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Thank you very much SL, I really appreciate the effort gone into the story-telling, it works well as a clear explication — very helpful indeed. My last post seems to have ended on a bum note! Of my three alternatives regarding the best conceptualization for the spacetime/entity relationship, SL went with 3, whereas I had plumped for 1. Let’s see who is right and why… After absorbing the analogy of ‘proto-matter’ + ‘nega-matter’ and the intentionally spurious introduction of ‘spacetime-filling’ ‘mono-fundamento-matter’ the habitual errors are exposed as clear as a clanging bell: The reification of nothing with something (exhortatory spacetime-filling). We need actual observable evidence of the unification of stuffs, otherwise keep conceptually separate (as they are objectively observed to be). The story continues into the realms of ‘extenz’ with a further such unification of everything and nothing, underscoring the absurdity of a meta-melding into meaninglessness (meaning = contradistinction). NB, an interesting way to look at it — the pull towards conceptual unification has the air of keen razoring — why have two concept when one will do. However, this intuition is perfidious: unobserved unification is an additional intruder/usurper which itself necessitates razoring away. 1. Utterly separable? I had written: I suspect the correct answer for now is conceptually ‘utterly separable’ because that’s the way we currently perceive things to be (via colliders and calculations)… But I was wrong. ‘Utterly separable’ is not the way we currently perceive of spacetime & entities. We naturally perceive space and time as the indispensable dimensions of (and between) entities. I was confusing this natural perception with that common naive conceptualization of entities being contained within pre-existing space and time. This childish conception is further cemented by talk of ‘empty space’, Kantian a priori, etc., and so it deftly takes on the mantle of a pure percept rather than the infectious proto-concept that it is. More to the point, our concepts must match observable reality! We ‘see’ space and time as abstracted out from observed entities, we experience these dimensions as utterly relational and therefore un-separable from entities/events. I’ll risk letting you in to my germinating thought process on reading of SL’s reply: …Oh but I was speaking conceptually, not actually — arghhh whoops! There's my mistake laid bare — there ought not be any difference: objective actuality is the only valid building-block for concepts. Therefore SL is correct, spacetime (space–time) is actually relational and thus can not garner ‘separate concept status’ from entities (mass-energy). NB, our maintenance of separate words for ‘spacetime’ and ‘entities’ doesn’t amount to ‘separate concept status’ because ‘spacetime’ is still a legitimate abstraction, similar to any mathematical abstraction derived from observable entities and their relationships. 2. Both parts working together as a mutually generating dichotomy? Agreed, as I’ve just argued, a relational existent isn’t a ‘separable part’ or ‘conceptual concrete’ so it follows that spacetime shouldn’t be thought of as ‘one part’ of a ‘dichotomy’ with entities. 3. Neither? By process of elimination we find ourselves going with the third alternative (I suppose I could have offered a fourth ‘both 1&2 option’ ~ but two wrongs don’t make a right!). To reiterate… If the simpler model is valid, these ‘twin’ existents (mass-energy + spacetime curvature) are best conceived as: Mass-energy (absolute entities) acting in a spacial–temporal (‘spacetime’) relationship. Simple really, and I think this fits in with the spirit of SL’s… It also chimes with MisterSwig’s insistence that “…space is not material”. Good — I feel cleansed! Now, shall we end the topic here ~ an initial foray into conceptualizing spacetime? (Or are there still flaws in my reasoning)? P.S. As we are in the forum’s Physics and Mathematics department, I’ll remind inquisitive minds of the previous links to John A Macken’s physics-heavy work; The Universe is Only Spacetime: Particles, Fields and Forces Derived from the Simplest Starting Assumption + his recent draft summary — Single Component Model of the Universe. If you think this represents a route towards a fuller understanding of the physical universe ~ or not ~ please post below.