Скачать или смотреть Joanna Luc: What spacetime does?

Joanna Luc (Jagiellonian University)

Abstract: What is the function of spacetime? Is there a single answer to this question? How to attack it? My proposal is to take Special Relativity and General Relativity as paradigmatic cases of spacetime theories and make them our reference point. From the functionalist’s perspective, the identity of an object fully relies on its (functional) relations to other objects. In the case of spacetime, these ‘other objects’ can be particles and/or matter fields. Both of them in some sense change with respect to spacetime. Therefore, the most general heuristics is that the role of spacetime in SR and GR is to give the framework for the description of distribution and change of matter. This is in fact a family of roles, which can be classified into three groups: 1) spacetime provides elements needed to pose the problem of evolution of matter, 2) spacetime provides elements needed to describe properties of solutions of this problem, 3) spacetime provides elements needed to analyse general properties of the problem itself. I will argue that the first group has more fundamental status than the other two and is indispensable for the proper understanding of them.