It might be worth mentioning at this point that my claim of special relativity demonstrating the non-existence of space and time is not some casual remark prompted merely by the fact that space and time misbehave under the extreme conditions of intense gravitational fields and velocities approaching the speed of light.
Relativity is quite different to quantum mechanics in the sense that in the latter case the full implications are in your face right from the outset. You know pretty soon on what is being suggested – nothing is real. Relativity is different in the sense that the full implications – space and time not existing – are not immediately obvious. One is of course instantly confronted with the bizarre and counter-intuitive behaviour of space and time, but this doesn't lead to the immediate assumption that time and space simply do not exist.
When I have the time I would like to present the more rigid and compelling reasons as to why special relativity disposes with any idea of space and time being real. One of the central tenets of special relativity is that space is literally defined by events occurring in spacetime. Take all the events away and in the same stroke space itself disappears. It is the events that define space, and there are good ways to demonstrate this fact.
When I have the time I would like to present the more rigid and compelling reasons as to why special relativity disposes with any idea of space and time being real. One of the central tenets of special relativity is that space is literally defined by events occurring in spacetime. Take all the events away and in the same stroke space itself disappears. It is the events that define space, and there are good ways to demonstrate this fact.
There are however some basic facts about relativity that are at the very least suggestive of the non-reality of space and time. For instance there is no objective measure of the ordering of events. The notion of simultaneity demonstrably does not exist. Additionally from the point of view of massless particles such as photons time and space become not existent. To a photon there is no separation between events spatially or temporally.
It can be tempting to over emphasise the significance of the fact that relativistic effects only kick in under extreme conditions. This however would be missing the point, at least in the context of understanding what the theory is saying regarding the ontological nature of space and time. Irrespective of whether the effects kick in if I travel at velocities approaching the speed of light, if I am in the immediate vicinity of a black hole, if I wear dark coloured trousers or if I am wearing odd coloured socks, there is a certain irrelevance to this in the context of what I am talking about. The fact that time and space are malleable at all, under any condition whatsoever, transcends the details of what particular state of affairs lead to the temporal and spatial distortions. And this can very convincingly be shown as well.
Think of a world where durations of time are different for everyone. No-one can quite agree on the ordering of events and the speed at which events seem to occur differ for all individuals. This is the world in which you live, except for the fact that the effects are too miniscule to notice. Space and time are relativistic always! They don’t suddenly become objectively real simply because our perceptions of them correspond under normal everyday circumstances.
Anyway as I said I hope to be more rigid in justifying my claims later on. But the aforementioned statements do I believe at least start to cast doubt about the ontological existence of both space and time.
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