1373 lines
113 KiB
HTML
1373 lines
113 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
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<html>
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<head>
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<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
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<title>Space</title>
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<meta name="generator" content="LibreOffice 4.2.8.2 (Linux)">
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<meta name="author" content="Amr Gharbeia">
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<meta name="created" content="20010831;2300000000000">
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<meta name="changed" content="20150721;230750523618083">
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<style type="text/css">
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<body lang="en-GB" text="#99ccff" link="#0000ff" dir="ltr">
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font color="#800000"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><b>S<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdfSSpace_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="76" height="29" border="0">pace.</b></font></font>
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Naturalists believe that the world is just what is in space and time,
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and having seen that we should, if possible, believe that substances
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endure through time, the next question is what we should believe
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about the nature of space. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><b>P<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdfSSPosEx_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="89" height="49" border="0">ossible
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explanations.</b></font> There are basically three alternatives:
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spatiomaterialism (the belief that space and matter are both
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substances), materialism (and the belief that space is just spatial
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relations), and spacetime substantivalism (the belief that the
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substance that exists in addition to matter is not space, but
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spacetime). Though the following argument would have to be
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reconsidered, of course, if a fourth alternative turns up that is
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simpler than all of these, that does not seem likely. After
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describing each of these alternatives, I will consider which offers
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the best ontological explanation of the natural world.</font></font></font></p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i><b>S<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdfSSPsm_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="25" height="236" border="0">patiomaterialism.</b></i>
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By "spatiomaterialism," I mean the belief that the
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substances constituting the world include space as well as matter. It
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postulates matter, because it assumes that there are substances in
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space that obey the basic laws of physics. But it also postulates
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space as a substance. ("Substantivalism" is the traditional
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name for the view that space is a substance, though as we shall see,
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substantivalism about space should be distinguished from
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substantivalism about spacetime, the kind of substantivalism that is
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taken seriously today.) Finally, spatiomaterialism assumes that the
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bits of matter are all contained by space in the sense that each of
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them coincides with some part(s) of space or other. That is how these
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two substances exist together as a world, and thus, it is the basic
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relationship that spatiomaterialism assumes as the other part of
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every ontological cause. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Spatiomaterialism
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assumes that space is a substance by our definition, for it assumes
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that each part of space has both the essential and the existential
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aspects of the nature of substance as substance. The parts of space
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are all the locations in a single, three dimensional space. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Each
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part of space has both aspects of the existential nature of a
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substance, temporality and particularity, because in addition to
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never coming into existence and never going out of existence, each
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location in space has an existence that is distinct from from all the
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other locations in space (not to mention from any bits of matter that
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may coincide with it). Though spatiomaterialism is compatible with
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both theories about the nature of time, we shall take it to include
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the endurance theory, for as we have just seen, the endurance theory
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is the best ontological explanation of the temporal aspect of
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substances. (Only the endurance theory is compatible with the present
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being different from the past and the future, and the perdurance
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theory even denies that change involves properties coming into
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existence and going out of existence.) </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Though
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parts of space have the same kind of existential nature as bits of
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matter, parts of space have the opposite essential nature. Whereas
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bits of matter exist independently of one another in the sense that
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each could still exist, even if the other bits of matter did not
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exist, parts of space depend on one another in the sense that no part
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of space can exist without all the other parts of space. The
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essential nature of each part of space includes having geometrically
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coherent relations to every other part of space. That is, the
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essential nature of each part of space is defined by its location
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relative to all the other parts. Thus, parts of space exist only if
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space exists as a whole. (Indeed, it is the wholeness of space and
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what it contributes to the natural world that is the key to almost
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all the new necessary truths based on spatiomaterialism.) </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">In other
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words, space has an opposite essential nature from matter because its
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parts are not prior to the whole. Since each bit of matter is capable
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of existing independently of all the other bits of matter in the
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world, there is a sense in which the parts of matter are prior to the
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totality. But that is not true of space, because no part of space can
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exist without all the other parts of space. That does not mean,
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however, that, in the case of space, the whole is prior to the parts,
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because the whole of space cannot exist without all its parts. Space
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is whole in a unique way, as we shall see, and one indication of its
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uniqueness is the way that the parts of space and the whole are
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equally basic. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Spatiomaterialism
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assumes that space has a three dimensional Euclidean structure.
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Though non-Euclidean geometries can be described coherently, they are
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not as simple as Euclidean geometry. Euclidean geometry is assumed
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here, because, as it turns out, there is no reason to doubt that the
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simplest alternative is true. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">To
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be sure Einstein's general theory of relativity implies that
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spacetime can be curved and can, therefore, be represented only by a
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non-Euclidean geometry. But what it implies is curved is not just
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space, but spacetime, and as we shall see (in <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/Lo/LoOtkCaLbStr.htm" target="Lo"><font face="Arial, sans-serif">Change:
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General theory of relativity</font></a></u></font>), curved spacetime
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can be explained as an aspect of space as a substance with a
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Euclidean geometrical structure (basically by variations across space
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in the velocity of light relative to space). </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
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version of spatiomaterialism considered here will also assume that
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space is infinite. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
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infinity of space will be assumed, because that is the simplest
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nature space can have. Even though the parts of space cannot exist
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without one another, they are distinct substances, and the essential
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nature of each particular spatial substance is necessarily unique in
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the sense that it involves a unique relationship to every other
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particular spatial substance. But the simplest assumption is that all
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the parts of space have the same <i>kind </i>of essential nature,
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that is, the same kind of relation to other parts of space as every
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other part of space. However, if the parts of space all have the same
|
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kind of essential nature, a Euclidean spatial substance must be
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infinite as a whole. For if there were an end to space, no two parts
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||
of space could have the same <i>kind </i>of essential nature. Each
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part would have a different relation to the edge of space (if makes
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sense at all to talk about an end to space). Thus, the simplest form
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||
of spatiomaterialism would hold that space is infinite. </font></font></font>
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||
</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">To be sure,
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most astronomers and astrophysicists currently assume that space is
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finite, because its finitude is entailed by the use of the general
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||
theory of relativity to represent the big bang and the subsequent
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expansion of the universe. And it would be possible, if necessary, to
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formulate a version of spatiomaterialism in which space is finite.
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But it would be a more complex ontological cause than is assumed
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here, for its parts would have to have systematically different kinds
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||
of essential natures. And it may not turn out that the big bang
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||
theory is true, as argued in <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/Lo/LoOtkCaLeCos.htm" target="Lo"><font face="Arial, sans-serif">Change:
|
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Cosmology</font></a></u></font>. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Notice,
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||
however, that the infinity of space is twofold. There are finite
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||
distances in space, for that is entailed by its having a geometrical
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||
structure, and there are opposite way ways in which it is possible to
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||
generate an infinite series. It is possible, in one way, to keep
|
||
doubling its size, step by step, forever in the same direction, and
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||
it is also possible to keep dividing it in half, step by step, for
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||
ever. The former means that space is infinite in extent, whereas the
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latter means that space is continuous (or that parts of space are
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connected continuously). Both kinds of infinity are assumed here as
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simply part of the essential nature of space as a substance. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">The
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continuousness of space means that the number of points on a finite
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line is greater than the number of whole numbers, which is already
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infinite. Thus, the points on a line are said to be nondenumerable.
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||
(It can be shown, furthermore, that there are just as many points on
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a finite line as there are points on a finite plane and as there are
|
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points in a finite volume.) This can seem puzzling, if it is assumed
|
||
that lines are made up of points, because more than an infinite
|
||
number of points would be required to make up a line. This may be
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||
problematic for mathematics, but not for ontological philosophy,
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||
because we do not assume that space is made up by combining points at
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||
all. What is essential about points in space is their distances (and
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||
directions) from one another (or the metric of their geometrical
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||
relations), not how many points there are in any finite distance. In
|
||
other words, space is not made up of points in the way that ordinary
|
||
material objects are made up of simpler bits of matter, that is, by
|
||
assembling them alongside one another; indeed, according to
|
||
spatiomaterialism, that way of putting bits of matter together as a
|
||
whole is something that is possible only because the bits of matter
|
||
all coincide with parts of space. Rather space is made up of points
|
||
in the sense that the points all have as their essential natures
|
||
determinate distances from one another in all three dimensions as
|
||
parts of a single whole space. Indeed, points can be picked out at
|
||
all only because the parts of space have such spatial relations to
|
||
one another. That is, once again, the wholeness of space. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Time has a
|
||
twofold infinite nature like space. Given any finite period of time,
|
||
it may be doubled forever or divided forever. Thus, not only does
|
||
time go on eternally, but it also flows continuously (that is, the
|
||
moments in time are continuous with one another). And that is
|
||
likewise simply the nature of time. (Two moments in time are related
|
||
by the amount of time that passes between them, not the number of
|
||
moments between them; the temporal metric is what makes it possible
|
||
to pick out moments in time.) The direction of time, however,
|
||
introduces an asymmetry that is not found in space, separating the
|
||
issue about whether time extends infinitely toward the past from the
|
||
issue about whether it extends infinitely toward the future. Though
|
||
the big bang theory denies the former, it leaves open the possibility
|
||
that the future may be infinite. We will, however, proceed on the
|
||
assumption that time is infinite in both directions, postponing
|
||
discussion of the big bang until <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/Lo/LoOtkCaLeCos.htm" target="Lo"><font face="Arial, sans-serif">Change:
|
||
Cosmology</font></a></u></font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; background: #cccccc; border-top: 6.75pt double #000000; border-bottom: 6.75pt double #808080; border-left: 6.75pt double #000000; border-right: 6.75pt double #808080; padding: 0.28cm 0.46cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">T<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="HistCmt" align="right" hspace="5" width="149" height="22" border="0">he
|
||
belief that space is a substance may have been what the ancient
|
||
atomists, Leucippus and Democritus, meant by insisting that the
|
||
<i>arche,</i> or "first principle," includes two elements,
|
||
both atoms <i>and the void</i>. In other words, the usual
|
||
interpretation of atomism, mentioned in <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/Lo/L/LoOtdOAtomists.htm" target="Lo"><font face="Arial, sans-serif">Ontology</font></a></u></font>,
|
||
may be mistaken. What they meant by the void may not have been merely
|
||
a kind of stuff between atoms that is so subtle that, unlike other
|
||
atoms, atoms can move through it without resistance. They may have
|
||
meant that the void is something that exists not only in between
|
||
atoms, but also underlies each and every atom. This way of thinking
|
||
about the nature of space may have been obscured by the lack of any
|
||
better way than "the void" to refer to what they meant.
|
||
That is, arguably, one of interpreting the ancient atomists, which
|
||
would make them the discoverers of the view that is assumed here.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Notice
|
||
that it is not inconsistent to hold that space is <i>contained by
|
||
space </i>or <i>exists in space</i>, though it holds for a different
|
||
reason from matter. It is not inconsistent, because the parts of
|
||
space are substances and each part of space is, indeed, is located in
|
||
space or is contained by space in the sense that it has a location
|
||
relative to all the other parts of space. Indeed, that is part of the
|
||
essential nature of each part of space. Bits of matter are also
|
||
contained by space or in space in the sense of having a location
|
||
relative to other bits of matter. But according to spatiomaterialism,
|
||
that is not part of the essential nature of matter. Nor is it simply
|
||
how bits of matter exist together as a world. It is, rather, a result
|
||
of each bit of matter coinciding with some part(s) of space. It is
|
||
space that gives bits of matter their spatial relations to one
|
||
another. Given that space and matter are both ontological causes, the
|
||
ontological cause of bits of matter all having spatial relations to
|
||
one another is the basic relationship by which the two opposite
|
||
substances exist together as a world. It is because the parts of
|
||
space are contained by space that the bits of matter coinciding with
|
||
any part are contained by space. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i><b>Spatial
|
||
relationism.</b></i> B<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdfSSPsr_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="26" height="237" border="0">y
|
||
"spatial relationism," I mean the belief that matter is the
|
||
only kind of basic substance in the world and that space is nothing
|
||
but the relations that hold among bits of matter. Matter is assumed
|
||
to have the essential nature described by the basic laws of physics,
|
||
and spatial relations can be explained in one way or another as how
|
||
bits of matter exist together as a world. And we will take spatial
|
||
relationism to include the endurance theory of time (as we did
|
||
spatiomaterialism), since that is the best explanation and spatial
|
||
relationism is compatible with it. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<br><br>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<br><br>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Spatial
|
||
relationism is basically a negative thesis. It is the denial that
|
||
space is a substance distinct from the material substances in the
|
||
world. It denies that space exists independently of matter by holding
|
||
that spatial relations have the same status as properties of matter. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">It
|
||
is not necessary to postulate any substances in addition to matter in
|
||
order to account for spatial relations, any more than it is necessary
|
||
to postulate additional substances to account for the properties of
|
||
material substance. They can be understood as nothing but aspects of
|
||
the material substances postulated. Just as (monadic) properties are
|
||
aspects of the substances themselves taken separately, the relations
|
||
among them are aspects of their existence together as a world. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">There
|
||
are subtly different versions of spatial relationism, as mentioned in
|
||
<font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/Lo/L/LoOtdO12.htm" target="Lo"><font face="Arial, sans-serif">Ontology:
|
||
Nature of relations</font></a></u></font>, depending on this ontology
|
||
explains the possibility change in spatial relations. How the
|
||
substances postulated exist together as a world is the most basic
|
||
relationship that an ontology must assume in addition to the
|
||
substances to explain how they exist together as a world. That basic
|
||
relationship determines how substances can be combined and recombined
|
||
as time passes in order to explain ontologically the diversity and
|
||
change in nature. Thus, if spatial relations are nothing but how
|
||
material substances exist together as a world, their basic
|
||
relationship involves change. That is possible, because the basic
|
||
relationship among the material substances can be simply having
|
||
spatial relations of some kind or other, not having any particular
|
||
spatial relations. That basic relationship does not change even when
|
||
the particular spatial relations among material substances are
|
||
changing. But since particular spatial relations do change, there
|
||
must be some way to explain the possibility of such change. (And
|
||
since spatial relations change in regular ways, it must also be able
|
||
to account for those regularities.) </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">It
|
||
is possible to hold, on the one hand, that the basic relationship by
|
||
which material objects exist together as a world has a temporally
|
||
complex nature. "Having spatial relations" would be defined
|
||
by describing the regularities in how the spatial relations between
|
||
material objects change, for example, that they change only
|
||
continuously over time, that is, by motion. (Material objects do not
|
||
flit about discontinuously form one place to another.) This would be
|
||
to define the essential nature of the basic relationship among
|
||
material substances dispositionally, much as the essential natures of
|
||
material substances are defined dispositionally when they are assumed
|
||
to obey the basic laws of physics, that is, in terms of the
|
||
regularities in how they move and interact. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">On
|
||
the other hand, it may be possible to hold that the basic
|
||
relationship is temporally simple. "Having spatial relations"
|
||
would be understood merely as a kind of condition that holds among
|
||
material objects at each moment as it is present, and the change that
|
||
occurs in spatial relations would be a result of the essential
|
||
natures of the material substances. That is, the essential natures of
|
||
the material substances would be temporally complex, as when they are
|
||
defined in terms of the basic laws of physics, and the ways in which
|
||
spatial relations change over time would simply be a consequence of
|
||
how the basic laws of physics work out. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">There are
|
||
problems with this view, however. One is that the laws of
|
||
contemporary physics include quantum mechanics, and since they do not
|
||
describe a fully deterministic process, spatial relations cannot be
|
||
fully determined by the basic laws of physics (unless there is a
|
||
so-called hidden variable involved). </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">But even if
|
||
the laws of physics were deterministic, there is another problem, for
|
||
the laws of physics can determine the spatial relations that hold of
|
||
bits of matter at any one moment only if their spatial relations at
|
||
some other moment is given. Since the past determines the future, the
|
||
particular spatial relations may have to be fixed for some earlier
|
||
point in the history of the universe, presumably at the beginning of
|
||
the world, such as the Big Bang or when God created it. In any case,
|
||
the basic relationship would not be temporally simple after all, for
|
||
having spatial relations would not be a condition that holds only at
|
||
the present moment, but must include all the particular spatial
|
||
relations that hold at some other moment in the history of the world.
|
||
</font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">In
|
||
either case, however, spatial relationism holds that space is nothing
|
||
but spatial relations, where those relations are, ontologically, just
|
||
the basic relationship by which material objects exist together as a
|
||
world, that is, ultimately, an aspect of the material substances
|
||
themselves.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; background: #cccccc; border-top: 6.75pt double #000000; border-bottom: 6.75pt double #808080; border-left: 6.75pt double #000000; border-right: 6.75pt double #808080; padding: 0.28cm 0.46cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">L<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="HistCmt" align="right" hspace="5" width="149" height="22" border="0">eibniz
|
||
denied that space is a substance. (And he debated the issue with the
|
||
Newtonian, Samuel Clarke. See <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/ObjText/#Earman1">Earman</a></u></font>.)
|
||
But spatial relationism as defined here should be distinguished from
|
||
the kind of spatial relationism entailed by Leibniz's ontology.
|
||
Leibniz did not take spatial relations to be how the basic substances
|
||
exist together as a natural world. The substances Leibniz postulated
|
||
to explain the natural world were monads, or minds of various kinds,
|
||
and he explained spatial relations as how monads <i>appear </i>to one
|
||
another, that is, as ideas in those minds. The way that monads
|
||
existed together as a natural world was by each being created by God,
|
||
though Leibniz did hold that the appearances of spatial relations in
|
||
all the different monads fit together coherently as a natural world. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; background: #cccccc; border-top: 6.75pt double #000000; border-bottom: 6.75pt double #808080; border-left: 6.75pt double #000000; border-right: 6.75pt double #808080; padding: 0.28cm 0.46cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">In
|
||
any case, defenders of Newton were never able to refute spatial
|
||
spatial relationism, because they assumed that the only way to prove
|
||
that space is a substance is by empirical science, that is, by
|
||
confirming some crucial prediction. Even Newton's theory did not
|
||
provide any way to measure absolute rest or motion, and all the same
|
||
phenomena (including the famous rotating bucket; see <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/ObjText/#Earman2">Earman</a></u></font>,
|
||
pp. 61-90) could also be explained on the assumption that space is
|
||
nothing but spatial relations among material substances (by taking
|
||
into account spatial relations to distant stars).</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; background: #cccccc; border-top: 6.75pt double #000000; border-bottom: 6.75pt double #808080; border-left: 6.75pt double #000000; border-right: 6.75pt double #808080; padding: 0.28cm 0.46cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">According
|
||
to <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/ObjText/#Ryansiewicz">Ryansiewicz</a></u></font>,
|
||
the classical debate between spatial relationism and substantivalism
|
||
about space is no longer meaningful in the context of contemporary
|
||
physics. But that position is compellingly refuted by <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/ObjText/#Hoefer98">Hoefer98</a></u></font>.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i><b>S<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdfSSPst_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="25" height="236" border="0">patiotemporalism.</b></i>
|
||
Spatiotemporalism agrees with spatiomaterialism that the spatial
|
||
relations among bits of matter depend on another substance, in
|
||
addition to matter. What makes it different from spatiomaterialism is
|
||
that it takes that substance to be spacetime, rather than space. In
|
||
fact, that makes it fundamentally different from both other theories.
|
||
Spatial relationism (or materialism) and spatiomaterialism can both
|
||
accept the endurance theory of time (and both do, as we they have
|
||
been defined here). But the belief in spacetime as an ontological
|
||
explanation of the world entails the perdurance theory of time. That
|
||
is what it means, when speaking ontologically, to deny that space and
|
||
time are absolute. Though this view is usually called
|
||
"substantivalism about spacetime," I will call it
|
||
"spatiotemporalism" in order to bring out the contrast with
|
||
spatiomaterialism and spatial relationism. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">This
|
||
preference for spatiotemporalism over spatiomaterialism is justified
|
||
by Einstein’s relativity theories. Minkowski introduced the notion
|
||
of spacetime in 1908 as a way of summing up what Einstein’s 1905
|
||
special theory of relativity implied about the world, and he
|
||
predicted that it was the beginning of the recognition that space and
|
||
time are not independent of one another. Einstein then took spacetime
|
||
as basic in constructing his general theory of relativity, that is,
|
||
in his explanation of gravitation as a result of a curvature imposed
|
||
on spacetime by large accumulations of matter in it. And since
|
||
spacetime must be a substance in order for it to interact with matter
|
||
in that way, it is now common for philosophers of spacetime to hold
|
||
that spacetime is the opposite kind of substance that exists in
|
||
addition to matter and explains why bits of matter have spatial
|
||
relations. (See <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/ObjText/#Friedman">Friedman</a></u></font>
|
||
and <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/ObjText/#Earman">Earman</a></u></font>,
|
||
for example.)</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">The basic
|
||
nature of spacetime is determined by Einstein's special theory of
|
||
relativity. Einstein called it a theory of "relativity,"
|
||
because it holds that the places and times at which events occur
|
||
depend on the inertial frame of reference from which they are
|
||
observed. Different inertial frames have different velocities, and
|
||
according to Einstein's special theory, they assign different spatial
|
||
and temporal coordinates to events in the universe. For example,
|
||
observers on two different inertial frames that happen to be located
|
||
at the same point at the same time will have different views about
|
||
which events in the histories of distant objects are occurring at the
|
||
same time their paths cross. Einstein's special theory holds that
|
||
their views are equally true, and that implies that the distant
|
||
objects actually exist now at both moments in their histories. (With
|
||
additional inertial observers, this means that the distant objects
|
||
must exist equally at <i>all </i>the moments in their histories that
|
||
can be said to be simultaneous with different inertial observers here
|
||
and now). This loss of agreement about the simultaneity of events at
|
||
a distance might seem to be just a theoretical problem about the
|
||
nature of objects at a distance, but since Einstein's special theory
|
||
holds that all possible inertial frames are equivalent, it has the
|
||
same implications for inertial observers here and now. That is,
|
||
observers on different inertial frames observing us from a distance
|
||
would similarly disagree about which moment in <i>our </i>history is
|
||
simultaneous with their present moment, and thus, in order for all
|
||
their views to be true, <i>we must actually exist equally at
|
||
different moments in our history</i>, indeed, equally at all of them.
|
||
This is to deny presentism, because it forces us to believe that our
|
||
past and our future exist in the same way as the present. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">It is the
|
||
loss of agreement about simultaneity at a distance that makes the
|
||
belief in spacetime so problematic. To be sure, no problems arise for
|
||
physics, because it is always possible to predict from one inertial
|
||
frame what observers on all the others will say. But when spacetime
|
||
is understood ontologically, that is, as describing the basic nature
|
||
of space and time, the denial of simultaneity at a distance entails
|
||
the perdurance theory of time. What really exists are not substances
|
||
with spatial relations enduring through time, but a kind of eternal,
|
||
unchanging four-dimensional world whose parts are spread out not only
|
||
in the spatial dimension, but also in the temporal dimension. Since
|
||
the world is constituted by all its parts, different moments in the
|
||
history of each permanent substance are different parts of the world
|
||
in exactly the same sense that different permanent substances
|
||
(including different locations in space) are different parts of the
|
||
world. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
|
||
substantival nature of spacetime is entailed, at least for scientific
|
||
realists, by the interaction between its curvature and matter that
|
||
explains gravitation according to Einstein's general theory of
|
||
relativity. Spacetime could not be what causes material objects to
|
||
exhibit gravitational acceleration unless it were something that
|
||
exists in addition to those material objects. This ontological
|
||
interpretation of spacetime, or substantivalism about spacetime, is
|
||
what I mean by "spatiotemporalism." It holds that time is
|
||
ontologically on a par with space (by contrast to spatiomaterialism,
|
||
which holds that matter is ontologically on a par with space). That
|
||
is the perdurance theory of time. To hold that time is just another
|
||
dimension relating parts of substances geometrically is to hold that
|
||
just as different places in space all exist in the same way, so
|
||
different moments in time all exist in the same way. This implies
|
||
that ordinary, permanent substances (that is, substances with a
|
||
temporal aspect to their existential aspect as substances) do not
|
||
endure through time, but perdure over time.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><b>T<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdfSSBest_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="89" height="50" border="0">he
|
||
best ontological explanation of space.</b></font> If we follow the
|
||
empirical method, we will believe the theory about the nature of
|
||
space that provides the best ontological explanation of the natural
|
||
world. That is clearly spatiomaterialism, if it is possible (in
|
||
particular, not falsified by the any phenomena covered by
|
||
contemporary physics), because it is better than spatial relationism
|
||
and better than spatiotemporalism. And since, as I will show, physics
|
||
does not make it impossible, naturalists who follow the empirical
|
||
method in deciding which ontology to believe will accept
|
||
spatiomaterialism.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i><b>S<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdfSSBSmOSr_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="25" height="236" border="0">patiomaterialism
|
||
is better than spatial relationism.</b></i> It may seem at first that
|
||
spatial relationism is a better explanation of space than
|
||
spatiomaterialism, because it postulates only one kind of basic
|
||
substance, rather than two. Spatial relationism is basically just a
|
||
kind of materialism that has made its beliefs about space explicit,
|
||
whereas spatiomaterialism holds that space is a substance existing
|
||
independently of matter which contains all the bits of matter in the
|
||
world. On grounds of simplicity, therefore, it might seem that we
|
||
should prefer spatial relationism to spatiomaterialism.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<br><br>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<br><br>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Simplicity
|
||
is not, however, the only empirical grounds for preferring one theory
|
||
over another. There is also the criterion of scope, and by it,
|
||
spatiomaterialism is clearly superior. Thus, if spatial relationism
|
||
were simpler than spatiomaterialism, there would be a trade-off
|
||
between them which keeps the empirical method from choosing between
|
||
them. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">But
|
||
that standoff is not the final word, because when we look closer at
|
||
the criterion of simplicity, we will find that spatiomaterialism is
|
||
at least as simple as spatial relationism, if not simpler. Simplicity
|
||
is not a simple criterion, for there are two ways in which
|
||
ontological explanations can be simpler (not only by the number of
|
||
ontological causes, but also their natures), and by one of them,
|
||
spatiomaterialism is clearly simpler than spatial relationism. There
|
||
is, therefore, a standoff on grounds of simplicity, and that makes
|
||
the criterion of greater scope decisive. Empirical ontologists should
|
||
prefer spatiomaterialism. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">But
|
||
a decision in favor of spatiomaterialism is even more clear-cut than
|
||
this may make it seem, for the way in which spatiomaterialism is
|
||
simpler also reveals another way in which it has a greater scope. In
|
||
the end, there is no doubt that spatiomaterialism explains more with
|
||
less. The empirical method will require ontologists, therefore, to
|
||
prefer spatiomaterialism over spatial relationism. Let us begin by
|
||
considering the issue about the scope of explanation.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i>Scope.</i><b>
|
||
</b>Spatiomaterialism explains more about the natural world than
|
||
spatial relationism, because it <i>explains </i>why bits of matter
|
||
have spatial relations, whereas spatial relationism merely <i>assumes
|
||
</i>that they do. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Space
|
||
is a substance with an opposite essential nature from matter, and so
|
||
if it contains all the bits of matter in the sense that each bit of
|
||
matter coincides with some part of space or other, the bits of matter
|
||
acquire their spatial relations from the spatial relations that
|
||
already hold among the parts of space with which they coincide. That
|
||
is, space and matter work together as ontological causes to produce
|
||
spatial relations. Having spatial relations is not just an
|
||
ontological assumption about bits of matter, since three different
|
||
ontological assumptions are needed to explain it. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">By
|
||
contrast, spatial relationism does simply assume that bits of matter
|
||
have spatial relations. To be sure, materialism can "account
|
||
for" spatial relations; the fact that bits of matter have
|
||
spatial relations does not show that materialism is false (as
|
||
presentism and the fact of real change falsify the perdurance theory
|
||
of time). But that is not to <i>explain </i>why bits of matter have
|
||
spatial relations. Thus, since we are seeking the best explanation,
|
||
we must prefer the theory which explains more.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Materialists
|
||
may demur by insisting that postulating space to explain spatial
|
||
relations is <i>ad hoc </i>and, thus, not an explanation at all.
|
||
Though it may appear to be an explanation, they will hold that
|
||
substantivalism about space is equivalent to assuming that bits of
|
||
matter have spatial relations. Indeed, it is the same assumption that
|
||
spatial relationists make, except for being disguised as a substance.
|
||
Substantivalism about space merely reifies spatial relations.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">This
|
||
objection will not stand, however, because spatial relations are not
|
||
all that substantivalism about space explains ontologically. It also
|
||
explains, together with matter, the possibility of change (as well as
|
||
certain ontologically necessary truths about how bits of matter
|
||
change, as we shall see later). </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">The
|
||
assumption that all the bits of matter are contained by space as a
|
||
substance implies only that each bit of matter coincides with <i>some
|
||
part of space or other.</i> But that leaves open which place it is.
|
||
Moreover, parts of space are connected with one another continuously,
|
||
so that there are no gaps, so to speak. That is just the essential
|
||
nature that spatiomaterialism takes space to have. Thus, as space and
|
||
matter endure through time, it is possible for spatial relations
|
||
among bits of matter to change, because bits of matter can move
|
||
across space over time without giving up any of spatiomaterialism's
|
||
assumptions. The continuousness of time works together with the
|
||
continuousness of space to make motion possible. Neither space nor
|
||
matter changes their essential natures, and the bits of matter are
|
||
always contained by space, always deriving their spatial relations
|
||
from space. (This way of explaining motion ontologically also implies
|
||
that motion is the only way that bits of matter can change their
|
||
spatial relations as time passes. See in <font face="Arial, sans-serif">Local
|
||
Regularities</font> under <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/Lo/LoOtkCaL.htm" target="Lo"><font face="Arial, sans-serif">Change.</font></a></u></font>)
|
||
</font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Since
|
||
substantivalism about space explains something more than just why
|
||
bits of matter have spatial relations, it is not <i>ad hoc</i>, but
|
||
genuinely explanatory. Spatial relations are only one of several
|
||
basic phenomena explained by spatiomaterialism. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">This is to
|
||
explain the possibility of change by motion, but it is also possible
|
||
for spatiomaterialism to explain the possibility of change in another
|
||
way: by interaction. That is how motion changes, as we shall see.
|
||
Being in space, bits of matter can move to the same location, and
|
||
when they do, they are in a position to act on one another, because
|
||
they not separated from one another by space. (The impossibility of
|
||
action at a distance -- that is, with spatial substances separating
|
||
the bits of matter -- is also shown in <font face="Arial, sans-serif">Local
|
||
Regularities </font>under <font face="Arial, sans-serif">Change</font>.)</font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Thus, since
|
||
spatiomaterialism can explain the possibility of both motion and
|
||
interaction, that is, both kinds of change described by the laws of
|
||
physics, its explanation of spatial relations is not <i>ad hoc</i>.
|
||
In other words, the greater scope of spatiomaterialism is shown by
|
||
its ontological explanation of at least three basic facts about the
|
||
natural world that are just assumptions of spatial relationism --
|
||
that bits of matter have spatial relations, that they can change by
|
||
motion, and that their motion (and other properties) can change by
|
||
interaction. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; background: #cccccc; border-top: 6.75pt double #000000; border-bottom: 6.75pt double #808080; border-left: 6.75pt double #000000; border-right: 6.75pt double #808080; padding: 0.28cm 0.46cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">T<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="HistCmt" align="right" width="149" height="22" border="0">his
|
||
may not be an original argument for substantivalism about space. The
|
||
way in which space makes motion and interaction possible may have
|
||
been what Leucippus and Democritus were getting at when they insisted
|
||
on postulating the void as an element along with the atoms, though
|
||
that is still a controversial interpretation of ancient atomism.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i>Simplicity.</i>
|
||
Since empirically minded ontologists must prefer ontologies that
|
||
explain more, they have a good reason to prefer spatiomaterialism
|
||
over spatial relationism. But materialists might hope for a standoff
|
||
between these two ontologies at this point. The empirical method
|
||
might fail to choose between them. Although the criterion of greater
|
||
scope favors spatiomaterialism, the criterion of simplicity may favor
|
||
spatial relationism, because spatial relationism postulates only one
|
||
kind of basic substance, not two. Simplicity is not, however, a
|
||
simple criterion, and when we consider both ways in which
|
||
explanations can be simple, we will see that there is also a way in
|
||
which spatiomaterialism is simpler than spatial relationism. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Such
|
||
a standoff on grounds of simplicity would force ontologists to prefer
|
||
spatiomaterialism, because they are equal except for the greater
|
||
scope of the latter. But the empirical method is even more decisive
|
||
than this suggests, because the way in which spatiomaterialism is
|
||
simpler is another way in which spatiomaterialism explains more than
|
||
spatial relationism. Thus, it will be clear in the end that, even
|
||
though spatiomaterialism postulates two basic substances, rather than
|
||
one, it explains more with less. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
|
||
reason that materialism is not necessarily simpler than
|
||
spatiomaterialism is that simplicity is judged not only by the number
|
||
of basic ontological causes, but also by the simplicity of their
|
||
natures. That is, materialism may not be simpler than
|
||
spatiomaterialism, even though it postulates only one kind of basic
|
||
substance, because it may require either matter or the basic
|
||
relationship among them to have a more complex essential nature than
|
||
spatiomaterialism. This is how it will turn out, and in order to see
|
||
why, let us look more closely at the basic relationship assumed by
|
||
materialist ontology. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
|
||
basic relationship among bits of matter, according to spatial
|
||
relationism, is that bits of matter all have spatial relations with
|
||
one another. But we are assuming that they are all geometrically
|
||
coherent, that is, that their spatial relations all fit together as
|
||
parts of a three dimensional world. That assumption about their basic
|
||
relationship can be understood in two different ways, and together
|
||
they pose a dilemma for spatial relationism, for both have
|
||
consequences that make spatial relationism more complex than
|
||
spatiomaterialism.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">"Having
|
||
coherent spatial relations" may be taken as an aspect of the
|
||
spatial relations that all the particular bits of matter have <i>at
|
||
the present moment</i>, or it may be taken as an aspect of their
|
||
particular spatial relations <i>at every moment </i>in the history of
|
||
the world. In the first case, materialism must explain why bits of
|
||
matter have coherent spatial relations at every moment, and the only
|
||
way of doing so undermines the way that physical explanations are
|
||
ordinarily understood. In the second case, the basic relationship of
|
||
materialism must have a temporally complex nature, for its essential
|
||
nature must include a fact about the world that spatiomaterialism
|
||
explains by ontological causes that are temporally simple. Let us
|
||
consider each horn of this dilemma in turn. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Notice, by
|
||
the way, that in both ontologies, the basic relationship is not the
|
||
particular spatial relations that bits of matter actually have, but
|
||
an aspect of those particular spatial relations. For materialism, it
|
||
is the geometrical coherence of those spatial relations, whereas for
|
||
spatiomaterialism, it is that those spatial relations come from bits
|
||
of matter coinciding with parts of space. The <i>particular </i>spatial
|
||
relations that bits of matter actually have are taken by both
|
||
theories to be something that can be known only by experience of the
|
||
world.</font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i>Temporally
|
||
simple basic relationship.</i> The basic relationship assumed by
|
||
spatiomaterialism is temporally simple. It assumes that the way that
|
||
space and matter exist together as a world right now is by each bit
|
||
of matter coinciding with some part of space or other, and that is
|
||
temporally simple, for its two basic substances can have that
|
||
relationship completely at one moment in the existence of the world.
|
||
And this assumption needs to be made only about the present moment,
|
||
because if all the bits of matter are contained by space at the
|
||
present moment, then the fact that substances endure through time,
|
||
never coming into existence and never going out of existence as time
|
||
passes, entails that they have the basic relationship at every other
|
||
moment. There is no way for a bit of matter to escape from space
|
||
altogether, for it exists now as part of the same world by coinciding
|
||
with some part of space or other and space endures through time along
|
||
with matter. For the same reason, it could not get into space, if the
|
||
bit of matter did not already coincide with some part of space or
|
||
other. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
|
||
basic relationship assumed by spatial relationism can also be
|
||
temporally simple. It is the assumption that bits of matter have
|
||
coherent spatial relations, and that relationship can hold completely
|
||
at any moment in the history of the world. But unlike
|
||
spatiomaterialism, if that basic relationship is assumed to hold at
|
||
the present moment, it does not necessarily hold at all other moments
|
||
in the history of the world. It is conceivable that bits of matter
|
||
would move and interact in ways that would give them spatial
|
||
relations that are not geometrically coherent. (Similarly, it is
|
||
conceivable that the present spatial relations are a result of the
|
||
motion and interaction of bits of matter from earlier states in which
|
||
their spatial relations were geometrically incoherent.) </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">It is
|
||
conceivable, for example, that when matter of a certain kind is given
|
||
the shape of a cave, the cave from inside is larger than the cave
|
||
from the outside. That is, when measuring rods are taken inside the
|
||
cave and used to measure how large the cave is, the internal
|
||
distances measured turn out to be greater than the size of the cave
|
||
when it is measured from the outside. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">It might be
|
||
argued that such spatial relations are not geometrically incoherent,
|
||
but merely show a curvature about space. They are only incoherent
|
||
according to Euclidean geometry. But postulating non-Euclidean
|
||
geometry will not always preserve geometrical coherence. For example,
|
||
suppose that when matter of a certain kind was shaped into a cave and
|
||
extended into a tunnel, another entrance cut in the distant wall of
|
||
the cave would open up in some far distant location in three
|
||
dimensional space. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Topology
|
||
explores many such possible connections among regions of spatial
|
||
relations, and we need only think of them as being the effect of
|
||
shaping matter in certain ways in order to conceive how the motion
|
||
and interaction of bits of matter could lead to their having
|
||
incoherent spatial relations. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">In
|
||
fact, spatial relations do not become geometrically incoherent in
|
||
such ways, and so having geometrically coherent spatial relations at
|
||
every moment is a basic aspect of the world than an ontology needs to
|
||
explain. Now, spatial relationists may insist that they can explain
|
||
this aspect of the world by the essential nature of matter. They
|
||
assume that the essential nature of matter is defined by the basic
|
||
laws of physics, and so they can argue that, if spatial relations are
|
||
geometrically coherent at the present moment, they will be
|
||
geometrically coherent at all moments in the future (and in the
|
||
past), because those future (and past) spatial relations are
|
||
determined by those bits of matter moving and interacting according
|
||
to the basic laws of physics. Their geometrical coherence is, in
|
||
other words, a consequence of the nature of matter. The reason that
|
||
spatial relations will be geometrically coherent at other times, if
|
||
they are geometrically coherent now, is that it is <i>physically
|
||
</i>necessary. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">This
|
||
possibility is suggested by the structure of explanations in physics.
|
||
As explicated by the deductive-nomological model, the basic laws of
|
||
physics together with initial and boundary conditions make it
|
||
possible to predict (or retrodict) any future (or past) state. Thus,
|
||
if we take momentum to be a property of the bits of matter, the
|
||
particular spatial relations among bits of matter at any one moment
|
||
will determine their spatial relations at any other moment. Hence,
|
||
they will be coherent at every moment, if spatial relations are
|
||
coherent now.</font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Notice that
|
||
this way of explaining why spatial relations are geometrically
|
||
coherent depends on complete determinism, such as was assumed in
|
||
Newtonian physics. (It was Laplace who first argued that the laws of
|
||
Newtonian physics made this possible.) It is not, however, compatible
|
||
with quantum mechanics, if Heisenberg's principle is taken to
|
||
represent an indeterminism about what happens in the world as bits of
|
||
matter move and interact, for such indeterminism would leave plenty
|
||
of room for bits of matter to acquire incoherent spatial relations.
|
||
It is, of course, possible that Heisenberg's principle represents
|
||
merely an inevitable incompleteness about physical theory. There
|
||
could be a hidden variable that makes physical processes
|
||
deterministic, though it cannot be measured. But most naturalists
|
||
would be surprised to find that they are committed ontologically to
|
||
such an interpretation of quantum mechanics by their acceptance of
|
||
materialism (that is, reducing space to spatial relations). </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Even
|
||
if physical laws are deterministic enough to explain why bits of
|
||
matter always have coherent spatial relations, there is an
|
||
intolerable cost to be paid in our understanding of how physical
|
||
processes take place. Physicists ordinarily think of what happens in
|
||
nature as a result of how bits of matter move and interact <i>in
|
||
space</i>, where their spatial relations are one factor that combines
|
||
with their motion and the forces they exert as a different kind of
|
||
factor to determine what happens to them. But that is not possible,
|
||
if the regularities described by laws of physics are what make
|
||
spatial relations coherent in the first place, for then there is no
|
||
way to explain how spatial relations work together with motion and
|
||
forces as different kinds of efficient causes. Both kinds of factors
|
||
are simply contingent aspects of bits of matter, and ontologically,
|
||
they have the same status. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">When
|
||
material objects exert forces on one another, for example, when a
|
||
planet exerts a gravitational force on a material object near its
|
||
surface, we naturally think of the acceleration of the object as
|
||
having two kinds of efficient causes: its distance from the planet
|
||
and the force exerted by the planet. If object were released farther
|
||
away, the same force would give it more momentum before colliding
|
||
with the planet. And if the force were greater where it was released,
|
||
the object would also have more momentum before colliding. We think
|
||
of spatial relations and forces as two different kinds of efficient
|
||
causes determining the later state. But if the basic laws of physics
|
||
are supposed to explain why bits of matter have coherent spatial
|
||
relations in the future, there is no way to distinguish the effect of
|
||
forces from the effect of spatial relations. Instead, laws of physics
|
||
must be seen as operating on the spatial relations, velocities, and
|
||
forces that exist at one time to determine new spatial relations,
|
||
velocities, and forces at a later (or earlier) time. Though what
|
||
happens is predictable, the cause is not the planet's gravitation
|
||
force acting on the object across space, because there is no way to
|
||
distinguish the effect of the space from the effect of the force.
|
||
Both depend on the regularities described by the laws of physics in
|
||
the same way. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Likewise
|
||
for motion. When a material object has a certain velocity, we think
|
||
of its future spatial relations to stationary material objects as a
|
||
result of its motion through a space that is already there. Its
|
||
momentum is something that the object has, and we ordinarily see its
|
||
future locations as being determined by its momentum together with
|
||
its location in a space that is somehow independent of it. But that
|
||
way of conceiving physical causes must be given up, if the
|
||
conservation of momentum helps cause bits of matter to have coherent
|
||
spatial relations. The future spatial relations are not caused by
|
||
moving through space. They are caused by its motion and its past
|
||
spatial relations, changing according to a basic law of physics which
|
||
is taken as defining the nature of matter. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">This form
|
||
of spatial relationism makes almost everything that happens in the
|
||
world depend on the nature of matter, rather than on what it assumes
|
||
about the nature of spatial relations (namely, that they are
|
||
geometrically coherent at the present moment). . This can also be
|
||
seen how materialism explains other aspects of motion and interaction
|
||
that spatiomaterialism explains by substantival space. Whether or not
|
||
it is ontologically necessary, it is true that bits of matter do not
|
||
change spatial relations by flitting about from place to place
|
||
discontinuously, but only by moving across space as time passes.
|
||
Spatial relationists would deny that this depends in any way on the
|
||
nature of spatial relations. They would explain this regularity as
|
||
just another aspect of the regularities described by the basic laws
|
||
of physics, which define the nature of matter. The same holds for the
|
||
materialists' explanation of why bits of matter do not act one one
|
||
another at a distance.</font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">In
|
||
other words, to assume that having coherent spatial relations is a
|
||
basic relationship that holds only at the present moment is to
|
||
assume, in effect, that matter has an essential nature that is more
|
||
complex temporally than the matter assumed by spatiomaterialism.
|
||
Materialists have to attribute more aspects of what happens in the
|
||
world to the nature of material substance as an ontological cause
|
||
than do spatiomaterialists. The greater complexity of the essential
|
||
nature of matter is what contradicts the claim that materialism is
|
||
simpler than spatiomaterialism. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i>Temporally
|
||
complex basic relationship.</i> Instead of making the coherence of
|
||
spatial relations a consequence of the basic laws of physics,
|
||
materialists can take the basic relationship by which bits of matter
|
||
exist together as a world to be having geometrically coherent spatial
|
||
relations <i>at every moment</i>. This would be to postulate a basic
|
||
relationship with a <i>temporally complex nature</i>, for the basic
|
||
relationship would have to work together with the forces described by
|
||
the laws of physics as another efficient cause determining what
|
||
happens. And the basic relationship would have to work together with
|
||
velocity as a second efficient cause determining its future spatial
|
||
relations. (This form of materialism could also use its basic
|
||
relationship to explain why bits of matter change spatial relations
|
||
only by motion and why they do not interact at a distance.)</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Though this
|
||
would allow materialists to interpret the laws of physics as
|
||
descriptions of how bits of matter move and interact in space, it
|
||
would be to assume that the basic relationship does for materialism
|
||
what substantival space does for spatiomaterialism. The materialists'
|
||
basic relationship would not be simply how bits of matter exist
|
||
together at the present moment, but a way of existing together at the
|
||
present moment that also constrains how they can exist together at
|
||
future (or past) moments in a way that is independent of the
|
||
constraints imposed by their forces and velocities. Since that is to
|
||
assume that the basic relationship entails that particular spatial
|
||
relations can change only in certain ways, it would be to assume that
|
||
the basic relationship has a temporally complex nature.</font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">But that
|
||
makes spatial relationism more complex than spatiomaterialism. The
|
||
materialists' basic relationship would be replacing both space and
|
||
the basic relationship of spatiomaterialism. Though one assumption is
|
||
replacing two assumptions, materialism is arguably more complex than
|
||
spatiomaterialism, because its one assumption has a temporally
|
||
complex nature, whereas both of the spatiomaterialists' assumptions
|
||
are temporally simple. That is, aspects of regularities about change
|
||
that are merely assumed by spatial relationism are explained
|
||
ontologically by spatiomaterialism, including not only that bits of
|
||
matter have geometrically coherent spatial relations at every moment,
|
||
but that they change spatial relations only by motion and that they
|
||
do not interact at a distance. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Furthermore,
|
||
it might be argued that, if materialism builds these regularities
|
||
about change into its basic assumption about how bits of matter exist
|
||
together as a world, it is violating the spirit of ontological
|
||
explanation. Ontology tries to explain basic aspects of the world by
|
||
showing how they are constituted by substances that endure through
|
||
time with an unchanging nature. Since the basic relationship does not
|
||
endure through time on its own like a substance, but is merely how
|
||
the substances exist together as a world, it cannot be a source of
|
||
regularities about change in the same way as substances can. Thus,
|
||
not only does spatial relationism fail to explain ontologically why
|
||
bits of matter always have coherent spatial relations, it also fails
|
||
to account for them in the way expected of an ontology. In short, its
|
||
need to postulate a basic relationship with a temporally complex
|
||
nature is itself a reason for rejecting an ontology. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Although
|
||
materialism seems to be simpler than spatiomaterialism, therefore,
|
||
there is, in either case, a way in which it is more complex than
|
||
spatiomaterialism. Either its assumption about the essential nature
|
||
of matter is more complex, or its assumption about the basic
|
||
relationship by which material substances exist together as a world
|
||
is more complex. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Thus,
|
||
there is, at least, a standoff between spatial relationism and
|
||
spatiomaterialism on grounds of simplicity. And that means that
|
||
spatiomaterialism is favored by the empirical method, since
|
||
spatiomaterialism has a greater scope (explaining the possibility of
|
||
change by motion and by interaction). </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Furthermore,
|
||
the way in which spatiomaterialism is simpler than spatial
|
||
relationism also a way in which it explains aspects of the world that
|
||
spatial relationism can only assume. Spatiomaterialism can explain
|
||
ontologically why spatial relations are always geometrically coherent
|
||
(not just now, but in the future and past), whereas materialism must
|
||
build that assumption either into the nature of the matter it
|
||
postulates or into the nature of the basic relationship it assumes
|
||
bits of matter have. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Though
|
||
spatiomaterialism postulates two basic substances, rather than just
|
||
one, its ontological causes are simpler than those of spatial
|
||
relationism. But since both ontologies account for the same basic
|
||
facts, that means that spatiomaterialism explains more with less. At
|
||
the outset, we saw the greater scope of spatiomaterialism in its
|
||
ontological explanation of why bits of matter have spatial relations
|
||
and how change is possible (not to mention what will be show later,
|
||
that they change spatial relations only by motion and do not interact
|
||
at a distance). But in showing that spatiomaterialism is simpler than
|
||
spatial relationism, despite initial impressions to the contrary, we
|
||
have seen that its ontological causes explain another aspect of the
|
||
world that materialism can only assume, namely, why bits of matter
|
||
always have coherent spatial relations. In the end, therefore, it is
|
||
how spatiomaterialism explain more less than makes the decision in
|
||
favor of spatiomaterialism clear, at least, for naturalists who
|
||
accept the empirical method. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i><b>S<img src="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAABkAAADsCAMAAAC2aP37AAAAwFBMVEX////38PDv4ODt3Lzo2Ljn0NDfz7HezrDfwMDNv6PXsLDOoou4q5LMmZm1qJDHkJC/gICckXyYjXm3cHCHfWuBeGavYGCtZlekXlBwaFmmUFCYU0drY1WeQEBlXlCKRjxjW06ZMzN/PDN2MyyOICBtKiSGEBAtKSN+AAAeHBgAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADaBPt0AAACF0lEQVR4nO3Y8XPTIBQHcKBjY1EMM465uDdFGcb9/3/gSGjqFr7P67Xd3dS8H9JrP1cgLw8oFZs5zn89Pv48373diI3AcZZlQCEuWLlk5QMrH1m5ZuWWlXtWvv27EltjWgISZUvkRF+LM+O1a2vphU9MP50SyqJ+cgRvBWjNxfHqRS2mKU3WEpRyrpEB9dM793t4x+XNlbGR80sRcroTLU0ldhxvFLaWfkxzq10t1NhhUB5JLxKJhGSQ3jYDFGtkjyUIOQChnDHK6YzhFHlb5UAh55jqdbngnZEJiBmvumMkKQ9EGmNkg/rRROQV11qe+5w4ME+nfjSapzF3Q/Pnp8mbc+hOFSuGa+0PMt6PMeB+prwRsc/noH5MLVPectSyiL3El7w5KEZBWQz875EYOHkea95eMW/rPK1iL5ly00Ugwmax6PebmPpuwdiKGAtEj/uCjkA66vX8jaq1JD0jecMAT2E7Nl1LeTJpfkBvanf+f2Rd36rYb56W8wJYxUrF7wZxrJQ4VWsHSJmgEZ7AXsS+0vWMkJIJi+0aDyXKRAqKzcc2jdaqOC6kRgFxepwJsl7Jk+Sys/0pHAUtJWyX1vn12HqbOoD1JiMeW17jNSe9brk6CM8OlIsK8TJytWM1J2l3dK7qLSAp9RZOV2+rHCLr/0jLWPfTV9xPV8GCI8u7m89fvn7/8bCILGcXl++vPt3e3b+Muyfa5ttmrEo2VgAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==" name="OdfSSBSmOSt_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="25" height="236" border="0">patiomaterialism
|
||
is better than spatiotemporalism. </b></i>Substantivalism about
|
||
spacetime entails, as we have seen, the perdurance theory about the
|
||
temporal existential aspect of substances. But since we have already
|
||
seen that the empirical method in ontology requires us to prefer the
|
||
endurance theory to the perdurance theory of time, we ought to
|
||
believe either spatial relationism or spatiomaterialism rather than
|
||
spatiotemporalism. Both allow us to accept the endurance theory
|
||
(thereby giving us an explanation of why the present is different
|
||
from the past and future and allowing us to believe that change is
|
||
real in the sense of properties coming into existence and going out
|
||
of existence as time passes). But having established that the
|
||
empirical method prefers spatiomaterialism to spatial relationism
|
||
(that is, to materialism), we must conclude that spatiomaterialism is
|
||
the best ontological explanation of the natural world (assuming, of
|
||
course, that there is no fourth theory that is still better than
|
||
spatiomaterialism). </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Defenders
|
||
of spatiotemporalism will, however, object to this conclusion. They
|
||
believe they are forced to accept spatiotemporalism by contemporary
|
||
physics. Einstein’s discovery of the special and general theories
|
||
of relativity was a revolution that led to the overthrow of the
|
||
Newtonian belief in absolute space and time in physics. It is clear
|
||
that any ontology that holds that material substances endure through
|
||
time entails that space and time are absolute. To hold that the
|
||
substances constituting the world always exist at only one moment in
|
||
their histories is to hold that they all exist at the same moment,
|
||
for they are part of a single world and they must exist together to
|
||
be parts of the same world. Thus, if there are substances with
|
||
spatial relations to one another, the spatial relations they have at
|
||
the present moment hold for every possible observer. This is even
|
||
clearer, if space is also a substance, for in that case the spatial
|
||
relations are all constituted by a substance that exists only at the
|
||
present moment. Since that is to believe that space and time are
|
||
absolute, to choose to believe spatiomaterialism, or for that matter
|
||
spatial relationism, would be a counterrevolution in physics. Thus,
|
||
it is not likely to attract many followers among physicists and
|
||
philosophers of science.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">What
|
||
led physics to reject Newtonian absolute space and time in favor of
|
||
the spacetime of Einstein’s relativity theories was the empirical
|
||
method of science. Physicists were merely inferring to the best
|
||
explanation of what they could observe about the world. The special
|
||
and general theories both predicted quantitatively precise
|
||
measurements that were not expected by classical Newtonian physics,
|
||
and they have been confirmed repeatedly. Nor does anyone dispute the
|
||
mathematical simplicity of Einstein’s theories. The special theory
|
||
was a paragon of simplicity by comparison with the cobbling together
|
||
of ad hoc constraints by which Lorentz had proposed to explain the
|
||
same phenomena. The general theory of relativity was based on the
|
||
special theory, and though its mathematics was novel in physics,
|
||
there is no question about its elegance. These two theories were
|
||
clearly the best explanation that physics offered of the space and
|
||
time found in the natural world, and that caused a revolution in
|
||
physics, because neither theory had any use for absolute space or
|
||
absolute time. All that was required for them to be true was
|
||
spacetime, that is, the ontological equality of all points in space
|
||
<i>and time</i>.<sup><a class="sdendnoteanc" name="sdendnote1anc" href="#sdendnote1sym"><sup>i</sup></a>[1]</sup>
|
||
</font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
|
||
empirical method in science is, however, different from the empirical
|
||
method in ontology, and thus, what is the best scientific explanation
|
||
may not be the best ontological explanation. Science tries to explain
|
||
<i>what happens</i>, and thus, it infers to the best <i>efficient-cause
|
||
explanation </i>of what can be observed. Its criteria of truth are
|
||
prediction and control. But there is, as we have seen, a difference
|
||
between efficient-cause and ontological-cause explanations. Ontology
|
||
tries to explain everything in the world, not only what happens
|
||
there, but also what exists there — including the properties and
|
||
relations of the objects found in the world, and how it is possible
|
||
for anything to happen in the first place. Such things are explained
|
||
ontologically by showing how they are constituted by basic substances
|
||
and relations among them. Thus, empirical ontology tries to explain
|
||
the world most completely using the fewest and simplest substances
|
||
with the fewest and simplest relations. Though the goal of explaining
|
||
the most with the least is the same, the kinds of explanation
|
||
involved are different.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Since we
|
||
know on empirical grounds, that spatiomaterialism is the best
|
||
ontological explanation of the world, empirically minded ontological
|
||
naturalists must prefer it to spatiotemporalism, if it is possible.
|
||
Thus, the only relevant question is whether it is possible that
|
||
spatiomaterialism is true, given that Einstein’s special and
|
||
general theories of relativity are the best efficient-cause
|
||
explanations of all the relevant phenomena. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
|
||
answer is Yes. It is possible to explain all the observational
|
||
predictions of what will happen that is entailed by either the
|
||
special or the general theory of relativity on the assumption that
|
||
space is a substance enduring through time and, thus, absolute. To be
|
||
sure, spatiomaterialism must make certain additional assumptions
|
||
about the nature of space and matter and how they interact, which
|
||
are, in effect, new laws of nature. But it is possible. (And the fact
|
||
that spatiomaterialism is able to explain the truth of Einstein's two
|
||
theories is further reason for preferring it over spatial
|
||
relationism, because spatial relationism cannot explain them. It can
|
||
only assume them in the same way it does the geometrical coherence of
|
||
spatial relations.)</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
|
||
spatiomaterialist interpretation of Einstein’s special and general
|
||
theories of relativity is given a detailed defense below (in <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/Lo/LoOtkCaLbStr.htm" target="Lo"><font face="Arial, sans-serif">Change:
|
||
Special theory of relativity</font></a></u></font> and <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/Lo/LoOtkCaLcGtr.htm" target="Lo"><font face="Arial, sans-serif">Change:
|
||
General theory of relativity</font></a></u></font>), as one of the
|
||
implications of spatiomaterialism for physics. But we can see the
|
||
possibility of such an interpretation in the abstract, and since this
|
||
may seem unlikely to some, let me sketch briefly just how the truth
|
||
of Einsteinian relativity will be explained ontologically by
|
||
spatiomaterialism. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Given
|
||
the endurance theory of time, what substantivalism about space
|
||
implies is that only one moment in the history of each location in
|
||
absolute space exists. That is the present moment, and it is the same
|
||
for all of them, since the parts of space are all parts of the same
|
||
world. Thus, all that a spatiomaterialist interpretation requires is
|
||
that each and every part of space (along with the bits of matter
|
||
coinciding with parts of it) be in a state at the present moment that
|
||
is consistent with Einstein’s two theories. What that means is
|
||
that, among all the possible inertial frames, which relativity takes
|
||
to be equivalent, one, and only one, is true. This is not to say that
|
||
it is possible to determine by some measurement which one it is. That
|
||
is clearly precluded by Einstein’s theories; if it weren't, they
|
||
could not be called relativity theories. But it is equally clear that
|
||
there <i>can be </i>an inertial frame at absolute rest, even though
|
||
it is not possible to detect which one it is.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">What
|
||
makes such an easy accommodation possible is that empirical science
|
||
and empirical ontology have different criteria of truth. Since the
|
||
empirical method of science seeks the best efficient-cause
|
||
explanation of what happens in the world, its criterion of truth
|
||
depends on predicting and controlling what happens, and thus, given
|
||
that inertial frames are all equivalent in that regard, it can take
|
||
the truth to be <i>what is the same for all of them</i>. In ontology,
|
||
however, the empirical method seeks the best ontological-cause
|
||
explanation of what exists in the world. Its criterion of truth is
|
||
the simplest substances and relations that will explain everything in
|
||
and about the world, and thus, <i>it must explain how all the
|
||
different inertial frames could be part of the same world.</i> That
|
||
is something that science can take for granted, because one observer
|
||
can always predict what coordinates will be assigned by other
|
||
observers. And since the reasons for believing that there is an
|
||
absolute frame of reference are ontological, the lack of any
|
||
difference in the predictions made from different inertial frames is
|
||
not a reason to doubt that it exists.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
|
||
detailed spatiomaterialist explanation of the two relativity theories
|
||
shows, from the point of view of the inertial frame at rest in
|
||
absolute space (whichever one that is), how it is possible that all
|
||
the other inertial frames are observationally indistinguishable from
|
||
it. Here is the gist of the explanations given in CHANGE.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><b>The
|
||
special theory of relativity </b>implies that the various possible
|
||
inertial frames (that is, the various possible unaccelerated material
|
||
objects that might be used as the basis for measuring distances in
|
||
space and intervals of time) are all equivalent, making it impossible
|
||
ever to determine by measurement which one is at rest in absolute
|
||
space. But the undetectability of absolute rest does not mean that
|
||
there <i>is </i>no such thing. Indeed, as Lorentz began to show early
|
||
in the twentieth century, it is possible to explain the observational
|
||
equivalence of inertial frames which makes absolute rest undetectable
|
||
on the assumption that all the material objects are located in an
|
||
absolute space in which light has a constant velocity. Lorentz showed
|
||
that it would not be possible to detect absolute motion by
|
||
measurements of the velocity of light, if material objects with a
|
||
high velocity relative to absolute space suffered several distortions
|
||
(including the shrinking of their lengths in the direction of motion,
|
||
the slowing down of their clocks, and increase in their mass at a
|
||
certain rate). It is also possible to show that, if observers on all
|
||
inertial frames accept Einstein's definition of simultaneity at a
|
||
distance (and synchronize their clocks on the assumption that the
|
||
velocity of light is the same both ways, back and forth, in every
|
||
direction -- that is, as if they were at rest in absolute space),
|
||
those same "Lorentz distortions" will make all inertial
|
||
equivalent even when it comes to their measurements of one another.
|
||
(Observers on both of any pair of inertial frames will see the
|
||
other's clocks slowed down, the other's measuring rods as shrunken,
|
||
etc.) </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">In other
|
||
words, if we think of the effect of space on the material objects it
|
||
contains as the "ether" in which Newtonian physicists
|
||
thought that light had a fixed velocity (or what I will call an
|
||
"inherent motion" in space), and if we assume that the
|
||
motion of material objects through the ether has certain distorting
|
||
effects on them and their physical processes, then all of the
|
||
observational consequences of Einstein’s special theory of
|
||
relativity follow. We will have explained all the phenomena without
|
||
referring to spacetime. Thus, it is not necessary to give up the
|
||
assumption that space is a substance enduring through time to explain
|
||
what is described by Einstein's special theory of relativity. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><b>The
|
||
general theory of relativity </b>is a theory about gravitation
|
||
formulated in terms of spacetime. It holds, in effect, that matter
|
||
accumulation in spacetime imposes a curvature on spacetime, and that
|
||
in curved spacetime, the path of inertial motion is not straight, but
|
||
curved, or in other words, accelerated. But all the predictions that
|
||
follow from assuming that spacetime is curved can also be made on the
|
||
assumption that the velocity of light relative to space varies from
|
||
place to place in space. That is, the spatiomaterialist
|
||
interpretation of Einstein’s special theory of relativity is, in
|
||
effect, an ontological interpretation of what is meant by
|
||
"spacetime,"and that is what makes it possible to explain
|
||
the observational adequacy of Einstein’s general theory of
|
||
relativity on the assumption that space is a substance enduring
|
||
through time. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">As
|
||
suggested above, talk of "spacetime" can be replaced by
|
||
talk of an ether, in which the velocity of light is equal both ways
|
||
in every direction, though that is really just a way of describing
|
||
how space interacts with the matter it contains. In our ontological
|
||
explanation of the special theory, we assume that the ether is at
|
||
rest in absolute space and we explained all the other inertial frames
|
||
as observers on the one that is at absolute rest. In order to explain
|
||
the general theory, we assume that the ether itself can have a
|
||
velocity in space, one that varies across space according to the
|
||
accumulations of matter nearby. That means that the absolute velocity
|
||
of light varies from location to location in absolute space (that is,
|
||
at different locations in the inertial frame at absolute rest, from
|
||
which we are giving this explanation). But it also means that
|
||
material objects, which interact with one another by way of
|
||
electromagnetic interactions through the ether, are accelerated with
|
||
the ether, and such a moving, accelerated ether is what "curved
|
||
spacetime" comes down to ontologically, for as we shall see, it
|
||
explains all the observational predictions of the general theory of
|
||
relativity. It could all be just the effect that space has on the
|
||
light and matter it contains, if the right states for space to have
|
||
such effects are imposed on space by the accumulation of matter in
|
||
space. Precisely the same observational predictions follow from this
|
||
theory as from Einstein’s general theory of relativity, and thus,
|
||
it is possible that space is a substance enduring through time, that
|
||
is, absolute. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">These
|
||
sketches of the spatiomaterialist explanation of the truth of
|
||
Einstein's two relativity theories may be too brief for most people
|
||
to follow easily. But they are included here because even a
|
||
suggestion of the nature of these arguments may clarify what is meant
|
||
by saying that it is possible that spatiomaterialism is true,
|
||
notwithstanding the Einsteinian revolution in physics. But at this
|
||
point, it is still just a promise, and thus, we accept the obligation
|
||
to show in detail how it is possible as we take up showing what holds
|
||
necessarily, if spatiomaterialism is true. It is like taking out a
|
||
mortgage in order to construct the ontological foundation for this
|
||
philosophical argument. If it should turn out, as we build the
|
||
edifice of ontological philosophy, that relativistic phenomena cannot
|
||
be explained on the assumption that space is a substance existing in
|
||
time, spatiomaterialism will have been falsified and we will not be
|
||
entitled to use it as a foundation to support any conclusions about
|
||
the world. We will have to concede that we do not have a new way of
|
||
doing philosophy after all. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">As
|
||
it stands, however, spatiomaterialism is a better ontological
|
||
explanation of the natural world than either spatial relationism or
|
||
spatiotemporalism, because the latter two theories have opposite
|
||
failings. Spatial relationism (that is, materialism) can explain why
|
||
the present is different from the past and future (and, thus, can
|
||
hold that change is real), but it cannot explain spatial relations.
|
||
Spatiotemporalism can explain spatial relations, but it cannot
|
||
explain why the present is different from the past or the future,
|
||
that is, except as another kind of relation like that of space (and,
|
||
thus, cannot hold that change is real). Spatiomaterialism, however,
|
||
can explain both spatial relations and why the present is different
|
||
from the past and the future (and, thus, can hold that change is
|
||
real). </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<div id="sdendnote1">
|
||
<p lang="en-US" class="sdendnote-western" style="margin-top: 0cm"><a class="sdendnotesym" name="sdendnote1sym" href="#sdendnote1anc">i</a><sup>[1]</sup>
|
||
Thus, the acceptance of Einstein's theories was not merely the
|
||
result of empiricist skepticism about unobservable, theoretical
|
||
entities. The prevailing empiricism in the philosophy of science may
|
||
have been what inspired Einstein to formulate the special theory of
|
||
relativity, as is widely believed, but what led to its acceptance
|
||
was the scientific method. If absolute space and time had been just
|
||
unobservable entities mentioned by scientific theories, they would
|
||
have survived the philosophical doubts engendered by logical
|
||
positivism. After all, logical positivism did not convince
|
||
physicists to give up such unobservable theoretical entities,
|
||
including electrons, neutrinos, quarks, force fields and the like.
|
||
Doubt about the reality of absolute space and time came from their
|
||
<i>not </i>being mentioned by the best scientific theory of the
|
||
relevant phenomena. That is, there was no way to test, even
|
||
indirectly, whether or not they exist, because unlike theoretical
|
||
entities, they made no difference at all to what happens in the
|
||
world. It was the scientific method that led to their denial. In
|
||
other words, absolute space and absolute time were more like
|
||
metaphysical entities of the kind that the logical positivists had
|
||
originally and more justifiably intended to exclude from empirical
|
||
science, such as immaterial minds, immortal souls, and angels.</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
</body>
|
||
</html> |