Theory of Everything?

As far as I can tell, in Newton’s concept of absolute space, it is beyond human perception. That is why the absolute frame of reference has to be assumed to exist. If that’s the case the “observer” could not be human in nature since by definition it’s humanly impossible to view “absolute space.”

There is a lot in your sentences there that I disagree, but I don’t know if it’s just because we have different definitions of things like “beyond human perception” or “humanly impossible”. Why don’t you write that sentence out in rigorous, precise mathematical language so that there is no room for misunderstandings?

Don’t have the knowledge needed to do that. But maybe this works.

If an omnipresent God exists, then Newton’s concept of “absolute space” would exist.

Maybe you should review Classical Mechanics by Taylor to understand how absolute space and reference frames are formulated in Newtonian mechanics. I am no longer convinced that your conception of “absolute space” is the same as Newton’s.

Not necessarily. For example in the hypertime model, such as the one expoused by @r_speir, or in the “divine time” model that @dga471 speculated in this site, there is no Newton’s absolute space. Rather, “God’s eye view” in this case is placed one dimensional higher than our Universe. There are many ways to have an omnipresent God without Newton’s “absolute space”.

OK. But I think it would certainly increase the probability significantly though. :slight_smile:

After reading up a bit more on the subject of absolute, or substantive, vs relative, or relational, explanations of space, despite the impression that seems to be prevalent that relativity of space is a done deal, it does seem among academia that it’s by no means a settled issue.

In fact it seems it’s no more settled than the issue of whether or not consciousness is real. It seems Newton’s rotating bucket experiment still holds as a substantial argument in favor of absolute space as far as observational evidence is concerned.

So I think I’m warranted in saying that as far as explanation is concerned, the discussion is still open as to which of the two theories is the best explanation. Here are a few links that address the topic:

Absolute and Relational Theories of Space and Motion
Substantivalism vs Relationalism About Space in Classical Physics
Newton’s Views on Space, Time, and Motion
Newton’s Scholium on Time, Space, Place and Motion
Absolute space and time

As far as I can tell, it really comes down to the issue of whether or not space can exist if it can’t be detected. It appears to me it’s the lingering debate over positivism, i.e., if everything can be reduced to physics and chemistry.

Here’s what I would say is a key excerpt from the second of the above links:

As Sklar puts it:

‘But why do some systems suffer no inertial forces, whereas others do? I offer no explanation. This is just a brute, inexplicable fact about the world. It seems clear that if one adopts this stance there is nothing incompatible with accepting… that some systems are acted upon by forces that others do not experience, accepting that the variation in the force suffered is a function of the relative motion of the varying systems, and maintaining a pure-relationalist account of space, time and spacetime. What we give up is the hope of “explaining” the occurrence of the forces in terms of some state of motion of the system suffering the forces.’ (pp. 230-1).

In response, the susbtantivalist may boast that she can explain why some systems suffer no inertial forces while others do: only the latter are accelerating through substantival space. And, in reply, Sklar may complain that this explanatory advance comes at the cost of the ontological extravagance of positing substantival space. So the question is which explanation of the water in the bucket is better overall: the ontologically economic one that stops at (1) and (2), or the ontologically extravagant one that goes further. As Sklar notes, this is now a philosophical question: the idea that one or other explanation is best ‘can only be philosophically justified, and hardly empirically confirmed or unconfirmed’ (p. 231). Indeed, Sklar says that his view fits best with a positivist view of science, which puts less value on explaining principles like (1) and (2) in terms of theoretical posits like substantival space. Thus, as anticipated earlier, the arguments for and against substantivalism – even ‘scientific’ arguments such as Newton’s – quickly bleed into deep philosophical waters!

No it does not. Indeed, to me it decreases the probability significantly, as I think that a god that needs Newton’s concept of absolute space is a weak and limited god. I think this way for any type of god that resides in space and time. An all powerful God that creates space and time itself should not live within space and time, but rather outside it. An all powerful God thus have no “frame of reference”, absolute or otherwise.

All of these arguments relate to whether absolute space exists in classical mechanics. In classical mechanics it is indeed an open problem. But classical mechanics is already known to be false. Also, as I mentioned before,

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That’s definitely something that can be disputed. But that’s a totally separate discussion.

I think if you’d take the time to read the articles, you’d find that what you’re saying is not correct.

The middle three links deals specifically with classical mechanics. They are out.

The last link mentions a little bit about GR, but the claim that there is possibility for absolute space comes from a non-peer reviewed paper that is not even good enough to be placed in the gr-qc section of the arxiv pre-print server.

The first link is too long for me to read at the moment (though I’ve read it before some time ago), so you will have to paraphrase their arguments for me.

Regardless,

I don’t know what your “absolute space” is anyway. It might be that your version of “absolute space” is not even supported by any of the links you provided.

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Nothing I have ever encountered in theology implies God requires absolute space and time. God is revealed as I AM, Alpha and Omega.

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Substantivalism vs Relationalism About Space in Classical Physics

Here, I outline some of the more philosophical aspects of the debate. To this end, I restrict myself to the debate as it plays out in the context of classical particle mechanics. … Our question is: Should we then be substantivalists or relationalists? The restriction to this sanitized setting is fruitful because it allows us to focus on philosophical issues that also arise almost verbatim in more realistic settings such as General Relativity, but without our having to get sidetracked in various technical complications of the latter. I will indicate how the lessons we learn carry over to more realistic settings as we go along.

Nor am I sure what yours is. However, I’m basically challenging the concept of space that depends on reference frames for its “existence.” That seems to be what relativity as an explanation of reality implies ontologically.

I don’t recall having said that the existence of God requires absolute space?

You quoted and bolded a sentence that has the word “General Relativity” in it, but it doesn’t make any claim or lay any arguments on how one can have absolute space in GR. Sorry, it sounds to me like you just Ctrl+F “General Relativity” and copied the passage to me…

Here’s my definition of Newton’s absolute space. This is the definition in classical mechanics. I am borrowing words from mathematics, because English itself is not sufficient to express these ideas. This is the same as borrowing the word Schadenfreude from German because there is nothing in English to express that idea.

Newtonian absolute space is:
A section of the principal Galilei bundle of the 3-space manifold.

Why:
Newtonian mechanics is Galileian invariant, thus the choice of one section over another is a gauge choice, and generates no observables. Therefore, I can choose one of these sections as privileged ontologically.

What about yours?

Again, these words makes no sense to me, but I think it might just be because we have different notions of what “reference frames” or “existence” or “depends on reference frames” means. That’s why I insist for you to use precise mathematical language.

Edit: @Jim just to give another detail on the article that you linked:

The author is talking about manifold substantivalism when they are talking about GR. This is a completely separate problem from Newtonian absolute space! Maybe you should read and understand your links first before quoting them to me…

Edit 2: @Jim
Actually, that article you linked dealt entirely on space substantivalism instead of absolute space, even when they are talking about Newtonian physics. Do you really not know the difference between space substantivalism and absolute space? If so, I don’t see how this conversation can be productive at all, as you don’t have the background to talk about these matters.

OK Jim, but you do seem to imply that absolute space has some sort of theological bearing or is somehow a deeper reality of creation. I do not see that it matters; if anything, I would be more concerned with questions of contingency.

Why would God not be omnipresent in relativistic space-time?

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Based on the link and quotes he gave me, @Jim might be confused between space substantivalism and absolute spaces. Relativistic space-times do not have any problem (besides philosophical ones, according to some people) with space substantivalism.

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I think I almost know enough differential geometry and group theory to grasp what that means. :smiley:

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OK. I see your point. Substantivalism is connected to absolute spacetime which is a similar, but not quite the same, concept as Newton’s absolute space.

Regardless, it seems to me the underlying question is the same no matter which particular mechanism is being discussed, which is, are space and time absolute or relative realities.

I think what might be the problem is the distinction between description and explanation is not being properly recognized. Here’s a question that might help get to the bottom of what I’m suspecting.

If it were proven that space was absolute would that mean that the equations of GR would no longer accurately describe observations of how matter behaves in space? If no, why not. And if so, why?

No, substantivalism (which substantivalism, space, time, manifold?) is not connected with absolute spacetime.

No, space or time being absolute or relative is not what space substantivalism is concerned with at all.

Absolute space, absolute spacetime, space substantivalism, spacetime substantivalism, manifold substantivalism, you seem to be confusing all of these. Maybe you should review these concepts first. Again, I recommend Taylor’s book on classical mechanics for the Newtonian concepts and Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler’s book Gravitation for the spacetime concepts. These will at least familiarize you with the language.

Before you understand what is absolute space, there is really no point in continuing this discussion… It seems that you don’t even know what you are asking. How can I answer this question:

If you don’t understand the theory? Does my answer:

Make any sense to you? If not, then you need to learn the language first before continuing the discussion.

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OK. Maybe I’m just in over my head here. But from a laypersons perspective, what it looks like to me is there are two separate discussions going on here that are mistakenly getting mixed together.

The first discussion involves the use of explanation as a conceptual framework for formulating equations, in this case absolute space for classical mechanics, and relative space for relativistic mechanics, and how that plays out as to which of those approaches provides the best formulation for describing how matter behaves in space.

The second discussion is regarding which explanation, in this case absolute vs relative space, of the observed behavior is most likely to be true. It seems to me that somehow the first discussion gets mistakenly mixed into the second discussion because of the impression that the first has something to say about the second.

But as I understand it, it’s possible to have different accurate formulations of mechanisms that are empirically equivalent conceptualized from different explanations, which suggest that no correlation can be made between accurately formulated mechanisms and the truth of the explanations from which they are conceptualized.

From my perspective, it needs to be recognized that it’s a mistake for the first discussion to get interjected into the second discussion, as it plays no role in the second discussion of the truth of an explanation, and only serves to confuse things.

It seems to me the correct approach would be to stick with the standard method used when evaluating explanation. Gather the available observational evidence, look for ways to explain that evidence based on reasonable inferences, and using reason, weigh competing explanations against each other to see which of the explanations best explains the evidence.

Now I’m not expecting you to agree with the case I’m making here. But I think my case is warranted. But I’m happy to concede to being wrong if given justifiable reasons for why such is the case.

This was done, and the explanation “Newtonian absolute space does not exist” is found to best explain the evidence compared to the explanation “Newtonian absolute space does exist”. No confusion of the “first discussion gets mistakenly mixed into the second discussion” happens despite your insistence.

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Am I correct in assuming you’re referring to the Michelsen-Morley experiment?