On the Nature of Spacetime
On The Nature of Spacetime
A specific definition of a truth and a truth system is presented here and used for sorting out concepts by their origin in the impossibilities that make them possible. The conclusion is that space does not really exist. This leaves the substance responsible for the experience of the passage of time as the only answer for the nature of spacetime.
Truths and Truth Systems
It is submitted here that a truth is an absence of choice. It is created by a truth system that is defined by at least one rule of impossibility that eliminates choices. This absence of choice is demonstrated when anyone following the rules of the system invariably comes to the same conclusion. Any system that is not choice limiting will produce “opinions”. The result of a particular set of free choices one makes.
To find impossibility is like finding a new truth system. As a case in point, it was noted by Prigogine in 1983, “ that curiously, the two great revolutions in physics over the century have been precisely connected with the inclusion of impossibilities in the frame of physics. In relativity a fundamental role is played by the velocity of lightwhich limits the speed at which we may transmit signals. Similarly Planck's constant h limits the possibilities of measuring simultaneously position and momentum”
In this paper we will use a new truth system based on a logical impossibility in order to separate the various truth systems involved in the questions about the nature of spacetime.
Common Sense vs. Science
A simple experience shows that we can’t logically compare the data of the observer and the complex analysis he makes of it.
In the evening an observer can go outside and see at the same moment, a star, the moon and the setting sun. This is data in the reality of the observer.
On the other hand, the observer’s scientific analysis of that experience shows that the star is maybe a few million light years away and is in practice, a few million years away. The sun is about eight minutes away and the moon about 1.5 second away.
To compare both points of view is to face a paradox. One cannot consider logically all three subjects as being concurrently at the same moment AND away in time. Both points of view are true and yet contradictory in appearance. The reason for this is that each point of view is created by a different truth system.
The observer’s reality is a truth system because he doesn’t have the choice of how to perceive it. Most choices are pre-determined or built into the way he is made. The observer’s analysis is also a truth, but a truth that belongs to another truth system, science.
In view of this logical contradiction, we don’t have any choice but to isolate clearly the observer’s data from the analysis of this data. This logical impossibility to compare truths from different truth systems is in itself the limitation necessary to define a new truth system, as a systematic basis for the investigation of what really exists.
Three Truth Systems
I use the above logical impossibility to separate our knowledge related to the question of the nature of Spacetime into three general truth systems.
The first truth system is the real universe or the universe as it is by itself.
The second truth system is the reality of the observer, or his direct experience of the real universe.
The third truth system is science, as the analysis that the observer makes of his experiences in reality.
These three truth systems form a progression in which the last two are the result of complex transformations from the previous one, transformations beyond simple logic. It is therefore not surprising to observe the logical impossibility between the two points of view as noted above.
From the progressive transformation above, I posit that it is possible to find the nature of the real universe by doing the reverse path. It would consist in removing the components embedded in scientific knowledge that are produced specifically by the observer.
I will use this approach to show that one such contribution, the concept of space,
has no existence in the real universe.
No space in the Real Universe.
Here I show that the speed limit of light precludes the concept of space from the real universe.
The observer creates the reality of the concept of space from the experience of seeing all the parts of any object, e.g., a ‘yardstick’ as being at the same moment.
But in the real universe with a speed limit, we know that any two points taken upon the same ‘yardstick’ are away in time from each other.
If we define a moment in time as a set of points, all at the same moment, (not away in time from each other), then a moment in time in the real universe is just an infinitely small point. This very small moment in time in the real universe is too small to contain the whole ‘yardstick’. Therefore the experience of space in the observer’s reality that the ‘yardstick’ represents, and the concept of space he carries over in science, has no possible existence in the real universe.
Next, we will see how the non-existence of space in the real universe partly answers the question of what is left of the concept of Spacetime.
The Nature of Spacetime
If we address Spacetime by meaning the model, we find that it is an element of knowledge in science, and it is therefore a method of describing what we know of space and time in the real universe, but written in terms that carry embedded the experience that generated it. It is not the meaning suggested by the question of its nature.
The question of the nature of Spacetime is “What’s true about it in the real universe?” or, “What is it by itself outside of the context of the observer’s experience?” That is the ontology of Spacetime. This means that the question addresses Spacetime, as the fabric of the universe.
The ontological answer has to be a substance. This term is in opposition to an experience, which is the result of how the observer interacts with the real universe. Something that exists in the real universe is a substance. Because space does not exist in the real universe, it has therefore, no substance.
This leaves us with Time.
When we measure time duration, it is an experience that we do by choice. But the passage of time is something about which we don’t have a choice. As a substance, it is something that we do not perceive directly but deduce from its effect on the rate of various events, of which a clock is but another example.
For these reasons it is suggested here that there is in the real Universe a dynamic substance, whose effect on the rate of events is what we experience as the passage of time.
In this presentation, I will elaborate on this concept of a “single dynamic substance universe” to describe a possible logical mechanism behind a physical phenomenon.
Conclusion.
It is presented here, that by the use of a specific definition of a truth, we may delineate with an account of logical impossibilities, the three truth systems involved in the study of the nature of Spacetime.
Furthermore, this logical partition allows us to demonstrate the non-existence of space in the real universe, as well as point out a substance, which we deduce from experience as the passage of time, as the most likely candidate for the fabric of the universe.
Marcel-Marie LeBel
2006-01-18
Prigogine 1983, “The Rediscovery of Time” A discourse given by Dr. Ilya Prigogine originally
prepared for the Isthmus Institute, presented to the American Academy of
Religion, December 1983
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