Is is true that we cann't image a world without space?

Forums: Space, Philosophy, Kant
Email this Topic • Print this Page

Kant said we can easily imagine an empty space without things, but we cann't imagine a world(i don't know what the word means) without space. Then Kant concluded that Space is a prior. How about we discuss about the topic? By closing my eyes and imagining, it seems to be true. But this is only a feeling of mine. Can this proof anything in logic? How do you guys feel while imagining?

Topic Stats
Top Replies
Link to this Topic

Type: Question • Score: 6 • Views: 11,757 • Replies: 121

No top replies

@lqiangecnu,

You have to believe. Suspend from yourself the things you have been taught and go back to that simpler time when all was possible. Imagine now a darkness, a void with copper color dots speckling it in an inconsistent pattern. That is space and each dot is a world all unto itself. Now look at the dot and examine it. Within the dot is space and that spot appears not to have anything within it. You have now seen space with nothing and nothing with space within it.

Space is unending and encircling and encompassing, so all is within space yet space is within space and nothing else. It's all a series of copper dots which aren't really there...then again, who knows if we are either. Maybe it's all in your imagination.

0 Replies

@lqiangecnu,

Space and time are Kant's a priori perceptual and conceptual presuppositions required by humans for their very survival. I can't argue with that except to suggest that "space" and "time" tell us more about our physiological nature than about the reality we organize with reference to them. Of course the reality is much more complex than this dualistic formulation. But that's another post.

1 Reply

@lqiangecnu,

Quote:

Kant said we can easily imagine an empty space without things, but we cann't imagine a world(i don't know what the word means) without space.

The Universe is probably finite. You think of it as a ball in space but that’s wrong, there’s no outside

Of course you can’t imagine a lack of space but there’s no reason you can’t conceive of its absence, a state of nothingness

Quote:

Then Kant concluded that Space is a prior.

Kind of simplistic and anyhow it could be taken to mean any number of different concepts or scenarios. Falls flat

Quote:

How about we discuss about the topic?

Happy to, will discuss near anything

Quote:

By closing my eyes and imagining, it seems to be true.

Forgive me Iq but what seems to be true

Quote:

But this is only a feeling of mine.

Ok that’s allowed

Quote:

Can this proof anything in logic?

Can what prove anything

Doubtless you’re making perfect sense to the Dedicated Philo but try for the Average Clod (me)

Quote:

How do you guys feel while imagining?

Imagining what

0 Replies

@lqiangecnu,

There is a general belief among physicists in a kind of basic Trinity -- space, time and motion. It is usually held that none of these can exist independently of each other. Time cannot exist without motion because motion is what time measures. And, of course, there can be no motion unless there is space to move in. QED, right?

But I wonder. . . Can space exist independently of the other two? Postulate empty space with no substances -- neither matter nor energy -- capable of motion therein.

Is it, then, still ‘space’ as we understand the word? Or has it become that which we call ‘nothing’? (If it has become ‘nothing’, then it no longer exists. )
The concept of ‘nothing’ is incredibly difficult for the human mind to grasp. We cannot visualize it, partly because ‘nothing’ would contain neither light nor even total darkness. Darkness would be ‘something’; it would imply the potential for light. (And light, of course, is very definitely ’something.’ It moves at a constant ,measurable speed. Ergo, if light, then motion; if motion, then space.) We can render the concept of ’nothing’ or ’nothingness’ mathematically, of course, but we can have no visual or otherwise sensory perception of it. There can be no statement about ’nothing is…’ because, quite simply, ’nothing isn’t.’

1 Reply

@lqiangecnu,

Quote:

Kant said we can easily imagine an empty space without things, but we cann't imagine a world(i don't know what the word means) without space. Then Kant concluded that Space is a prior.

Just to provide one of many potential quotes for the context:

KANT ... "Since, then, the receptivity of the subject, its capacity to be affected by objects, must necessarily precede all intuitions of these objects, it can readily be understood how the form of all appearances can be given prior to all actual perceptions, and so exist in the mind a priori, and how, as a pure intuition, in which all objects must be determined, it can contain, prior to all experience, principles which determine the relations of these objects.

"It is, therefore, solely from the human standpoint that we can speak of space, of extended things, etc. If we depart from the subjective condition under which alone we can have outer intuition, namely, liability to be affected by objects, the representation of space stands for nothing whatsoever. This predicate can be ascribed to things only in so far as they appear to us, that is, only to objects of sensibility. The constant form of this receptivity, which we term sensibility, is a necessary condition of all the relations in which objects can be intuited as outside us; and if we abstract from these objects, it is a pure intuition, and bears the name of space.

"Since we cannot treat the special conditions of sensibility as conditions of the possibility of things, but only of their appearances, we can indeed say that space comprehends all things that appear to us as external, but not all things in themselves, by whatever subject they are intuited, or whether they be intuited or not. For we cannot judge in regard to the intuitions of other thinking beings, whether they are bound by the same conditions as those which limit our intuition and which for us are universally valid." (P71-71; Critique of Pure Reason, Norman Kemp Smith translation)

1 Reply

@G H,

G H wrote:

It is, therefore, solely from the human standpoint that we can speak of space, of extended things, etc. If we depart from the subjective condition under which alone we can have outer intuition, namely, liability to be affected by objects, the representation of space stands for nothing whatsoever. This predicate can be ascribed to things only in so far as they appear to us, that is, only to objects of sensibility. The constant form of this receptivity, which we term sensibility, is a necessary condition of all the relations in which objects can be intuited as outside us; and if we abstract from these objects, it is a pure intuition, and bears the name of space.

Exactly.

0 Replies

@Lustig Andrei,

space, time,and the five forces all in motion.

1 Reply

@farmerman,

Yes, well, the key word is "motion." Anything that has 'existence' (for want of a better word) is in motion. If every living thing on this planet, including all the microbes etc., were to die off, leaving the earth barren, we'd still be hurtling through space at unimaginable and incredible speeds.

1 Reply

@Lustig Andrei,

only if the 4 forces were either too large or too small. We seem to fit into a "comfort zone" of constants.

Nothing supernatural intended, there were about 400000 "second/years" before these constants were "settled " into.

1 Reply

@farmerman,

You say "nothing supernatural intended" but it does raise some interesting platforms for speculative thinking, no?

1 Reply

@Lustig Andrei,

Not really , sinceevery day in electrochemistry specific reaction rates of random admixtures of the metals in a magma gradually adjust as the tempoerature and pressures change. I see no reasoin why the governing rates of "atomic adhesion" cannot similarly happen. AS Dr Green said, "remem ber, it took over 400000 years after the Big Bang to differentiate the strong forces to resolve and for stff like Hydrogen Helium and Lithium to form all the while everything ios expanding. Gravity came first and the G is the only one that has been variable through time

Supernatural is a "place holding: hypothesis for just about any phenom until we understand fully how it works.

To me a "miracle" is just another unexplainable event. (temporarily so).

2 Replies

@farmerman,

Right, trivial perhaps but true. Miracles are like UFOs, simply flying objects that have not been identified...yet.

0 Replies

@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

Supernatural is a "place holding: hypothesis for just about any phenom until we understand fully how it works.

To me a "miracle" is just another unexplainable event. (temporarily so).

I totally agree with that. I detest the word "supernatural" and a "miracle" is just an as yet unexplained phenomenon. (However, that phenomenon might be not only unexplained but unexplainable because incomprehensible to our limited mental capacities. I believe hat, too.)

1 Reply

@Lustig Andrei,

“Supernagural” and “miracle” equate with “impossible”. Not even She can do what can’t be done; She is a natural phenom

0 Replies

Quote:

"It is, therefore, solely from the human standpoint that we can speak of space, of extended things, etc. If we depart from the subjective condition under which alone we can have outer intuition, namely, liability to be affected by objects, the representation of space stands for nothing whatsoever. This predicate can be ascribed to things only in so far as they appear to us, that is, only to objects of sensibility. The constant form of this receptivity, which we term sensibility, is a necessary condition of all the relations in which objects can be intuited as outside us; and if we abstract from these objects, it is a pure intuition, and bears the name of space.

disagree

space is more than a subjective condition

space is more fundamentally about the ability to manifest in the first place

inotherwords without " space " something has no ROOM to be , to existence in the first place

1 Reply

@north,

Quote:

in other words without " space " something has no ROOM to be , to existence in the first place

North that’s a very intriguing assertion. I’ve speculated intuitionally that the reason for gravity surrounding an object is that matter “pushes space out of the way” so the attractive quality owes to a sort of “stress” in that area, leaving the question whether matter can indeed exist without space

In any case space is surely an objective reality since it’s capable of being squeezed and stretched

1 Reply

@dalehileman,

Define "space."

In my view, nothing can exist without space to exist in. If there is one condition that is not subjective but, rather, universal it is space. (See my first post above re: whether space can exist independently of motion within that space.)

Unless you have a unique definition of "space."

1 Reply

@Lustig Andrei,

Quote:

In my view, nothing can exist without space to exist in.

Yes I can well understand that view but maybe it’s wrong

Quote:

Unless you have a unique definition of "space."

That which surrounds a solid

….though I do have that old feeling that somehow we’re engaged in something purely semantic

1 Reply

@dalehileman,

dalehileman wrote:

….though I do have that old feeling that somehow we’re engaged in something purely semantic

Very likely so. That's why I asked for a definition. For me, space is that which contains evrything else. Nothing can exist without space because there would be nowhere for it to exist. And this is true of energy as well as matter (extension).

3 Replies

Is is true that we cann't image a world without space?

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know