Space is everything. It is more as the cosmos or the universe. Space surrounds us everywhere. Space is both inside and outside. There are small spaces and there are huge spaces. Sometimes space is open. Then there are closed space. We don’t think so much about space normally. It’s like the fish in the water. Space is what’s inside the fish’s habitat, the sea or an aquarium. Does the fish have an idea about the world outside the aquarium?
Perhaps there is a world outside the known space. If we think about it, it becomes soon something beyond our imagination. Indeed it is hard to imagine, what’s outside the known universe. A knotty question. Even if our scientists belief that our universe is not endless we can barely imagine space as not endless.
What is space? This is a question leading to many fundamental problems. Is space empty or not? How can forces interact between distant places if space is an empty thing. Contemporary science tells us that space can be bend or deformed. Space itself can be altered by Black Holes or other supermassive objects.
The idea or the very concept of space is becoming a complex matter. Ancient and medieval philosophers and scientists already thought about space as something which is not empty. An old concept is the idea of ether. Ether is a bit like the “force” in Star Wars. Is is something which surrounds us but it is not the same thing like air. It is the same word but means something completely different as the chemical substance “ether”. There are different theories about ether, which is simplified something like a fifth element.
Spacetime
The modern equivalent of ether is for some people “spacetime”. Spacetime is a concept in modern cosmology which is even a bit like a placeholder but is hard to define or describe in simple terms. It is like the water in the aquarium. Our aquarium. Albert Einstein laid the very foundations of our modern understanding of space and spacetime. The important thing is that we don’t speak about theoretical ideas. There is proof. Scientists delivered proof that massive objects like planets can influence the direction of light. Black Holes were originally a theoretical concept. Today we know that Black Holes do exist. There are other “paranormal wonders” out there like gravitational lenses or anomalies. Contemporary theories about the universe require the mysterious dark matter. Everyday scientists search for traces of Black Matter. Sometimes they find spooky things instead.
Living In A Cosmic Funhouse?
If space is some sort like “stuff” even we can’t see that stuff is it possible we see only a glimpse of the real world? Anybody who is working with today 3D programs like Blender or Cinema 4D knows that operating in a 3D space requires some sort of training. We often miscalculate where an object actually is in 3D. We need values (of an x-axis, a y-axis and a z-axis to get the coordinates of an object. In the normal everyday world we trust our senses. However if we get lost in a city perhaps we made a misconception of the “space” or the topography even in the real world. Remember the rearview scene in Jurassic Park? “Objects are closer than they appear”. We look always at things from a certain point of view not from a universal all encompassing perspective.
That’s important. We can take this further. Maybe our view or sense of reality is even more limited because we not only miscalculate proportions of whereabouts of objects in space but have not much understanding of that “stuff” what space really is, too. Our sense of reality is more like the limited view of an actor inside a (computer) game. If we are the creator of the computer game we have an all encompassing perspective of the actor’s world. We can surprise the actor anytime with wonders, traps or shocking abnormalities and monstrosities.
Space Time As The Matrix
Therefore there might be two things to consider here: First there is our limited ability to really grasp the space around us in his wholeness. We can’t see the forest for the trees. Secondly, we don’t very much about what space actually itself is. And we don’t know who created space or if somebody has the ability to manipulate space as he wishes. We are in a Forest Dark. Like the fish in the aquarium or the actor in the computer game our perspective is limited. We wish to look beyond. We know there must be that real world somewhere. Moviegoers await the return of the legendary “Matrix” franchise. A matrix would indeed another promising idea for what space really is. Ancient myth and modern movies sometimes present us a hint about the deeper truth behind ordinary reality.
