Understanding
space and what it is or isn't is formidable
The idea that an ether contains
things as an ocean contains fishes faces problems
1. An
inherent object needs a not-that-object boundary.
2. A world that is not
entirely objects must contain a “not-any-object” (space)
3. If space is nothing at all, a
world of only objects has no basis for movement.
4. If space exists, as objects
do, the logic returns to #1, so it needs another “space” to exist in.
The
boundary buck must stop somewhere and space is it, so it can’t exist as the
objects it contains do.
Space can’t be a physical thing, but a purely physical
world doesn’t have anything else so it must be nothing.
Yet both Einstein and
Newton saw that space has to be something for objects to move in it: "According
to the general theory of relativity space without ether is unthinkable; for in
such a space there would not only be no propagation of light, but also no
possibility of existence for standards of space and time ..." (Einstein,
1920, in May 5th address at the University of Leyden) He stopped short of
saying that space is something nonphysical, but while a physical ether has been
discredited, a non-physical one has not:
“Since 1905 when Einstein first did
away with the luminiferous aether, the idea that space is filled with invisible
substances has waged a vigorous comeback.” (Greene, 2004) p76 A network null
processing fits the bill, as it is both nothing having no output and something
that is actively processing. Now space doesn’t need another space to contain it
because it is an output just as an electron is.
Whether the network operating
system runs an electron program or a null program is like whether a screen
presents an image or stays blank. A blank screen has no images so is “nothing”,
but it still refreshes so it is “something”. Turning a blank screen off, to see
it in itself, would destroy the images upon it, in this case our bodies. If
this screen turned off, not only our physical universe but also its space and
time would disappear instantly
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