Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>>>>>   Space must exist, or else it would be impossible to postulate essential
>>>>> properties of physics, such as the Pauli exclusion principle. 
>>>> The Pauli exclusion principle is not part of GR. It's part of QM. :-)
>>>   How does that change the claim "space must exist"?
> 
>> I was saying that you're arguing that in GR space must exist, and using QM 
>> to prove it, and those are incompatible theories.
> 
>   I never said that in GR space must exist. I said that in this universe
> space exists. I don't know why you brought GR into this.

Well, I was talking about GR saying that space doesn't exist, and you said 
QM says space must exist.

But note that the Pauli exclusion principle doesn't mean space must exist. 
It means distance must exist. We already know that distance must exist. We 
don't know whether there's some underlying substrate (space) that makes 
distance exist even if there's no matter present.

>> And if you accept general relativity and the identity of acceleration and 
>> gravity, you have to throw away space as existing.
> 
>   That statement makes absolutely no sense.

Or, to phrase it differently, my understanding is that GR says that distance 
exists, but not space. If there's nothing to have distance between, there 
wouldn't be space.  When you make measurements, you're not measuring 
*against* something.  You don't say "this item is three units of space away 
from that one", you can only say "it's twice as far from that one as it is 
from the other."  That, I think, is what "background-free" means. There are 
no free variables in the equations that would represent space - they're all 
tied to positions of particles, which is why space is relative.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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