more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
It makes no sense in ontology or modern physics to think of space-time as empty and propertyless. Space-time nicely fulfils the condition of a substratum.
Clarification
A 'substratum' is a propertyless bearer of properties
Gist of Idea
We can't think of space-time as empty and propertyless, and it seems to be a substratum
Source
C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6)
Book Ref
Martin,C.B.: 'The Mind in Nature' [OUP 2008], p.44
A Reaction
At the very least, space-time seems to be 'curved', so it had better be something. Time has properties like being transitive. Space-time (or fields) might be a pure bundle of properties (the only pure bundle?), rather than a substratum.
Related Idea
Idea 15481 I favour the idea of a substratum for properties; spacetime seems to be just a bearer of properties [Martin,CB]
| 14014 | Space alone, and time alone, will fade away, and only their union has an independent reality [Minkowski] |
| 21232 | Space-time arises from the connection between measurements of space and of time [Einstein, by Farmelo] |
| 15482 | We can't think of space-time as empty and propertyless, and it seems to be a substratum [Martin,CB] |
| 20640 | Space-time is indeterminate foam over short distances [Close] |
| 22931 | We distinguish time from space, because it passes, and it has a unique present moment [Le Poidevin] |
| 15194 | Time, as it appears in standard modern science, is bad verificationist metaphysics [Smith,Q, by Le Poidevin] |
| 14735 | Space is 3D and lacks a direction; time seems connected to causation [Sider] |
| 15021 | The central question in the philosophy of time is: How alike are time and space? [Sider] |
| 14588 | Modern metaphysicians tend to think space-time points are more fundamental than space-time regions [Hawthorne] |
| 14901 | Spacetime may well be emergent, rather than basic [Ladyman/Ross] |
| 14924 | If spacetime is substantial, what is the substance? [Ladyman/Ross] |
| 22913 | The universe expands, so space-time is enlarging [Bardon] |
| 19475 | Relativity makes time and space jointly basic; quantum theory splits them, and prioritises time [New Sci.] |
| 19955 | Space-time may be a geometrical manifestation of quantum entanglement [New Sci.] |
| 19948 | Einstein's merging of time with space has left us confused about the nature of time [New Sci.] |
| 23002 | In relativity space and time depend on one's motion, but spacetime gives an invariant metric [Baron/Miller] |