My favorite folk explanation of general relativity (due to J. A. Wheeler I think) is: people think if all matter disappeared, space and time would remain, but GR says, if all matter disappeared, space and time would disappear too
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I made up an analogous explanation of subjective time experience: people think that if all events disappeared, they would experience a flat, featureless flow of time. No, when events disappear, time experience disappears too.
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Or to put it in generalized void-theoretic terms for those of you who liked talk at refactor camp -- if you take away the stuff whose interstices form voids, the voids disappear too... cc
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Though I wish there was a way to restate these insights in terms of fields rather than objects and interactions among them...
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