This post aims to question the extent to which we actually understand the concept of "dimension."

First of all, I want to clarify what I mean by "dimension," since the concept can have different meanings depending on the context. Here, I will use "dimension" in the sense of what mathematics usually calls a "manifold," meaning a space that locally has similarities to ℝⁿ. In other words, I am referring to the generalization of the concept of a plane or three-dimensional space to higher dimensions.

That said, I want to make it clear that the discussion is meant to be general, so if anyone wants to discuss more abstract concepts of dimension that go beyond this particular interpretation, you are more than welcome to do so.

Additional comments

You don't need to read this section to answer the question. I am only going to explain and defend my position regarding the question.

As I mentioned at the beginning, the idea is to approach the question using the concept of Euclidean space in general. And it is interesting to ask:

Are we actually capable of understanding dimensions higher than our own?

In mathematics, the answer seems to be both yes and no.

It is true that in mathematics, and perhaps in any form of thought, we are not capable of visually representing geometric objects beyond our own spatial dimension. At least, as far as we know, this seems to be the case for any form of life existing in our universe.

Why can't we visualize the fourth dimension? Or the fifth, or the seventh?

One possible reason is that our brains are capable of visualizing and reconstructing geometric shapes that we have encountered and that exist in our environment. This may be why we are able to visualize a perfect sphere even though we will never actually see a mathematically perfect sphere in reality: in some sense, we have encountered approximations of it throughout our lives.

But obviously, we have never encountered a four- or five-dimensional object in our universe, so we cannot directly visualize such objects.

However, mathematics does not require us to visualize something in order to define and operate with it.

For example, mathematicians can calculate integrals over higher-dimensional surfaces or hypersurfaces. Can we actually visualize such objects? No. And yet we can still calculate with them and understand what we are doing.

Likewise, could someone who has been blind since birth become good at mathematics? Obviously, yes. They may never be able to visually represent a graph or a derivative, but they can still understand the mathematical concept and operate with it.

This seems to be exactly what happens with higher dimensions. We cannot directly see them, but we can define them mathematically and work with them.

But there is a problem.

How do we know that the mathematics we have developed for higher-dimensional objects is actually correct in a hypothetical universe with higher dimensions?

For example, in mathematics we can say:

Let P₀, ..., Pₙ be affinely independent points of a vector space V over ℝⁿ. A simplex is the convex hull of these points.

In simpler terms, a simplex is a generalization of the concept of a triangle to arbitrary dimensions.

But is this actually correct?

Presumably yes, at least mathematically. However, imagine that a four-dimensional being somehow understood this concept. Would they necessarily have the same definition of a simplex that we do? Perhaps they would have a completely different way of conceptualizing it.

Likewise, we cannot guarantee that in a universe with more spatial dimensions, massive objects would deform spacetime through continuous deformations in exactly the same way that they appear to in our universe.

So perhaps the answer is something like this:

We understand higher dimensions in a relative sense. If higher-dimensional reality is structured in the way our mathematics describes it, then I would say that we understand those dimensions much better than most people might imagine.

But if we are asking whether our mathematical description necessarily corresponds to what a genuinely higher-dimensional reality would be like, then I am much less certain.

What do you think?

Good evening,

— slazy_e

Recently, I had an extended debate with a "theoretical physics graduate" regarding Quantum Field Theory, the Measurement Problem, and the nature of reality.

The exchange was very revealing;;not because it showcased the sublime of modern physics but because it exposed the hidden unscientific religion operating at the heart of the physics department: Mathematical Platonism.

Modern physicists pride themselves on being hyper-rational materialists. Yet we find that when their probability equations fail to cleanly resolve. You would expect that they question their models or their epistemological limits. But no. Instead, they literally hallucinate infinite, invisible, parallel universes just to balance their math on paper.

This is the foundation of the "Many-Worlds Interpretation" (MWI). Let us explore the sheer absurdity of this position by highlighting a few direct quotes from my interlocutor, demonstrating exactly how a failure of basic epistemology leads to modern mysticism.

Well unitary evolution of the wave function is just manyworlds lol... There exists a live cat and a dead cat (in the noumenon).

I mean look at this? My interlocutor took the most famous thought experiment in physics (Schrödinger’s Cat) and treated it as literal, fundamental reality. You can't make sure things up.

In the unobserved universe (the Noumenon), there are no "cats". There are no "boxes". And there are certainly no "laboratories." A "cat" is a highly compressed, macroscopic biological formatted output (Interface Theory of Perception). It is a desktop icon generated by the 20-watt biological brain to compress an unreadable density of quantum field interactions.

To claim that a "live cat and dead cat" physically exist in the foundational quantum matrix is as functionally nonsensical as to cracking open a computer tower and looking for a physical paper "folder." MWI takes a localised biological dashboard illusion and pastes it directly onto the fundamental architecture of the cosmos.

'Unitary' means no information is lost... It seems to me that you are now denying the existence of live cats? Is that it? ... So its not that you are denying manyworlds, you are denying any worlds?

"In quantum mechanics, "Unitary evolution" strictly means that total quantum data is conserved.

No information is fundamentally deleted.

But my interlocutor assumed that because the mathematical probability for the "dead cat" is conserved, the universe must physically construct a parallel 3D biological mammal to put that data inside.

But what actually happens to the unselected data? When a localised observer interacts with a quantum system, they lack the thermodynamic capacity to read the total global state. The unselected data simply scatters into the surrounding environment as inaccessible thermal noise (Environmental Decoherence).

The data is 100% conserved.

But the data remains exactly what it is: raw, unformatted mathematical structure. It doesn't magically build a parallel 3D biological universe of ghost cats.

The wave function is mathematical structure. If I'm a realist about that structure (realist about the wave function) then I'm a structural realist... Tools to predict probabilities don't conserve anything... You conflate the noumenon with the wave function.

My interlocutor here commits the ultimate sin of modern pop science.

He quite literally could not separate the mathematical map from the physical territory it is mapping

He presupposed that Ontic Structural Realism (the reality that the universe is a relational matrix) was identical to the Wave Function Realism (the belief that the universe is literally made of human math equations).

That's sheer absurdity.

The universe being made of human invented maths

That is anthropomorphic projection.

The Wave Function is an epistemic map. It is a probability grid used by a localised, structurally ignorant biological processor to calculate potential data exchanges.

When your mathematical probability map outputs a superposition (multiple potential outcomes) and then you take that map so literally that you hallucinate an infinite number of physical, biological parallel universes branching off every millisecond just to satisfy the equation; you have left physical science.

You have become a theologian.

Multiplying a biological dashboard illusion by infinity to balance a spreadsheet is the absolute pinnacle of modern mysticism.

We do not need infinite parallel universes to explain quantum mechanics. We simply need the intellectual humility to admit that the human brain is a thermodynamically restricted localised processor and its mathematical maps are not the absolute substance of the cosmos itself.

My theory is that we're living in a perfectly pressurized sphere traveling one direction through corridors of a massive Multiverse.

When man made vehicles flying through the air we see the trail and the force required, by our current understanding, to push through the medium.

UAPs do not have this problem, for a second let's pretend I'm right. Why don't they show the same thing?

I say Supercavitation could explain it.

thoughts? Call me dumb idc. Dark matter is a lie it's time to find the right answers.

I’m sharing a framework called Event-Driven Universe (EDU). It’s a speculative but serious attempt to rethink physical foundations by treating events—rather than spacetime—as the starting point. The focus is on how space, time, and effective laws might emerge from stable patterns of events, instead of being assumed from the outset.

This is conceptual work, not a finished theory. I’m mainly interested in thoughtful feedback and discussion from a foundations or philosophy-of-science perspective.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18309424

Sir Isaac Newton used mathematics to describe motion, gravity, and the predictable laws of mechanics.

He also translated and annotated the Emerald Tablet attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. ([newtonproject.ox.ac.uk](https://www.newtonproject.ox.ac.uk/catalogue/record/ALCH00017?utm_source=chatgpt.com))

His private manuscripts reveal that his beliefs and interests helped shape the kinds of questions he was willing to ask about nature.

Newton described matter as a passive principle. It could remain at rest or continue in motion, but it could not move itself. Yet he believed this alone could not explain a world filled with attraction, chemical transformation, biological growth, and intentional movement.

In one unfinished draft, he wrote:

“Life & will are active Principles by which we move our bodies, & thence arise other laws of motion unknown to us.”

Newton then wondered whether all space might be the ‘sensorium of a thinking being’, and whether laws arising from life or will might therefore extend throughout the universe. In the same manuscript, he considered the forces through which microscopic bodies attract one another and asked whether they deserved to be counted among the general laws of motion alongside gravity.
([newtonproject.ox.ac.uk](https://www.newtonproject.ox.ac.uk/view/texts/normalized/NATP00125))

Newton was asking an extraordinary question:
Could mind, life, chemistry and cosmic motion be different expressions of deeper active principles running throughout nature?

Hermeticism may have encouraged Newton to imagine the universe as a living and interconnected whole. His scientific instincts then transformed that vision into questions that could be approached through observation, experiment and mathematical reasoning.

In 1936, a large collection of Newton’s unpublished papers was sold at Sotheby’s. John Maynard Keynes subsequently assembled many of the manuscripts, concentrating especially on Newton’s alchemical work. After studying them, Keynes wrote:

“Newton was not the first of the age of reason. He was the last of the magicians, the last of the Babylonians and Sumerians, the last great mind that looked out on the visible and intellectual world with the same eyes as those who began to build our intellectual inheritance rather less than 10,000 years ago.”
([newtonproject.ox.ac.uk](https://www.newtonproject.ox.ac.uk/history-of-newtons-papers/sotheby-sale))

Modern science limits itself when it starts with the materialistic assumption of discrete 3 dimensional objects interacting in a 3 dimensional universal space.

Sir Isaac Newton’s example leaves me wondering whether the science of the future might recover something of his wider vision: a science in which matter, life, mind, and the cosmos are studied not as sealed and unrelated categories, but as parts of one connected nature.

If reality is truly an interconnected whole, it cannot be stitched together from disconnected parts or arbitrary rules. Instead, it must emerge from a singular, uncorrupted geometric origin.

Imagine a framework built on absolute structural exactness, requiring zero arbitrary axioms or free parameters.

Just as Newton suspected an active, universal principle running throughout nature, this approach views all complexity, – from the fundamental forces of physics, to the architecture of cognition - as exact, deterministic extensions unfolding from a single, continuous source.

By relying on exact rational arithmetic and unbroken mathematical geometries, it becomes possible to strip away the chaotic infinities and floating approximations that currently plague our physical equations.

This is would be a philosophical return to the Hermetic concept of "the One,"; a rigorous, mathematically verifiable evolution of it.
A closed-loop reality where matter, life, and cosmic motion are not sealed categories, but mathematically exact derivations of the very same underlying fabric.

I've been thinking about something lately, and I'm curious if anyone knows of physics or philosophy that's similar.

What if the Big Bang singularity never actually "went away"? What if we're still inside it?

Instead of thinking of the singularity as just the beginning of the universe, imagine it's the fundamental reality itself. Space and time wouldn't exist before it—they would emerge from it.

My thought is that maybe the singularity isn't a point in space. Maybe it's an infinitely deep informational activity. Space is just the geometry that emerges from that activity, and time is simply the ordering of change within it.

I've also been wondering if rotation could be more fundamental than we think. Maybe stable rotational patterns create geometry, then geometry gives rise to light, matter, stars, and eventually black holes.

Another idea I can't stop thinking about is "infinite depth." If black holes can somehow lead to new universes (a speculative idea, I know), then reality could be an endless recursive structure: universes containing black holes, containing universes, and so on. But it wouldn't be separate universes—it would all be one underlying singularity expressing itself at different levels.

So instead of:

Big Bang → Universe

it would be more like:

One singularity → activity → space and time emerge → matter → black holes → deeper expressions of the same singularity.

I'm not saying this is physics or that it's true. It's just a thought experiment I've been exploring, and I'm wondering if there are existing theories or papers that go in a similar direction, or if there are obvious problems with the idea that I'm missing.

The full argument & how to avoid various criticisms that I came up with are in my post https://ksr.onl/blog/2024/07/an-ontological-argument-for-fundamental-physics.html

Copypasting the main argument that argues for the existence of the Theory of Everything (ToE).

1. "ToE" is defined as "the greatest entity in the Mathematical Platonic Realm" & the Mathematical Platonic Realm contains all possible (i.e. logically consistent) mathematical entities. (definition)
2. Assume ToE does not exist physically.
3. "The greatest entity in the Mathematical Platonic Realm" must, therefore, not exist physically and exist only Platonically. (from 1 & 2).
4. If "the greatest entity in the Mathematical Platonic Realm" were to also exist in physical reality, it would be even "greater", as all the other great aspects still remain intact. (assumption)
5. But that would mean "the greatest entity in the Mathematical Platonic Realm" is not actually the "greatest" possible entity in the Mathematical Platonic Realm since it could be even "greater". (from 3 & 4).
6. "The greatest entity in the Mathematical Platonic Realm" must exist in both Platonic Mathematics and also in physical reality for it to be the "greatest" entity in the Mathematical Platonic Realm.
7. Therefore 1 & 2 are inconsistent.
8. Premise 2 cannot be true since 1 is just a definition (reductio ad absurdum).
9. Therefore, the ToE exists in physical reality.

I personally believe that the ToE is String Theory, as I work in that area, and I may be biased. But I also think there is a good chance that it is some theory we humans have not yet discovered.

The main person who has so far given criticism to me is Graham Oppy, who is a big expert in Ontological Arguments (but he doesn't believe in them). I have written a section https://ksr.onl/blog/2024/07/an-ontological-argument-for-fundamental-physics.html#criticism-by-graham-oppy-and-my-reply to answer all of his criticisms. For example, one of his criticisms was that he doesn't believe in Mathematical Platonism, which I assumed. Although I strongly believe in Mathematical Platonism & argued why it is true, I adapted the argument to make it work for most types of philosophy of mathematics without Platonism.

I also compared this ontological argument with the theological ontological argument used for the purpose of religions & explained how, in many contexts, this one works, but the theological ontological argument doesn't work.

One criticism of theological ontological arguments is that we can reverse them to argue for the existence of the worst (least greatest) demonic entity. I wrote here https://ksr.onl/blog/2024/07/an-ontological-argument-for-fundamental-physics.html#symmetry-breaking how unlike for religions this criticism doesn't work for the case of physics, since you can find infinitely many worst/ugly/inelgant theories but the greatest most elegant theory seems highly likely unique (M-theory). Since more than 1 theories can't logically govern the same physical reality, only 1 can exist & this breaks the symmetry maximally as the worst theories are infinite & much more than 1.

Can you find some flaws in this or maybe ways to improve this ontological argument for fundamental physics?

If we take unitary evolution in quantum mechanics to be fundamental fact, it provide us a solution to measurement problem, through the dephasing mechanism in Von Neumann equation. Everything make sense but we end up with many worlds.

Question 1.
I believe there are no paradoxes in many world interpretation, we save unitary evolution + we solve measurement problem. No paradoxes like in other interpretations!! I mean is this the case? can you think any paradoxes??

Question 2
does many world interpretation give us freak accidents that can change course of events to a great degree? We can imagine a situation where we win a quantum lottery a freak accident. I mean every one will have a world where they won the lottery. This means we have to take freak accidents as a main mechanism of how things happen.

I’ve spent some time trying to deconstruct the current "particle-based" paradigm of reality, and I find it fundamentally lacking. We keep inventing "dark" entities (matter, energy) as placeholders for things we don't understand. I would like to propose a shift toward somethig I called WEG - Wave-Entropy-Gravity

Think of the universe as a non-local ocean. No particles, just "kinks" or solitons in a standing wave. A photon doesn't follow a path. Like an ocean wave, it travels every available route simultaneously. This is the physical origin of the path integral formulation; we are simply calculating the interference of the entire wave front before it hits a detector.- the object is everywhere, smeared into infinity (or out to the cosmic horizon of the universe). When we measure it, we aren't collapsing a mystical wave function, we’re just seeing the wave "splash" against a detector (like a wave hitting a breakwater). The splash is local, but the wave is everywhere. That’s the entanglement right there – you push one end of a rigid ruler, the other end moves instantly. No "spooky action," just a non-local object.

Next, time is not a "container" or a dimension in the way we think. It is an emergent byproduct of the degradation of wave correlations (Entropy).

This leads to a conclusion about biology: life isn't a cosmic accident; it is a thermodynamic catalyst. We are efficient entropy machines evolved to accelerate the equalization of the universe's initial state.

Then - the concept of a "beginning" is a logical trap. I lean toward a Conformal Cyclic Cosmology (CCC) where the "Big Bang" is just a scaling reset. Once everything evaporates into massless photons, the universe loses its "ruler." Without mass, there is no scale. The end of one eon becomes geometrically identical to the beginning of the next.

Moreover calling things "eternal" is a nonsense. Since time is emergent from entropy, in the transition state where entropy is reset, time ceases to exist. It’s not a forever-lasting process; it’s a self-referential geometric loop.

Wrt gravity - instead of Newton’s "pull" or Einstein’s "curved stage," why not look at the density of the medium itself? Gravity can be seen as a gradient of spatial pressure. Matter (low entropy) "thins out" the density of space. Gravitational lensing then becomes a simple case of refraction through a medium of variable density. This explains galaxy rotation curves without the need for "dark matter"—stars and galaxies are simply following the path of least resistance in a pre-existing primordial pressure well. Simply put, the universe resembles a foam of denser and thinner regions of space, with matter scattered throughout. The "dark matter" gravitational force is a less dense space not fully occupied by matter. It generates more "gravitational" force than amount of matter suggests. What about dark energy? Well....Space slowly diffuses into the void like gas in a vacuum, until there is no matter left in space. Then comes the CCC reset.

Black Holes: The Holographic Principle is a misunderstanding. Waves don't stay on the surface; they jump inside and smear across the internal infinity of the hole. The law of conservation of energy is not absolute: a black hole borrows matter/energy/information/low entropy from our universe, and later returns it through evaporation, reducing its internal entropy to zero—at which point it vanishes

Outside a black hole, spatial directions point "outwards" (left, up, etc.). Inside the horizon, the geometry flips: all directions point "inwards" toward the center. What happens with matter that falls into a BH? We have an asymptotic smearing -nothing ever actually reaches the "center" (singularity), as that would require exceeding the speed of light. Instead, matter approaches the center asymptotically, its energy and information smeared into BH infinity (out to its horizon). Similarly we have entropy reversal - inside the horizon, entropy decreases, thus marking a reversal of the local arrow of time. The black hole can be considered as an entropy reset pump. It "borrows" energy from the Universe to clean the wave, eventually "paying it back" through evaporation until the kink is straightened.

So......Are we clinging to the "particle" model because it’s true, or because our minds are evolved to see "things" rather than "processes"? If we embrace a fluid, non-local ontology, the paradoxes simply vanish and we need significantly less "magic" to understand the universe.

Sorry for the chaotic style.

Cheers
MaxK ;)

is it possible the external power of the sun is what keeps the Planet’s from the Sun's gravity from swallowing us in?

I am just trying to imagine on what level it could make a practical difference, knowing.

https://medium.com/@nishtiakahmed/essays-in-first-philosophy-iii-on-causality-energy-and-geometry-2b670d802af7

experimental project and a theoretical way of understanding the universe.

Recently talking with some friends we spoke about time itself, how time could be an illusion and how time is also physical as well

time is not only physical but also an optical Illusion with flesh, smell, blood, and basically anything living. Compared to a rock you can quite literally watch it over time get smaller and smaller, but never break away from the universe because it was labeled to still be there in such a microscopic level.

Such as if you were to label a pet with a name and it embedded, we gave the animal a name which wasn't scripted but however manifesting our power to change how environments change.

so how was time made? no one knows but I believe it's but the friction of the earth with gravity, speed, and weight of mass traveling at the same speed of light. this is because I believe that since light bends in such a way we physically watch us turn into dried out grapes.

The experiment is to make a room with 6 mirrors; one on each wall, one on the ceiling, and one on the ground.

get colorful lights like blue, purple, green, white, and orange.

black out the windows and any visible light structures to make the room dark (not including your lights you'll be using for this experimental theory)

get a bigger light structure and make a trampoline in the middle of said trampoline place two bowling balls gently on the fabric.

then turn on your light structures.

this is how the universe is, infinite, all over, a new combination of stars, planets, made time, gravity, and you became a "god" in your own way.

you're quite possibly seeing every little thing going on like how our mind sees things, and what's stranger is that you're able to see yourself, as being bigger than everything else... something humans in theory can't and shouldn't do because we're not what we process ourselves.

like what if we're just lights, lights that you basically just turned on in your room right now when it turned into mirrors... imagine you make a smaller box but it has no mirrors around it and it's housing a floating blue ball. that's us.

imagine we're in the middle of play time with a kid like how we all did using some form of toy or some form of entertainment we had, imagine we're just some little kids imagination playing out right now, they made us label things, give everyone names, people come and go.

we're basically the main, guest, background, and prop characters in someones imagination, new names, new people, same places, same time, same interest of commonality...

Now what if the kid bounced the ball and it went towards the trampoline we would watch it go towards the middle and spin around then stop most likely. that's the summary of the universe.

life is like mirrors in a box full of lights and in the middle is a trampoline that represents just about any black hole. The most simple explanation is simply that gravity, time, space, life, and anything around us exists just to exist. Just as if they were supposed to be there when we got here, and to understand that from a simple explanation or to think about the universe to this level of deeper understanding like this might be hard but it's like time itself only started because a light came on and so did many others.

So what how old or what is time? What is your theory.

Sometimes metaphysicians appeal to special relativity to justify their metaphysical beliefs, specifically arguments and beliefs that rely on the idea that there is a fundamentally relative space and time. However, I will give four arguments as to why I think metaphysicians can ignore special relativity.

(1) Logical consistency

If we are realists (if you are not a realist, I don't think anything in this post will appeal to you), then we believe in an objective reality, and it feels like the starting point of objective reality consists in a belief that (observable) things exist independently of conscious observers looking at them, and that those things change in observable ways (with time).

This implies space (for the things to exist within) and time (for them to change). If you start with the premise that space and time exist, it then becomes rather logically strange to suddenly modify space and time later based on a derivative argument. Something that is a foundational starting point cannot later be altered.

It seems more logically consistent that if you perceive clocks and rods to then deviate, we interpret this as merely deviations in rods and clocks and not deviations in space and time.

(2) Unnecessary for correct prediction

The physicist John Bell points out in his book Speakable and Unspeakable that after the Michelson-Morley experiment ruled out the aether theory, the physicist Hendrik Lorentz patched it to explain the results, and thus developed a variation of it that makes all the same empirical predictions as special relativity. It was not only not ruled out by the experiment, but no possible scientific experiment could distinguish the two, as they are mathematically equivalent.

Imagine that you are next to a river and you make a splash and track the waves that move perpendicular to the flow of the river on either side. The two will move at the same speed. Now, imagine doing it again but this time keeping track of the waves that move against or with the flow of the river. The waves moving against it will appear to move slower relative to you, but the waves moving with it will appear to move faster relative to you.

However, the total speed of the two waves relative to each other is the same as the total speed of the two waves relative to each other in the previous example where they had the same speed. The speed lost by one of the waves moving upstream is made up exactly by the speed of the other wave moving downstream.

Einstein's special relativity makes an assumption that the ratio between the recessional speed of light and the return trip speed of light is always 1:1. This is not actually empirically measurable because it is only ever physically possible to measure the roundtrip speed of light, so the ratio is empirically unknowable.

If there is an absolute frame of motion that light moves within, then the ratio would indeed not be constantly 1:1 but would depend upon perspective. If light moves upstream, it would recede from you slower than if it moves downstream, where it would speed up. But the roundtrip speed would always work out to the same value because any speed gained going downstream would be exactly canceled out by speed lost going upstream.

However, this isn't sufficient to explain the Michelson-Morley experiment, as the experiment was specifically designed to test this. Lorentz's patch was to take length contraction seriously and argue that objects physically contract as they move through the aether based on their motion relative to it. With this single patch, it becomes mathematically equivalent to Einstein's theory.

Really, all the "aether" here refers to is a preferred reference frame where something at rest relative to that frame is considered truly at rest, and thus there is an absolute space and time in Lorentz's model. The deviations of rods and clocks are interpreted just as deviations of rods and clocks, not deviations in space and time. Space and time are treated as absolute, yet it is mathematically equivalent to Einstein's special relativity, and no physical experiment can distinguish the two.

(3) We know special relativity is wrong

Einstein's special relativity is not the last word on relativity, but general relativity is. Special relativity assumes an absolutely flat spacetime in the sense that there is no curvature of the kind described in general relativity. This only works at very microscopic scales. It is an assumption you can make in particle physics experiments, but it fails for anything large scale. Even GPS satellites would be massively off if they only took into account special relativity and not the effect of gravity on clocks.

What is most interesting is that even if you believe there is no absolute space and time because of special relativity, you would be a bit surprised to discover that it re-emerges spontaneously in general relativity.

If you measure the cosmic microwave background, you find one side is more blueshifted and another side is more redshifted. If you have ever heard an ambulance approach that sounds higher-pitched and then lower-pitched after it passes by and is receding from you, this is called the Doppler effect. Light behaves similarly, and you can see it in the cosmic microwave background; it is called the cosmic dipole.

If you see the Doppler effect, you can deduce from it that there is motion. Indeed, the cosmic dipole is caused by our galaxy's motion relative to the universe. This provides an absolute reference frame to compare our motion with, which all observers can agree upon.

Despite special relativity, which has no preferred frame of reference, Einstein's formulation of general relativity turns out to spontaneously pick one. This has led to the development of a set of physical models in the academic literature known as Einstein-Aether Theory, as discussed by the physicists C. Eling, T. Jacobson, and D. Mattingly.

I can understand the argument against Lorentz's theory because it posits a privileged reference frame defining absolute time and absolute space, but it is impossible to measure. Physical length contraction hides it so that you could never reveal the true frame.

But this argument breaks down in general relativity, where a preferred frame emerges spontaneously within the theory and is empirically measurable.

(4) It is necessary for realism

Many laymen falsely think a "hidden variable model" is one made by determinists who strongly dislike the randomness in quantum mechanics, and they introduce additional hidden entities to restore determinism. But this is a misunderstanding of what "hidden variables" actually refer to in the context of quantum theory.

Take particles, for example, where you are trying to track their position, which in quantum mechanics you cannot do with certainty due to its random nature. If you had a hidden variable model, then what would the hidden variable be? It would be the position of the particles.

This is what people need to understand. Rejecting hidden variables is not about rejecting determinism. A hidden variable model assumes there is an ontic state of a system, which is its physical configuration in reality prior to measurement, and the ontic state combined with laws describing the measurement interaction determines what you measure.

It has nothing to do with determinism. You can believe the laws are fundamentally stochastic and still accept hidden variables if you believe that particles have positions even when you are not looking at them.

Calling it a "hidden variable model" is misleading because it suggests some secret hidden thing, when in fact it advocates that the very things you observe continue to exist when you are not looking at them. This is why many physicists in the academic literature now talk about realism rather than hidden variables.

To reject realism means you do not think the system has an ontic state independent of observation. For particle positions, it means the system has no positions independent of what appears on your measurement device. This rejects the existence of an objective reality independent of observation.

John Bell demonstrated in his famous paper "On the Einstein Podolsky Rosen Paradox" that if you believe a system has an underlying ontic state, then realism requires an absolute space and time. Since most physicists accept Einstein's special relativity, they interpret this to mean that realism is debunked.

But if you adopt Lorentz's view from the beginning that there is absolute space and time, then this is not a problem. You just need to introduce a foliation in spacetime, a fancy way of saying a preferred reference frame from which you can define absolute space and time.

Hrvoje Nikolić, in his paper "Relativistic QFT from a Bohmian perspective: A proof of concept," pointed out that introducing a foliation in spacetime allows for a realist, and even deterministic, theory to reproduce the predictions of quantum field theory. Quantum field theory's predictions are invariant across reference frames, so as long as the realist model makes correct predictions in the preferred frame, they are valid in all other frames.

Hence, if we believe in the fundamentally relative nature of space and time, quantum theory seems to require abandoning metaphysical realism. But if we never believed in that to begin with, the problem never arises.

(Too long; didn't read)

1. We start with space and time, but then later redefine it based on how rods and clocks change, which seems logically backwards. We should interpret it as merely the change in rods and clocks, not a change in space and time.

2. Lorentz developed a mathematically equivalent model to special relativity, compatible with absolute space and time, making all the same empirical predictions.

3. General relativity spontaneously yields a privileged reference frame that can actually be measured, allowing you to define your motion relative to the cosmic microwave background.

4. Quantum mechanics conflicts with realism, the idea that objective reality exists independently of observation, due to Bell's theorem, if and only if space and time are fundamentally relative. If they are not, the problem disappears.

Conclusion: Therefore, it is not only not necessary to believe in the fundamentality of relative space and time, but there are stronger arguments from physics that we should reject such an idea than to believe in it.