duration that space and time are more
complex than just sustained perceptual constants?

Metaphysics - by D. W. Hamlyn
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg.../-/0521286905/

On Wed, 7 Jul 2010 19:40:44 -0700 (PDT), Immortalist wrote:

What sort of things are they if they are things?

One natural answer is that they comprise continua, three-dimensional
in the case of space, one-dimensional in the case of time; that is to
say that they consist of continuous manifolds, positions in which can
be occupied by substances and events respectively, and which have an
existence in their own right.

It is in virtue of the occupancy of such positions that events and
processes are to be seen as taking place after each other and
substances are to be seen in certain spatial relations.

Or do space and time have properties of their own independent of the
objects and events that they contain?

Did Einstein show, through his theory of relativity, that since space
and time can change in shape and duration that space and time are more
complex than just sustained perceptual constants?

Metaphysics - by D. W. Hamlyn
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg.../-/0521286905/

There are probably 'higher' dimensional aspects to the situation.
Whatever that means? The place is quite mysterious, and 'we'
are quite 'stuck' 'herein'. Other than that 'we' have 'our' model
stories, perhaps that's all 'we' can handle. What is anything in
'itself'? More mystery.

BTW, I resent the shallow understanding
with which 'we' seem to be stuck.

In the meanwhile, 'higher'
dimensional measurements and considerations are very interesting.
Even negative results, such as the 'recent' studies of gravity over
millimeter distances. Some of the 'space' studies are 'higher'
dimension oriented. String theory, though surprisingly productive,
remains very non intuitive.

On 7/7/10 9:40 PM, Immortalist wrote:
What sort of things are they if they are things?

Some Background
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime

"The concept of spacetime combines space and time to a single abstract
"space", for which a unified coordinate system is chosen. Typically
three spatial dimensions (length, width, height), and one temporal
dimension (time) are required. Dimensions are independent components of
a coordinate grid needed to locate a point in a certain defined "space".

On Jul 7, 10:40*pm, Immortalist wrote:
What sort of things are they if they are things?

One natural answer is that they comprise continua, three-dimensional
in the case of space, one-dimensional in the case of time; that is to
say that they consist of continuous manifolds, positions in which can
be occupied by substances and events respectively, and which have an
existence in their own right.

It is in virtue of the occupancy of such positions that events and
processes are to be seen as taking place after each other and
substances are to be seen in certain spatial relations.

Or do space and time have properties of their own independent of the
objects and events that they contain?

Did Einstein show, through his theory of relativity, that since space
and time can change in shape and duration that space and time are more
complex than just sustained perceptual constants?

Metaphysics - by D. W. Hamlynhttp://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0521286905/

Immortalist,

I think a moment in time is a certain configuration of the
universe. Now, it's not enough to just know where the atoms in the
universe are located in that "moment in time". You'd have to include
things like momentum and the directions they are "currently" moving.
Now, does this definition still allow time to be the fourth
dimension? Well, if a moment in time is a configuration of the
universe, then it seems that knowing what moment in time the universe
is currently at would be enough to describe everything, length, width
and height and then some of all the objects in it. Is time an all
inclusive dimension - does dimension simply mean piece of information
about an object? If you know what time it is, would you know the
length, width, height and locatons (and anything else) of all the
universe's objects?

Michael C

On Jul 8, 1:00*am, Michael C wrote:
On Jul 7, 10:40*pm, Immortalist wrote:





What sort of things are they if they are things?

One natural answer is that they comprise continua, three-dimensional
in the case of space, one-dimensional in the case of time; that is to
say that they consist of continuous manifolds, positions in which can
be occupied by substances and events respectively, and which have an
existence in their own right.

It is in virtue of the occupancy of such positions that events and
processes are to be seen as taking place after each other and
substances are to be seen in certain spatial relations.

Or do space and time have properties of their own independent of the
objects and events that they contain?

Did Einstein show, through his theory of relativity, that since space
and time can change in shape and duration that space and time are more
complex than just sustained perceptual constants?

Metaphysics - by D. W. Hamlynhttp://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0521286905/

Immortalist,

* * *I think a moment in time is a certain configuration of the
universe. *Now, it's not enough to just know where the atoms in the
universe are located in that "moment in time". *You'd have to include
things like momentum and the directions they are "currently" moving.
Now, does this definition still allow time to be the fourth
dimension? *Well, if a moment in time is a configuration of the
universe, then it seems that knowing what moment in time the universe
is currently at would be enough to describe everything, length, width
and height and then some of all the objects in it. *Is time an all
inclusive dimension - does dimension simply mean piece of information
about an object? *If you know what time it is, would you know the
length, width, height and locatons (and anything else) of all the
universe's objects?

Michael C- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Also, if a moment in time is a configuration of the universe, then it
seems that traveling "back to" a certain moment in time is a little
more possible in theory. To travel to a certain moment in time, you'd
have to change the configuration of the universe to that "moment in
time". Doing this seems quite difficult if the configuration you want
to move to is quite different from the current one. You could focus
on a very local area of the universe and change the configuration
there. In doing so, you may be able to travel to (change to) a time
(configuration) that is sufficient for your purposes.

Michael C

On Jul 7, 9:40*pm, Immortalist wrote:
What sort of things are they if they are things?

One natural answer is that they comprise continua, three-dimensional
in the case of space, one-dimensional in the case of time; that is to
say that they consist of continuous manifolds, positions in which can
be occupied by substances and events respectively, and which have an
existence in their own right.

It is in virtue of the occupancy of such positions that events and
processes are to be seen as taking place after each other and
substances are to be seen in certain spatial relations.

Or do space and time have properties of their own independent of the
objects and events that they contain?

Did Einstein show, through his theory of relativity, that since space
and time can change in shape and duration that space and time are more
complex than just sustained perceptual constants?

Metaphysics - by D. W. Hamlynhttp://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0521286905/

Space is the Final Frontier,

and Time is the ticking of a clock.

Easy enough?

On 8 July, 03:40, Immortalist wrote:
What sort of things are they if they are things?

One natural answer is that they comprise continua, three-dimensional
in the case of space, one-dimensional in the case of time; that is to
say that they consist of continuous manifolds, positions in which can
be occupied by substances and events respectively, and which have an
existence in their own right.

It is in virtue of the occupancy of such positions that events and
processes are to be seen as taking place after each other and
substances are to be seen in certain spatial relations.

Or do space and time have properties of their own independent of the
objects and events that they contain?

Did Einstein show, through his theory of relativity, that since space
and time can change in shape and duration that space and time are more
complex than just sustained perceptual constants?

Metaphysics - by D. W. Hamlynhttp://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0521286905/

I think one fundamental aspect of Einstein's idea of spacetime is that
it is a single 'thing'.

On Jul 7, 7:40*pm, Immortalist wrote:
What sort of things are they if they are things?


Guess who said this:

"It will be helpful to distinguish space and time into absolute and
relative. Relative space and time are measurements."

That's Newton in the Principia. Einstein did quite a bit to reinforce
that notion.

Of course, that's also more or less Plato, Buddha, and the first words
of the Tao and the Bible.

Make of that what you will.

On Jul 7, 10:43*pm, Mark Earnest wrote:
On Jul 7, 9:40*pm, Immortalist wrote:





What sort of things are they if they are things?

One natural answer is that they comprise continua, three-dimensional
in the case of space, one-dimensional in the case of time; that is to
say that they consist of continuous manifolds, positions in which can
be occupied by substances and events respectively, and which have an
existence in their own right.

It is in virtue of the occupancy of such positions that events and
processes are to be seen as taking place after each other and
substances are to be seen in certain spatial relations.

Or do space and time have properties of their own independent of the
objects and events that they contain?

Did Einstein show, through his theory of relativity, that since space
and time can change in shape and duration that space and time are more
complex than just sustained perceptual constants?

Metaphysics - by D. W. Hamlynhttp://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0521286905/

Space is the Final Frontier,

and Time is the ticking of a clock.

Newton said that relative time is the ticking of the clock.

And relative space is the reading of a ruler.

For some reason (possibly the writing of Einstein) the definition of
time is easily recited but the proper analogy to space is a bit of
head scratcher.

On Jul 8, 11:40*am, Immortalist wrote:

What are space and time?
What sort of things are they if they are things?

Space is matter, it exists regardless of man's mind, time is a man
made mind dependent concept.

MG