On 8 March 2014 15:13, Edgar L. Owen <[email protected]> wrote: > Brent, > > But we CAN see atoms. They are routinely imaged. That's just a matter of > using a powerful enough microscope. But we can't see empty space no matter > how good a microscope or telescope we make. > > That's why I pointed out it's an ontological difference. Seeing atoms is > just a matter of using the right observation device, but seeing empty space > is impossible with ANY observational device no matter how powerful.... >
The point was that in Mach's time that wasn't the case. So at the time there was no ontological difference, and I was making the comparison with Mach at the time. You have to understand the context when you attempt to answer someone else's points. Atoms were, however, our best explanation at the time for various observations, just as space is our best explanation for certain observations now. And as even Brent has now agreed, we don't observe anything directly - atoms, space-time or whatever, so the whole argument that space doesn't exist because we don't observe it begs the question of what we do actually observe. -- 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.
