The Notion That Space-Time Created Matter Viewed Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Davies & Gribbin (1992: 156):

We have seen how the energy needed to create matter can ultimately be traced to the gravitational field of the Universe. But why stop there? Many people would quibble that the creation of matter by gravity is not an example of uncaused genesis; it merely shifts the responsibility on to the gravitational field. We still have to explain where that came from. But this question confronts us with a curious twist. Unlike the other forces of nature, gravity is not a field existing within spacetime; it is spacetime. The general theory of relativity treats the gravitational field as pure geometry: warps in spacetime. So if gravity created matter, we must say that spacetime itself created matter. The key question then becomes: how did space (strictly speaking, spacetime) come into existence.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of the General Theory of Relativity, gravity is a relation between matter and space-time. Because a relation cannot logically pre-exist the phenomena in the relation, gravity cannot have created matter.

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the 'uncaused genesis' of matter lies in Quantum Theory: the probabilistic instantiation of potential as actual.

To be clear, a physical field is a region of space-time under the influence of some agency. In the case of a gravitational field, it is a region of space-time under the influence of matter.

On the basis of the above, gravity is not space-time, and neither gravity nor space-time created matter.