Space defined and explained

[Terrapin Station]

So, guys, if there's any lesson to learn from all this, is it:

No matter who's wrong and who's right or who has the greatest command of logical argument, nobody will ever persuade anybody else of anything at all and somebody will always storm out of the virtual room in fury?

Or is that too pessimistic? Or am I just saying this because I'm currently watching a Woody Allen movie?

The lesson is probably going to be that RJG keeps starting conversations with me after repeatedly saying he's not going to bother. Because of course I'm not going to stop commenting on posts of his.

[Terrapin Station]

P1. "Starts" do not exist.
C1. Therefore, "starting" is logically impossible

By the way, the above is not valid--whatever the reason was that you're bringing this nonsense up in the first place.

Why isn't it valid? Well, for one, because "Xs do not exist" can be a contingent fact. Contingent facts do not imply logical impossibilities or necessities.

[Scott Mayers]

I interpret time as a dimension of space. From reading some of the above so far, I see that those participating are trapped into thinking of time as distinct from space. I also notice that some think space as 'nothing that matters' and so without matter, there is no space. What I would help is to look at Set Theory to see how others attempted to understand things by treating all things as 'sets' or 'classes' and presume that all things are relatively possible in Totality. Then you assign each concept a variable that acts as a set/class that merely contains something, whether real, virtual, or non-existent. Then you can look at space, time, and matter as an unknown to begin with. You just assign these unknowns as a variable as though they are presents you cannot unwrap or reveal. Then you deal ONLY with containers themselves.

Various terms like sets, classes, variables, etc all act as containers. You may think of these containers as 'portals' to the reality yet to be determined, IF even determinable. Assign the most elemental fact, truths, or falsehoods as those containers you cannot open nor infer to what is inside by any means. Then you determine how you can use whatever elemental unopenable containers to create new complex ones, like how you might be able to put one or more containers in another.

This is at least what I suggest, and personally use, to make sense of reality, whether it be of physics or as propositions, etc, to begin a logical approach to the situation.

[This is my first post here and so 'hi' to anyone who isn't familiar with me from elsewhere. I'd rather get to posting before formal introductions so that I don't have to present biased assumptions to who I am up front. ]

[Terrapin Station]

I interpret time as a dimension of space. From reading some of the above so far, I see that those participating are trapped into thinking of time as distinct from space. I also notice that some think space as 'nothing that matters' and so without matter, there is no space. What I would help is to look at Set Theory to see how others attempted to understand things by treating all things as 'sets' or 'classes' and presume that all things are relatively possible in Totality. Then you assign each concept a variable that acts as a set/class that merely contains something, whether real, virtual, or non-existent. Then you can look at space, time, and matter as an unknown to begin with. You just assign these unknowns as a variable as though they are presents you cannot unwrap or reveal. Then you deal ONLY with containers themselves.

Various terms like sets, classes, variables, etc all act as containers. You may think of these containers as 'portals' to the reality yet to be determined, IF even determinable. Assign the most elemental fact, truths, or falsehoods as those containers you cannot open nor infer to what is inside by any means. Then you determine how you can use whatever elemental unopenable containers to create new complex ones, like how you might be able to put one or more containers in another.

This is at least what I suggest, and personally use, to make sense of reality, whether it be of physics or as propositions, etc, to begin a logical approach to the situation.

[This is my first post here and so 'hi' to anyone who isn't familiar with me from elsewhere. I'd rather get to posting before formal introductions so that I don't have to present biased assumptions to who I am up front. ]

My concern with this stuff is primarily an ontological concern. I want to know what exists, what its "nature" is, etc.

So with space, time, etc., I want to know just what, if anything, they exist "as"--what their ontological natures are.

Sets/set theory is something we invent. They're more or less fantastical constructions. But I don't think that space and time are just fantastical constructions.

[Scott Mayers]

I interpret time as a dimension of space. From reading some of the above so far, I see that those participating are trapped into thinking of time as distinct from space. I also notice that some think space as 'nothing that matters' and so without matter, there is no space. What I would help is to look at Set Theory to see how others attempted to understand things by treating all things as 'sets' or 'classes' and presume that all things are relatively possible in Totality. Then you assign each concept a variable that acts as a set/class that merely contains something, whether real, virtual, or non-existent. Then you can look at space, time, and matter as an unknown to begin with. You just assign these unknowns as a variable as though they are presents you cannot unwrap or reveal. Then you deal ONLY with containers themselves.

Various terms like sets, classes, variables, etc all act as containers. You may think of these containers as 'portals' to the reality yet to be determined, IF even determinable. Assign the most elemental fact, truths, or falsehoods as those containers you cannot open nor infer to what is inside by any means. Then you determine how you can use whatever elemental unopenable containers to create new complex ones, like how you might be able to put one or more containers in another.

This is at least what I suggest, and personally use, to make sense of reality, whether it be of physics or as propositions, etc, to begin a logical approach to the situation.

[This is my first post here and so 'hi' to anyone who isn't familiar with me from elsewhere. I'd rather get to posting before formal introductions so that I don't have to present biased assumptions to who I am up front. ]

My concern with this stuff is primarily an ontological concern. I want to know what exists, what its "nature" is, etc.

So with space, time, etc., I want to know just what, if anything, they exist "as"--what their ontological natures are.

Sets/set theory is something we invent. They're more or less fantastical constructions. But I don't think that space and time are just fantastical constructions.

I see that you're a fan of Bertrand Russell. I am too. But I take the extra step of his interest to present math as a derivative of logic to include all physical reality. Many people seem to think that the abstraction of number (as from the Pythagorean) are merely artificial. Yet, if you presume that reality is distinct from the "artifacts" we create, then you lead to presuming ultimate causation for everything as certain by your own authority uniquely. If you expect those beings beyond your perspective to be something distinct from you non-solipsistically, you have to recognize that you are also presuming the 'symbols' of what they represent by your senses is just as dubious as the abstract symbols you can sense put on some piece of paper before you.

If you merely bias favor to the animate beings, like other persons, as somehow being 'real' but you question the artifacts they create as uncertain, what would be the actual means of you to assert anything 'real' beyond you as the only thing in reality?

So, in order to even begin questioning 'reality' you need to reduce everything, even your own sensing of it subjectively, as 'symbols'. If you cannot, then you need to ask why you are not just the only being in reality with the images you percieve as a presentation of ALL that is real and just for you. My point is that you cannot dismiss the abstract as being real.

I'm guessing that you are also atheist, just as Bertrand Russell was? So think of this: if reality has no 'god', then whatever is real about Totality itself has to come from an infinity of things or nothing at all. You cannot presume some special 'finite' reality without lending weight to some reason why we would be so 'special'. Thus only the 'nothing' or 'everything' has to be the case. Since assuming everything in Totality exists has to include absolutely nothing as an element of everything, then this one common factor should lend weight to why it is alright to begin with something abstract.

While the symbols we use to represent these don't have to be asserted as 'real', we can still permit these symbols, as 'containers' to be understood as POINTING TO whatever is real. The wrapping of the unknown itself is irrelevant but acts as a useful tool to begin with. So if you want to attempt a fair and logical approach to understanding physical reality, you have to at least accept the postulate of 'containment' of everything by some POINTER TO the reality without concerning yourself whether the container is unreal in actuality.

[Terrapin Station]

I see that you're a fan of Bertrand Russell. I am too.

That I like someone's work doesn't mean that I have the same views or agree with them all of the time. My favorite philosophers I still disagree with at least as often as I agree with them. (Imagine what it's like for philosophers I don't care for.)

I'm not at all a realist on mathematics. I'm not a realist when it comes to any abstracts. I'm rather a nominalist on that.

Yet, if you presume that reality is distinct from the "artifacts" we create, then you lead to presuming ultimate causation for everything as certain by your own authority uniquely.

I have no idea what this is saying, really. "Presuming ultimate causation"?? "Certain by your own authority uniquely"???

If you expect those beings beyond your perspective to be something distinct from you non-solipsistically,

Huh? What would "expecting those beings 'beyond your perspective' (what is that??) to be something distinct from you solipsistically" amount to? Otherwise, if that wouldn't amount to something, the distinction you're implying (with non-solipsistically) wouldn't make sense.

Maybe let's take one small thing at a time because so far I'm barely understanding what you're writing.

[Consul]

To say it in simple English (in non-syllogism form), I would simply say "it is logically impossible to "start motion", if "starts" don't exist". -- Your inability to grasp this very simple logic is astounding, or maybe this is just another delay tactic. - In any case, enough with all these delay tactics. Either you agree with this Simple Logic, or you can logically refute it. One or the other.

First of all, what structure of time is presupposed by your logic? According to the standard account, the timeline is continuous and composed of instants (time-points); so it's mathematically representable by the real-number line. Let's assume for the sake of the argument that this is the true structure of time! (Whether it really is is another question.)

For example, imagine a car at rest at 11:59:59 and in motion at 12:00:01. Obviously, it started or began to move between 11:59:59 and 12:00:01; but what about the instant or moment of change from rest to motion? Is the car at rest or in motion at 12:00:00? Obviously, it cannot be both at rest and in motion at the same instant or moment. If you say it's at rest, then—given the density of the continuum—there is no first instant of motion and thus no starting point; and if you say it's in motion, then—given the density of the continuum—there is no last instant of rest and thus no end point. However, it doesn't follow that a car at rest cannot start moving, because the absence of a temporal end point of non-motion or a temporal beginning point of motion doesn't entail the non-ending of non-motion and the non-beginning of motion.

[Terrapin Station]

To say it in simple English (in non-syllogism form), I would simply say "it is logically impossible to "start motion", if "starts" don't exist". -- Your inability to grasp this very simple logic is astounding, or maybe this is just another delay tactic. - In any case, enough with all these delay tactics. Either you agree with this Simple Logic, or you can logically refute it. One or the other.

First of all, what structure of time is presupposed by your logic? According to the standard account, the timeline is continuous and composed of instants (time-points); so it's mathematically representable by the real-number line. Let's assume for the sake of the argument that this is the true structure of time! (Whether it really is is another question.)

For example, imagine a car at rest at 11:59:59 and in motion at 12:00:01. Obviously, it started or began to move between 11:59:59 and 12:00:01; but what about the instant or moment of change from rest to motion? Is the car at rest or in motion at 12:00:00? Obviously, it cannot be both at rest and in motion at the same instant or moment. If you say it's at rest, then—given the density of the continuum—there is no first instant of motion and thus no starting point; and if you say it's in motion, then—given the density of the continuum—there is no last instant of rest and thus no end point. However, it doesn't follow that a car at rest cannot start moving, because the absence of a temporal end point of non-motion or a temporal beginning point of motion doesn't entail the non-ending of non-motion and the non-beginning of motion.

Often it seems like RJG is solely concerned with whether time can have a beginning point period. Not whether specific things can have a beginning point in time. It's just that he's often not explicit about this if it's the case.

[Steve3007]

Often it seems like RJG is solely concerned with whether time can have a beginning point period. Not whether specific things can have a beginning point in time. It's just that he's often not explicit about this if it's the case.

I think almost everything that RJG says traces back to his quasi-Cartesian style conviction that all knowledge can and should be built by a process of pure thought, using nothing but logical deduction, from a single axiom which it is regarded as self-contradictory to refute. All other claims to knowledge (i.e.all synthetic as opposed to analytic propositions) are regarded as entirely worthless. I think it's best to bear this in mind in all conversations with him. It is, I think, this effort which causes him to do such thing as reifying concepts like time, space and geometry (particularly Cartesian coordinates), with the resultant conversations about infinite Universes.

Here's as good a starting point as any (from 4 years ago):

viewtopic.php?p=258344#p258344

[Consul]

QUOTE>
"Ancient thinkers like Parmenides argued that if an object O is at rest at time t, it is impossible for O to begin to move, since for any time t´ > t, if O is in motion at t´, then there is a time t < t* < t´ at which O is already in motion. Hence, nothing can ever begin to move. If we assume the continuity of time and space, the solution to Parmenides’ puzzle is that O can begin to move without there being a beginning point of its motion. Pitts’ demand for topological closure would force upon us the absurd conclusion that nothing ever begins to move. But if we allow that beginning to move does not entail having a beginning point of motion, then, generalizing, neither should we demand that in beginning to exist the universe must have a beginning point of its existence.
We need, then, some compelling reason to think that the admitted finitude of past time is not sufficient for time’s having begun to exist, for thinking that a first instant of time is a necessary condition as well."

(Craig, William Lane, and James D. Sinclair. "On Non-Singular Spacetimes and the Beginning of the Universe." In The Kalam Cosmological Argument: Scientific Evidence for the Beginning of the Universe, edited by Paul Copan and William Lane Craig, 110-149. New York: Bloomsbury, 2018. p. 114)
<QUOTE

[Scott Mayers]

I see that you're a fan of Bertrand Russell. I am too.

That I like someone's work doesn't mean that I have the same views or agree with them all of the time. My favorite philosophers I still disagree with at least as often as I agree with them. (Imagine what it's like for philosophers I don't care for.)

I'm not at all a realist on mathematics. I'm not a realist when it comes to any abstracts. I'm rather a nominalist on that.

Yet, if you presume that reality is distinct from the "artifacts" we create, then you lead to presuming ultimate causation for everything as certain by your own authority uniquely.

I have no idea what this is saying, really. "Presuming ultimate causation"?? "Certain by your own authority uniquely"???

If you expect those beings beyond your perspective to be something distinct from you non-solipsistically,

Huh? What would "expecting those beings 'beyond your perspective' (what is that??) to be something distinct from you solipsistically" amount to? Otherwise, if that wouldn't amount to something, the distinction you're implying (with non-solipsistically) wouldn't make sense.

Maybe let's take one small thing at a time because so far I'm barely understanding what you're writing.

Abstraction is just the inference of patterns generalized. So math (logic) IS an 'abstraction'.

To say abstraction isn't "real" is to presume you need to touch it physically in order to know it is or is not real. If given only two observed phenomena, like "I see a collection of two boxes" and "I see a collection of two sandwiches", the 'abstraction' of these two empirical activities is "I see a collection of two X", where X is either a boxes or sandwiches. You have evidence of what we call "twoness" (or "two X") exists. You can't touch abstracts because they are generalizations based upon more than one exact experience.

Since all you sense are merely uniquely present events you cannot experience in any identical way, anything you generalize from them are 'abstracts' and so all you could know is such. You can't even begin to assert the reality of others but through abstractions in your head that associate memories to draw generalizations of any sort.

These generalizations abstracted in your head are thus SYMBOLS of reality you assume are of a world either outside you or a refelection of that world as being you, if you assume a solipsistic interpretation. I only added anything about 'solipsism' to point out that you must infer that the world outside of your head exists as separate from you through abstraction and whatever aptitude of logic you have to connect experiences.

If you don't agree to this much, it has to be about some hangup on the word, "real". If you simply don't like classifying abstraction as real, you might be thinking similar to how the "square root of one" is Imaginary as opposed to the Real numbers. The fact that the Complex Numbers are still more complete when including the Imaginary as labeled does not mean they are not 'real'. The old understanding of what numbers were to the Pythagoreans were limited initially to Ratios and to them was all that was 'real' to them. So we then add the Irrationals. But though the historical understanding of what was rational was limited to Rational numbers, does not mean that the Irrationals are "irrational" and "unreal" in an updated understanding. ["real" was just itself a word expressing something more 'rational' than what 'rational' used to mean prior to the ancients discovering other numbers as also existing as true factors of reality.]

The same goes with your own potential misunderstanding of whatever you interpret reality as from your senses as mere SYMBOLS.

I would prefer to know if you accept this before trying to further expand on whatever confusion you have with what I had said in my last post above. If you think you understand me but have a hangup on the word 'real', you have to notice that you would be begging that anything else is 'non-real' that lies outside of your classification scheme. But I need to know that you recognize that the abstract, regardless, is still more completely 'real' and sensible (my understanding) or you'd have to stop using words at all for coming across as being irrational, since words would then be "unreal" to you for being abstractions or you risk being hypocritical.

[Terrapin Station]

Abstraction is just the inference of patterns generalized. So math (logic) IS an 'abstraction'.

Sure, and I'm not a realist on abstractions. That simply means that I do not believe that abstractions exist extramentally.

To say abstraction isn't "real" is to presume you need to touch it physically in order to know it is or is not real.

It's just to say that it doesn't exist other than as a way that we think about things. No abstractions do. Abstractions are a manner of thought. They're not something that exists in the world otherwise. Thinking that they are is an example of projection or reification.

[Present awareness]

To say it in simple English (in non-syllogism form), I would simply say "it is logically impossible to "start motion", if "starts" don't exist". -- Your inability to grasp this very simple logic is astounding, or maybe this is just another delay tactic. - In any case, enough with all these delay tactics. Either you agree with this Simple Logic, or you can logically refute it. One or the other.

First of all, what structure of time is presupposed by your logic? According to the standard account, the timeline is continuous and composed of instants (time-points); so it's mathematically representable by the real-number line. Let's assume for the sake of the argument that this is the true structure of time! (Whether it really is is another question.)

For example, imagine a car at rest at 11:59:59 and in motion at 12:00:01. Obviously, it started or began to move between 11:59:59 and 12:00:01; but what about the instant or moment of change from rest to motion? Is the car at rest or in motion at 12:00:00? Obviously, it cannot be both at rest and in motion at the same instant or moment. If you say it's at rest, then—given the density of the continuum—there is no first instant of motion and thus no starting point; and if you say it's in motion, then—given the density of the continuum—there is no last instant of rest and thus no end point. However, it doesn't follow that a car at rest cannot start moving, because the absence of a temporal end point of non-motion or a temporal beginning point of motion doesn't entail the non-ending of non-motion and the non-beginning of motion.

In order to detect motion, one needs two frames of reference. A motion picture or cartoon rely on a series of still pictures with slight differences to give the illusion of motion. If you stop a film, you will see one still picture but no reference to movement. If you stop a car in motion to analyze when it started to move, it will not be moving.

The reference point that is used for measuring time must be zero, just like the end of a tape measure has no number and it is from that point that the measurement begins. Since “now” is already here, it is used as the zero point to measure time. If I look at a clock now, any movement of the second hand will take place in reference to when I look at the clock. It will still be “now’ a minute from now or an hour from now, because the zero point does not move.

[Scott Mayers]

Abstraction is just the inference of patterns generalized. So math (logic) IS an 'abstraction'.

Sure, and I'm not a realist on abstractions. That simply means that I do not believe that abstractions exist extramentally.

To say abstraction isn't "real" is to presume you need to touch it physically in order to know it is or is not real.

It's just to say that it doesn't exist other than as a way that we think about things. No abstractions do. Abstractions are a manner of thought. They're not something that exists in the world otherwise. Thinking that they are is an example of projection or reification.

I disagree. One may hallucinate X. But if they are not lying about it, the experience is nevertheless 'real' as X in a subjective sense. It is just not something you can share/prove to others one way or the other. And if it is a truly effective hallucination, just as our normal everyday experience is in essense, then X would be indistinguishable to them from any other shared experience too. We can't see/feel a 'headache' of another person. So this too is an abstraction of which we sympathize where we have similar expressions we use to express some sensation we think the definition of 'headache' means among us.

Are not space and time justly argued to be as abstract and unreal too for them lacking a means to disprove? That is if it is 'apriori' assumed simply for your own image of the world from inside your head, how is it any MORE real than some count of things you assert you sense before you?

[Steve3007]

There are various things that we propose to objectively exist because they appear to represent constants in the things we've observed. Mass is just one of them. I think that to arbitrarily take just that one and to confer the title of "extramental existent" on it makes no sense.