Space and time as containers, Space divisibility, and Unrepeatability of events

TL;DR

This paper explores the qualitative nature of space and time, challenging traditional notions of emptiness, divisibility, and unrepeatability, and discusses implications for modern physics and scientific concepts.

Contribution

It provides a philosophical analysis of space and time, arguing against the idea of fundamental indivisible parts and highlighting qualitative differences between space and time.

Findings

Rejection of the idea of empty or homogeneous space as physically meaningful.

Indivisible parts of space and bodies are only conventional, not fundamental.

Time's nature is more complex than space, especially regarding event unrepeatability.

Abstract

Our main purpose here is to study some qualitative aspects of space and time. These include the notion of space and time regarded as the containers of respectively bodies and events, the divisibility of space, and the unrepeatability of events. We thereof argue that the ideas of an empty space, portions of empty space and a homogenous space are misleading when they are applied to realized space, and that they are therefore not suitable for space as a condition of corporeal world (as it is often assumed). We also show that smallest (indivisible) and "final" ("ultimate") parts of space and bodies have, at most, a conventional character, and not a "fundamental" one (as it is usually claimed). With respect to time and events, analogous conclusions follow. However, we claim that between space and time there exist rather big qualitative differences, which make time's nature much more difficult to grasp than that of space. In this sense, we discuss the impossibility of repetition of events and some of its applications in modern science, notably, probabilistic and statistical science. Some other implications of this study in conceptual ("philosophical") aspects of modern physics are briefly discussed, such as the "timeless" interpretation of general relativity, the notion of space-time, among others. Finally, some considerations about the usual conception and the scope of modern science in general, and modern physics in particular, are addressed throughout the article.