There is always more. No representation, no image, no model, no theory will ever be able to cover everything. This principle is basic to such a degree that it is to be called “logical”.
Accordingly, no system, of whatever few axioms and simplest rules it may be constructed, can start with absolutely nothing. Instead, it must rely on endless amounts of given things. What these are in detail can never be specified.
Every so-called emptyness must be produced and maintained; protective walls, taking isolation to the extreme, are real and have fundamental impact on all that is happening behind them — othwerwise they would not be needed.
Even the mental world does not stand totally apart, but rather all over interwoven with material life.
All that is seemingly not present — though somehow active — does not exist as distinct things. It is somewhere in between, between the things. It is the space between, its substance. It is that what makes up space.
As such it is ungraspable — unless it does become something, a thing. So many things may emerge out of space. At last, space is totally made of things, nothing else. They just cannot be seen — in the moment. Maybe they are too small, too big, too far away, too close, too well-known, too strange, too many …
Still, somehow they are there, and they have some influence on those things that can be seen. So we give them a name, as a whole. Here, in this context, we call it “space”. (But we must not forget that it is what we call “knowledge”, too. And “activity”. And, of course, “thing”s.)
Science is not only theory but also practice; and as such it always stays close to reality and experiences. Its theoretical part, however, is permanently in danger of losing contact.
So, for example, while trying to realize the idea of one single all-embracing system constructed from few simple building blocks: sooner or later its complexity must get out of hand. Endless chains of deduction lead to no concrete results. The truth, that should be granted by them, gets lost on the way to realization. For it cannot enter the scene but from the other side, from reality, through experience.
Existence need not be justified. It appears. Beyond any reasoning and description. But, surely, not without reason and the proper circumstances. Not outside its space, as we will say.
Every thing has its own space — although there is only one space, space, for it is endless. Everything that exists is part of it, a thing in it.
Things may sometimes be regarded as the opposite of space — since space is open and boundless, while the things are rather bounded and closed. As such they separate a region of space. And that is exactly how, after all, space is somehow bounded: by the things. Through them it can be left — and another one can be entered.
It is the space of the thing, that is entered in this way. But, once entered, the space that initially appears to be the closed interior of the thing turns out to be space itself, the endless one, the universe. Because from inside no bounds are to be recognized.
So, where do they go? — Well, quite simply: again they are incorporated in the things of (this) space; and so they are perfectly integrated, yes, they are the ultimate substance of space.
At latest since the discoveries of mechanics, it is generally accepted in physics (and other sciences) that everything happens because of internal forces. The observable things embody all that causes whichever effects.
More modern developments, as for example the theory(s) of relativity, may be interpreted in a way that they abandon this view, putting the focus much more on so-called “fields” and the like. This may go so far as to consider physical objects to be nothing but special states of a kind of space.
Logically, however, this makes no principal difference to us. For whatever replaces the traditional physical things: it has to be, in the sense of X-Logic, things, no matter whether we call them “spaces”, “fields”, or likewise. Even if all material interpretations are set aside and only mathematical objects, such as “tensors”, are talked about. Yes, even the physical laws themselves are things of this type. With their respective spaces.
Previously we have already adumbrated a kind of motion which may be described as penetrating or analyzing a thing. In getting closer and closer to a thing, we probably become aware of something like an internal structure or even a regular inner life full of activity. Maybe we discover certain regularities, a plan according to which the whole is constructed, or a program controlling everything.
But the bigger we blow everything up, that is, the deeper we penetrate, the more we lose sight of the big picture. Instead, we find ourselves right in the middle of infinite space, surrounded by an endless variety of things, interacting with them.
Starting from here, we can now take the reverse direction, so to speak: we can recognize certain patterns in the buzz of activity around us, regularities, maybe even laws. Perhaps a plan becomes visible, the program and blueprint of everything. Still, in comprehending the whole as a whole, we finally understand that it is is just one among many, a thing.
In the context of the Theory of Relativity, the “space belonging to a body A” was originally named “space of reference”. Today the term “frame of reference” is more usual. But here, the cited approach shall be broadend to a general concept of space. For that purpose we pick up the idea that the so-called “body of reference” remains by definition always at rest.
This conception is now generalized so that for every thing it can be said that in its space it is never subject to any alteration and thus remains always the same.
Seen in this light, the thing is effectively not present in its space; it is perfectly passive, unable to come into appearance, and thus cannot be observed. Though all other things can, in a way that may be called “objective”, insofar as the central thing is the unmovable, so to speak “neutral” observer. All things are determined in reference to it. While the space is the reflection of these relations, representing the properties of all the other things — in reference to the focussed thing.
The existence of a physical object manifests itself in its meetings — or, as it is frequently said, its interactions — with others. Through them it comes into appearance. From its effects on them, their changes induced by it, its own properties — and hence its existence — are deducible.
Some of these encounters may alterate the thing to such a degree that it does not stay the same thing. Maybe it splits into several others; or it fuses with another to form a new one; or it is absorbed by the other; maybe it even disappears completely, dissipating into some radiation or so (though this can be understood as consisting of kind of — somewhat curious — objects, too).
But normally contacts with other things do not change an object too seriously; so it does not only stay the same afterwards, but also between these contacts. At least, it is supposed to do so; strictly speaking, its existence between its interactions — and that is without them — cannot be proved and so remains vague.
Most of the meetings with other objects do not seem to touch and affect a physical body in any way. Photons, as the assumed particles of light are called, and other quantum objects are meant to bomb it all through its lifetime — without any noticeable impact. That is one reason why observation is possible: it shows the things how they are, leaving them untouched.
In this sense, observation effectively does not take place, it is not existent, so to speak. And so, because it carries no weight, it can take place all the time.
In fact, physical events, the motions of a physical body, for example, are treated as being wholly observed. That means, as having at every distinct time at a precisely distinct place a distinct velocity (and so on). Every state of that object is completely defined — may this conception be practically realizable or not. The object is the sum of its defined states or appearances, which are thought to be infinitesimal (that is: of infinitely small extent). They make up its existence.
Continual reappearing is necessarily accompanied by continual disappearing. Between a thing’s occurances, even infinitesimal, there have to be gaps. Though these gaps are traditionally no theme in physics, they are actually of crucial importance. They allow outer forces to interact and so to change the otherwise uniform linear motion of a body. Only because this motion is everywhere interrupted, it can flexibly react on everything, conform to everything.
However, if the motion is interrupted again and again — how does it manage to stay normally the same all the time? And where does the body intermittently disappear to? — Well, both questions have in principle the same answer: the thing dissolves into its space, but this is a very special one, with a specific structure that makes the same thing reappear constantly.
The space is the program, so to speak. And the structure is, maybe, a certain short routine being continually initialized and producing always the same output, the same thing. But in between the program permanently resumes control, in order to listen for new user input, for instance, that may affect the routine.
Things emerge from space. Although somehow invisible, they have been there all the time. This shall be true even if a thing appears for the first time, newly created.
Yet, for this purpose, the notion of space has to be taken much wider than usual. And that is exactly what we do; this is our conception.
That way our ordinary three-dimensional space becomes a simple sub-space, one part of the whole. A hugh bunch of such partial spaces may be distinguished, as there are a special space of physics, for example, or that of mathematics, as well as a social space, a psychological, a biological, an ecological, and so on.
Each of these spaces relates to a specific point of view, often a scientific one, and may be called “knowledge space”.
The whole, however, the unification of all spaces, we usually refer to as the “space of knowledge” or simply “space”.