Why is the aether appealing?

While the aether may be dead in the scientific community, many still find the idea appealing. Take a look at the various physics and philosophy newgroups, and you'll find countless posts from countless authors of aether theories. Of course, they are cranks with little or no education in physics. But that isn't the point.

Why is the aether so appealing, in terms of ontology? Filling up the vacuum with a fluid like substance doesn't seem to simplify anything, so why do so many people find it appealing?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I think because you cannot have a real vacum. A space filled with nothing. Nothing is of the size of zero. The space would shrink.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Ultimately, all motion must happen upon a 'stable screen'.
Though matter may move through space, what does space move through?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

That's what I used think, until I realized there is nothing actual contradictory about a vacuum. Such a vacuum would be completely absent of matter, so one could say it is nothing if one takes "things" to mean matter. But the vacuum itself would be a volume, not nothing. Furthermore, I realized that substances don't give rise to geometric structure, but the illusion of substance comes from spaces. In other words, if you were to take an empty region of space and compare it to a so called "substance" of equal size, you would find that all properties added to the substance could just as well be added to the space, making the very notion of different substances redundant.

 

Space doesn't move through anything. As for matter, the only difference between it any seemingly empty space may be a matter of geometry. It's a case of empty=flat and full=curved.

 

Procop,
I think because you cannot have a real vacum.
Well a vacuum is completely possible, and exists in between gas atoms in the atmosphere. Unless ever single atom is touching atleast 2 others, there has to be a 'vacuum' in the middle.

Nothing is of the size of zero.
Nothing has an undefined size. A vacuum is not 'nothing'.

The space would shrink.
Why?

lifegazer,
Ultimately, all motion must happen upon a 'stable screen'. Though matter may move through space, what does space move through?
Ultimately, all motion must happen upon a 'stable screen'. Though space may move through 'stable screen', what does the 'stable screen' move through?

 

Wouldn't the vacuum still contain energy- light waves, electromagnetic, gravity. How could a vacuum be devoid?

 

Yes, fields and QM seem to rule out the possibily of an actual vacuum existing in the real world. But in terms of ontology, we can at least conceive of such a vacuum without needing to fill it up with a substance first.

 

RE: Persol

What is the difference between vacuum and nothing?

 

If space doesn't move, then you can say goodbye to the expanding universe.

 

Re: RE: Persol

A vacuum is a volume of space devoid of matter or energy. Nothing doesn't exist, by definition.

 

Read it again. You can have an expanding universe without the need for it to be expanding into anything.

 

Well it looks to me you suggest a baloon-like space ("space devoid of matter or energy"), (as I suggested above) it would colapse. (Or you have a baloon which can be in flated by blowing vacuum into it?)

 

Why would a vacuum collapse? Maybe you're thinking about various vacuums on earth, such as an empty bottle, etc. Those are unstable because the pressure on the outside is too great for the bottle to handle. I don't see any similar problem for space as a whole, especially considering 99% of the universe is empty, ignoring quantum effects.

 

OK. We have a volume of space(the universe) (expanding) for the sake of an argument an empty one: if we compare it to an universe full of substance

then the empty volume seems to be unbordered/endless. The substance-full universe can be expanding while the empty one cannot be such. ((Expanding) substance is different from non-substance (takes more volume while encreasing) while vacuum does not differ from non-vacuum. If it is well different then what this difference consists of?) Aether would cover this diffrence problem: vacuum filled with aether is different from non-vacuum.

 

Not necessarily. You can just as well postulate a finite empty volume.

This is an unsupported conclusion. Why on earth couldn't a vacuum expand?

What?

Empty=flat spaces, full=curved spaces. No substances required.

 

RE

Oh I see. So it is like a Middle Age discoverer coming to new land: "I declare this land to be a British teritory." That's the way you get vacuum?

And further:
Do you declare 2d space (purely mental concept) to contain vacuum?

It seems that vacuum is a mental concept of undiscribable/unexplainable entity (having no possitive qualities - its volume being basically a variable). Vacuum is the old fashioned nothing coated into a scientific term.

a/ so you have a solid (3d)
b/ you remove solid (vacuum is created)
c/ you remove vacuum (2d space is created)
d/ you remove >0d space (1 od point remains)

a factual happening
b-d mental process

alternative:
aa/ so you have a solid (3d)
bb/ you remove solid (no vacuum is created the previous place of the solid is past (in space-time) - does not exist any more)
cc/ what is thought to be vacuum is the past position of substances.

I declare vacuum=past.

 

'Vacuum' seems a strange way of describing nothingness. If there is nothing then there is no space or time. What sort of vacuum is that?

 

Re: Solids and substances

Since a volume is merely a continuous set of 2D areas, there is nothing wrong with a flat (Euclidean, not flat because it's 2D!) vacuum area. If area is purely a mental concept, then so is space.

But in reality, space seems to be real.

Volume is a property. So is curvature. So is energy density, and so forth.

I think the big mental block is the concept of solids and substances here. So let's do a thought experiment. Also note that physics has found that what we perceive as various substances in the form of solids gasses and liquids is merely the result of atoms bonding. You can walk through gas and not solids because of the strength of this. Anyway, to the thought experiment.

Take a volume of say, 10 cubic metres of pure vacuum, and then compare it to a volume of 10 cubic metres of what you would call a solid substance. As they both have the same size, try to define any additional property the substance would have the qualifies it as a substance. If you list the properties of both and compare, you will find that there is no property that could not just as easily add to the vacuum. This is especially true when you recall that atoms are the only thing that gives substances their density. A pure substance, not being made of atoms, would be a different case.

However, if you attempt to give everything a geometric explanation, you'll find that you can give different volumes differing density, simply by applying the idea that the more curvature in a given volume, the higher it's density.

 

I don't understand that. A vacuum with curvature, volume, shape, density, and more than one measurable dimension can hardly qualify as nothing. It seems to be just the usual fudge forced on any dualistic (inc. scientific) view of existence.

I would prefer to adopt a metaphysical 'Copenhagen interpretation', and say that what lies beyond 'something' (ie. existence) is monist and thus inexplicable, as both Buddhism and quantum mechanics suggests.

Philosophically I suppose this is what is known as neutral monism (a la Bertrand Russell), the notion that mind and matter arise from a single entity that is not nothing, and can never be nothing, since 'nothingness' is a scientific concept, used as a dualist opposite to 'something', and not a state that can actually exist by any broader (non-physicalist) definition of existence.

Hmm - muddled it up again as usual.