this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2024
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Nah, I know the thing with reference points, but that's a matter of navigation and relativity.
In reality, a point in space is a point in space, like, a specific "pixel" of the Universe (oversimplified) that might be occupied with something or not.
We just can't anchor this point since we don't know what reference is absolute and the laws of physics can be applied to every inertial reference, so this doesn't help.
It's not that we don't know which reference point is absolute, but there are still absolutely defined 'points in space', it's that there is no absolute reference point, and so there are just 'points in space' relative to whatever arbitrary body you decide to make your reference frame.
Then we have to define what body serves as a reference point. "Relative to the observer" doesn't seem to work here, since we try to decide where should the observer themselves go.
If so, then why should it be Earth? Why not the Sun, or the center of a Milky Way, or literally anything else? As you said, it's arbitrary. And how do we choose the reference frame?
Doesn't make any sense outside spacetime as a whole.