If.....

Dark is absence of light

Cold is absence of heat

and

Space is absence of anything

do the 'negative three' actually exist?

I believe that Dark and Cold are tangible things therefore they exist. However, the "absence of anything" seems a little more difficult to grasp.

Relative to each other yes, otherwise, no... that's the simple explanation.

A ball of ice exists and a black hole exists. Therefore they do not need to be relative to anything to have their existence. I just do not understand what the term, “absence of anything” means.

A ball of ice is cold, yes, but it is cold because it has no heat, not because it creates cold, or radiates freezingness. Ice has to be cold, but cold does not have to be ice.

Similarly nothing creates darkness. Nothing radiates darkness.

With light and heat each creates the other.

Re. space, it is the absence of any thing. Any substance, matter, gas, spirit, emotion - any thing. It is space. Yet by conceptualising it it becomes something.

Or does it?

It was not a question of why do they exists, just do they. The ball of ice exists because it has no heat or the ball of ice exists because it is cold. Either way it still exists. Space cannot be absent of any thing. Space is infinite therefore it contains everything.

[img]smile.gif[/img]

I never asked if ice existed, just whether cold itself exists if it is merely absence of heat. As I said, cold is not limited to ice. Ice is not all that is cold. Cold is a situation that allows ice to exist. But nothing makes ice cold except for lack of heat. A fire is not hot because there's a lack of cold. It is combusting, burning, consuming, and creating light and heat. Movement creates heat, friction creates heat. What creates cold? The absence of heat.

Space is by definition, absence of anything. On our planet the space inside a box is not really space, it has air in it. A vacuum is space. Nothing. No thing.

We've called the nothingness - no gas, matter etc between planets "space" but it could quite easily be called "nothing" or "emptyness" and would mean the same thing.

But, by naming it, and conceptualising it, nothing becomes something yes? Or no? ;)

[ 01-05-2003, 03:20 AM: Message edited by: Yorick ]

Exactly
also, what exactly ARE solar winds ? cause those travel around in space same as stars, planets, light and radio waves.

If there is nothing at all in 'space', what conducts radio waves ? something does because it takes time for a light or radio wave to travel through space. if nothing conducted them through the space between, say a space shuttle and earth, then the transmission would be instantaneous between the shuttle antenna and the outer-layer of earths atmosphere (if it could travel at all with no conductor). If this were the case (instant relay) then travelling further from earth would not lengthen the transmission delay because the only thing changing is the amount of 'nothing'. But greater distance DOES lengthen transmission delays.

Sorry if that's a mess of ideas. maybe I can simplify. think of any substance as having a transmission delay multiplier. Air has been shown to conduct light faster than, say glass. Ie air lag = 1, glass lag = 2. If space = 0 then no amount of distance will increase the transmission lag becase Nx0 = 0. But since there IS a transmission delay relative to distance in space, then space MUST be some sort of physical medium. ie space is not nothing, it proably just has an infinitely low density

I'm probably wrong, ignore me or correct me as your knowledge allows

EDIT: cold and dark are just relational adjectives

[ 01-05-2003, 03:27 AM: Message edited by: karlosovic ]

Ok, how can space be infinite? Space does not exist does it? It is what we call nothing.

Is nothing infinite?

Is emptyness infinite?

Is void infinite?

You are conceptualising "space" as being the universe itself, yet the universe is something. Suns, light, gas, earth, heat, light, life. Where there is none of this, there is nothing. Space.

Your conceptualising of 'space' as being 'something' is exactly what I'm talking about :D

Take the universe itself. It is said to be expanding. How can that which is infinite expand? Expanding implies a limit. But where the universe stops, there is nothing. No-thing. Space.

Also, you cannot go further than the end of the universe, because you are part of the universe. Wherever you are, so the universe is also. ;) :D

Ice is just an example of something that is cold. The question is, “dose cold exist”. Yes cold exists because ice exists. Just as anything that is cold exists. Something cold dose not need the absence of heat to be cold. A person’s body temperature is fairly warm, however a person can be extremely cold.

By naming something we do not create its existence. We merely name something that already existed.