Is space experienced?

Question

Space doesn't have a taste, a smell, a sound or a "shape". Anything we experience and think seem to require it. It doesn't have any experiential property whatsoever, but we still normally refer to it as "perceived". In fact it seems to be the framework in which we perceive rather than something with perceptible qualities. The container of any "thing" with properties.

Is space experienced or is it an imposed framework of experience? Is there anything with properties that is not in space?

By experience I mean: "awareness of perceptible properties"

Can we be aware of any perceptible property of space?

Answer 1

Is "space" directly accessible to the senses?

It is not because it is the absence of sensation. Much as one can sense small quantity through subitizing, one can also be keenly aware that nothing is present, so too can one see motion and length or feel force, but be keenly aware that none occurs or exists. Is it true to say that the property of lacking sensation is itself a sensation?

No, because if one accepts the law of non-contradiction one cannot accept these two propositions: "space is not sensing" and "space is sensing". Hence, the simplest dichotomy for apprehension is the language of the mind-body duality, it is a conception (mind, not sensation) characterized by the absence of perception (body, sensation). This is why it is considered an abstraction and not a physical thing.

See this SE post for more details about how the concept is computed neurally

Whether you are talking about "void" discussed in Antiquity, "absolute space" during the 17th and 18th centuries, or " relativistic space-time" of the last century, the notion is essentially the same. A space or discontinuity in matter is what a pit is to the ground, emptiness, and the more sophisticated the philosopher, the more complex the constructed concept.

According to the SEP on Newton's Views on Space, Time, and Motion:

The most important question shaping 17th-century views on the nature of space, time and motion is whether or not a true void or vacuum is possible, i.e., a place devoid of body of any sort (including rarified substances such as air). Ancient atomism, dating back at least to the pre-Socratic philosopher Democritus (5th century, B. C.), held that not only is such possible, but in fact actually exists among the interstices of the smallest, indivisible parts of matter and extends without bound infinitely. Following Plato, Aristotle rejected the possibility of a void, claiming that, by definition, a void is nothing, and what is nothing cannot exist.

In modern physics, space is often conceptualized either as a discontinuity of atoms and other particles or as a field which is continuous everywhere echoing the ancient debate.

Answer 2

The mathematician and physicist Hermann Weyl would answer that space-time is not experienced as extended. The 'arithmetical' continuum of mathematics and mathematical physics would be a fiction and a paradoxical one, while the 'intuitive' or 'empirical' continuum of experience would be unextended. This view accords with our experience.

If we could experience space-time as an extended object this would falsify the Perennial philosophy and probably also Solipsism. Extension is a theory to explain experience, not an experience, as Kant notes.

Answer 3

A current view on space is due to General Relativity. Here space is united with time to the physical concept of spacetime. In that context your original question reads:

Is spacetime experienced? And converted to a question from physics:

Does spacetime have any detectable properties?

The answer is: Yes! Everybody is aware of perceptible properties of spacetime.

Gravitational forces indicate the curvature of spacetime.

Even more: Spacetime is a physical object like other physical objects. Each mass acts on spacetime by changing the curvature of spacetime. The most spectacular result is the 2017-detection of gravitational waves created by the merging of two black holes.

For some basic information on spacetime see

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_wave

Answer 4

Is space experienced or is it an imposed framework of experience?

Space is experienced. And our eye is the sense that creates its experience. You wouldn't be aware of even the space right in front of you if you close your eyes. Sometimes it will be your skin, nose or ears that makes you aware of the distance from a familiar object. When you realize the timeless state, space becomes meaningless. Its (space's) experience ends. So we can say it is an experience. If you don't have the experience of time, you can't experience space also. It is because, if you experience time you are in duality; and space exists only in duality.

Is there anything with properties that is not in space?

If you can't call the greatest property that gives all the properties that create the experience of space a property, there is no such thing. If anybody has mentioned such a thing, we can't say "that thing is 'in space'". C.f. : Gita Chapter 9 Verse 4.

Since everything we know is within the frame work of time and space there must be no such thing with properties that is not in space.

Can we be aware of any perceptible property of space?

Property is an attribute, quality, or characteristic of something. Often we are aware of the incomparable vastness of space. Vastness is a property that is perceptible with our eyes.