There is a complex interplay between our intuitive understanding of time's transient nature and its representation in modern physics as a dimension. We need to challenge the mainstream view of time as an illusion, and instead seek something that integrates the concept of Becoming into the very fabric of reality, writes Avshalom Elitzur.
Enjoy unlimited access to the world's leading thinkers.
Start by exploring our subscription options or joining our mailing list today.
Already a subscriber? Log in
Bud Rapanault 26 August 2023
Science does not need yet another theory of substantival spacetime Substantival here meaning causally-interactive in the sense of John A. Wheelers famous dictum "that space tells matter how to move and matter tells space how to curve." The problem with that just-so-story is that there is no empirical evidence to support it. Nobody has ever observed space or time independently of objects and events whose relationships they are descriptive of.
Space and time are relational concepts - in exactly the same way that distance is a relational concept. Nobody thinks distance causes things to be spatially separated but some people, like Wheeler, are inclined to think of space (the aggregate of distance) and time as physical entities that have causal effects on the matter and energy systems we observe.
As stated there is no observational evidence supporting that view and therefore it has no scientific value - the assumption of a physical spacetime obscures rather than illuminates the nature of physical reality. All of the conundrums and paradoxes the author goes on about simply evaporate like a night fog in the morning sun when you discard the superfluous notion that space and time are physical entities.
Physical reality consists of two fundamental states, three-dimensionally localized matter and four-dimensionally non-local electromagnetic energy. three dimensional material processes take place against the four dimensional background of electromagnetic radiation that permeates the Cosmos we observe. Everywhere people imagine they see space there is always at minimum electromagnetic radiation - that is what we observe; that is what is there. Einstein considered spacetime to be relational:
"IN this edition I have added, as a fifth appendix, a presentation of my views on the problem of space in general and on the gradual modifications of our ideas on space resulting from the influence of the relativistic view-point. I wished to show that space-time is not necessarily something to which one can ascribe a separate existence, independently of the actual objects of physical reality. Physical objects are not in space, but these objects are spatially extended. In this way the concept "empty space" loses its meaning."
June 9th, 1952 A. EINSTEIN
Join the conversation