On Friday, March 7, 2014 3:52:33 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote: > > On 8 March 2014 01:21, Edgar L. Owen <[email protected] <javascript:>>wrote: > >> All, >> >> An empty space within which events occur does not exist. There is no >> universal fixed pre-existing empty space common to all events and observers. >> >> Why? Because we cannot establish its existence by any observation >> whatsoever. We NEVER observe such an empty space. All we actually observe >> is interactions between particulate matter and energy. In fact, all >> observations ARE interactions of particulate matter or energy, they are >> never observations of empty space itself. >> > > Observations are not in fact observations of interactions between matter > and energy, either. They are in fact interactions inside our brains, > hypothetically the reception of nerve signals by our brain cells. >
There are interactions inside our brains, but that doesn't mean that those interactions are literally our observations. It's not a fact, it's an assumption, and one which clearly has problems once you scratch beneath the surface. > > The idea of the existence of matter and energy, space and time (or more > modernly, mass-energy and space-time) is of course a hypothesis which we > use to account for the apparent regularities in our observations. You can't > throw out a hypothesis on the basis that we can't observe its components > directly because we don't observe any of reality directly, so on that basis > you end up with solipsism. > The assumption that it leads to solipsism is solipsistic. If the universe is a sensory experience, then there is no escaping our unity with it, in spite of local obstructions. If we can tell ourselves objectively what is and what is not solipsistic, then we are counting on some fundamentally trustworthy quality of our own reasoning and intuition. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
