I just read the universe looks like it does because it's expanding faster the less matter there is. So the empty areas are getting bigger and emptier, and gravity pulls matter tighter together. So there you have your network in the defining. The universe originated with very small differences, they are being amplified.

What would that make humans if they ever spread from cell to cell/across planetary systems? A kind of virus or disease?

I can see a story here.

That's pareidolia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia

There are plenty of other effects that produce similar structures (e.g. put a bit of grease between two glass plates and pull them apart...is that then 'a brain'?)

The structure of something like the brain is due to a three dimensional structure (your barin cavity) being filled by a two dimensional structure (the brain folds) and the neurons are structured this way because a volume effect (cell growth) is in competition with a surface effect (transfer of nutrients accross a cell membran)

Effectively everywhere where you get a n-dimensional effect competing with a n-1 dimensional effect you will get similar structures (in the case of the grease it's surface tension (2D) vs volume pressure (3D)).

One shouldn't stretch analogies beyond the breaking point. They can be useful sometimes, but especially in the very small (quantum realm) and very large (cosmology) they are 100% guarateed to get you on the wrong track.

Reason being: Analogies is what we use to map unknown things to more basic known things.
Mapping analogies to quantum mechanics is not sensible because quantum mechanics is more basic than any analogous thing we have direct experience with.
Feynman explained it best when he said that he wasn't able to explain (electro)magntism in terms of a 'rubber band' analogy because what makes a rubber band behave like a rubber band is electromagnetic forces (at the atomic level),

Here's the interview where he explains this. The man was probably the best science-teacher of the past century.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwMSaCrcAmM

Similarly in cosmology. It rests on a force (gravity) that doesn't play a huge part in our everyday experience (at least not in terms of it being stronger/weaker when we change the distance to another object). So going with analogies from other forces which do not behave like gravity (being the only force that is only attractive and also unblockable) will only help you to get things wrong.

I think the idea of 'separate' is man made. (This changes nothing about the existence of stuff)

The basis is bias (our biological/sensory bias). E.g. We are biased to see things as 'visible' that radiate in the range of 400-650nm (or thereabouts) and stuff that only radiates outside that range as 'invisible'. Such differentiations are clearly subjective on our visual apparatus.

Particularly if we could 'see' gravity or magnetic forces directly we would not have an absolutely clear cut way to tell where one object ends and another begins.

Because there aren't two things. But if we were to use the idea of multiple things (which is a very useful idea to limited human minds and also a necessity for any kind of useful argument) then we have to be aware that lumping things into categories of sameness is, again, a bias. Because they are only the same for a certain value of 'same'. E.g. take two hydrogen atoms? Are they same?
Yes: If you only look at chemical properties.
No: If you also include position.

We always have to look at what biases we accept for a certain argument (or in this case: for a certain philosophical question).
And then we have to make double damn sure that the biases we have accepted do not lead to contradictions regarding the question we want to answer.


Case in point: What was before the big bang?
This may seem like an innocent question but the big bang is defined as the initiation of spacetime. Asking for a 'before' presumes (as a bias) that an arrow of time exists that goes through the big bang and out each side into a past and a future.
But this already contradicts what the big bang is so the question itself is insane (in the original sense of the word. 'Paradoxical' or 'ill posed' if you will)...and therefore cannot have an answer.

Yes, because there are no truly separate forces. We already know that 3 of the 4 fundamental forces are deeply intertwined (see the GUT (grand unified theory) of the standard model). Gravity is still a bit of a poser, though. That's the one a lot of scientists are still working on to mesh with the other three. But we already know that it is deeply interconnected with space due to the space-time tensor metric.

Of course we would, because of the discontinuity at the surface.

If you overlap, say, the gravity wells of all planets (and some major objects) in the solar system you get something like this:
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/ind...vity_wells.png
(if they all were lined up, that is. in 3D it's a bit more complicated)

Do you frequently bite what the rest of us denote as "your hand" when you are trying to eat the thing that the rest of us call "a sandwich" due to your lack of belief in separate things?

Herd immunity from togetherness?

If antialias could only experience touch, he’d merely experience distinct tactile sensations but not separate objects. Same holds for all our sensory channels taken in isolation. Our belief in separate things or an external world is grounded in our senses converging (e.g., seeing and touching at the same time), not in what any of them provide by themselves.

Nice find. If we "saw" gravity, the "planets" wouldn't be that relevant. It'll be the gravity variations, not the "surfaces" of the "planets"

You do know that roughly 99.999999999999% (no exaggeration) of your hand is empty space and that the rest you can't even absolutely localize (due to Heisenberg Uncertainty)?

Which part of that is hand? Which part of that empty space is 'not hand'? Where does one end and the other begin?

Just because a measuring tool (my teeth) with a certain accuracy comes to stop means nothing in terms of absolutes. There is a chance (incredibly small, but not zero) that the atoms in my teeth would tunnel through the atoms in my hand and not stop.

I fully agree that it's useful to act as if things are separate (because otherwise the entire concept of information vanishes) and part of my career as a scientist is firmly built on this working assumption, because knowledge is based on information.

But another part of being (or having been) a scientist is to identify what is a working assumption and what isn't. Because if you know what your assumptions are then you know what the scope of your theories (i.e. it's limits) are.

"Things" may well be of much smaller relevance than we are used to think. In the great whole, I do guess they make up a part though. "Molecules" repelling each other make solid "things" not blend when touching for example. The repelling I think is some statistical thing at least. Some "more of this, less of that"

The shorter way of saying that is "we have a model"

Why is there this thread?

I'm fairly certain that everyone here knows this.

1) the entire thing that you recognize as "hand.". That it is mostly empty space doesn't matter. It is still all hand.

2) the hand ends where the sandwich begins.

There is absolutely no chance of that happening. The interaction isn't due to the small amount of matter in a tooth atom actually hitting a hand atom. I believe pretty much everyone in this thread is aware of this.

Well, since we are all well-aware of our assumptions, and therefore in perfect agreement, I don't see much point in blathering on about how we agree. Since you can't demonstrate that you are, in fact, separate from me, I'm quite certain that you must agree, since we are actually just one thing typing at itself using itself as a keyboard. Not sure why you are still reading this on the screen which is also you, since you must have known what I was writing as I typed.

I know that you know that I know that you know the answer to this.

Glad mankind had found other ways than their own eyes to view everything. At least we are trying to overcome our flaws. Sometimes we are making things even worse though.

Mammalian nervous systems attempting to sense nothing by observing a simulation of the space of atoms with their imaginations and other faculties at a space they can’t put their camels into.

There's no empty space really... matter of fact it's all empty.

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1204/1204.4616.pdf

Makes sense. "Particle" has been invented so we have thought we'd understand better.

To be fair it would read better if he'd said 'room' rather than 'space' which is likely what he intended to convey.

Bold mine. See how subjective that is?

I think you're not up on quantum physics.

That the interaction isn't due to stuff hitting each other has nothing to do with tunneling probability. The very reason why stuff is not hitting each other is the point why tunneling is relevant (and possible). Stuff doesn't usually go through other stuff because there is an energy potential it has not enough energy itself to overcome. But even if that potential is higher than it's own energy there is a tunneling probability (that is what tunneling is...and we use that effect in quite a few real world technical applications)
Your assumption that the universe is a collection of objects is what makes the argument pointless.
And no: just because distinctions are subjective doesn't mean that the all of it has to be homogeneously conscious or (omni)cognizant.

Using the assumption that different objects, particles, quanta whathaveyou exist is useful for doing science. Science is about information and information requires a definition of separateness/quantifiability.

Using this same assumption to argue about existence (which is not a scientific but a philosophical question) is not useful ...and for the very same reason: because existence has no alternative and therefore carries no information as per the definition of information laid down by Shannon in information theory.

He knows his Descartes.

This is the important word in your post. Everything else isn't even masturbation.

Bias depends on the existence of differentiation. Bias vs real. If all were one, this is impossible.

The rest of your story says a lot without saying anything.