Topics Existence

Question Is "largest" and "smallest" only a result of comparison, or is there a single largest thing and single smallest thing that actually exist? Sorry in advance if this gets more scientific than philosophic.

Accepted:
November 9, 2005

Comments

You're right that the use of "largest" and "smallest" involves some comparison class, even if this is only implicit. We can say that the largest postage stamp is a lot smaller than the smallest planet because we are, of course, comparing the largest stamp to other stamps, and the smallest planet (Mercury?) to other planets. (Note also that "largest" and "smallest" can be used with different implicit senses of "size". Thus, the largest blunder of my life (not buying Google when it went public) needn't be very large in any physical sense.)

To make things explicit, then, your questions are (or might be?): Is there a spatially largest physical object? Is there a spatially smallest one? And you're right, unfortunately, these are really best asked of a physicist. However, answering them will, I think, depend upon certain partly philosophical issues such as whether it makes sense to speak of spatial extension when it comes to micro-particles, and whether the universe as a whole can be considered an "object".

I am not a physicist, so I cannot state definitively the results that natural science has achieved with regard to this question.

I can say conceptually that "largest" and smallest conceptually both define limits and are comparative--unlike "larger" and "smaller," which are comparative but don't require limits. It's also important to define "thing" (which here is rather vague), since 'largest' and 'smallest' are context-dependent. One might speak of the largest material object in spatial dimensions, the object with the largest mass, the largest jury award in a civil suit, the largest amount of memory in a single computer, the largest brawl on record, the largest number ever counted.

I can also speak a bit more cogently out of 18th-century debates about whether or not material things or space are divisible ad infinitum or not ,as well as whether the universe is infinite or not. Some, like Kant, have held that reason can't determine answers to questions like this; this question is what he calls an "antinomy." Antinomies are issues about the nature of existence that are undecidable (or whose answers can't be determined because reason can argue for both sides of the question). Hume suggests a lower limit to objects. For reasons different from his own, this seems to be more consistent with the present state of belief. My impression about the scientific question is that today quarks and anti-quarks (or some sort of slightly smaller "packet of light" a--as a physicist friend of mine likes to call the basic constituents of material objects) defines the "smallest" spatially defined thing and the thing with the smallest mass. (I guess that what you're after is spatial size.)

Quarks define the lower limit because with regard to the realm of what I call "tiny fast things," space and time become less and less meaningful concepts. Space, that is, is not at its minimum (or maximum) like the objects plotted on a Cartesian grid or Euclidean objects like lines, planes, cubes, etc.--both of which are by definition infinitely divisible. Rather, space and time are, in fact, essentially related (as what's known as "space-time"), so that space ultimately is defined through units of time in the form of the speed of light (e.g. a light year; a meter now equals length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299 792 458 of a second). When one reaches the lower limit of "packets of light" (or electromagnetic radiation), one reaches the lower limit of space-time.

As for the maximal largest, one might say that that the universe itself is the maximally largest "thing." But again, it does depend upon what you mean by a "thing." The universe is not itself a material object. Moreover, although there is some debate about the "shape" of the universe, my understanding is that it's not proper to think about the universe as something with a shape in the Euclidean/Cartesian sense. That way of conceiving the universe would only make sense if the universe were contained within a larger space (which is incoherent, if one means by the universe the totality of things and space).

To begin to grasp how wierd the "size" or shape of the universe is, consider this: When one looks out spatially into the distance of the sky, one is also looking back in time. The farthest detectable radiation (or, rather, the radiation that has reached us from the farthest distance) is also the oldest. The farthest things you see, therefore, are things as were in the past. Now here's the rub: that's true of EVERY point in the universe. So what? Well, think about it:

As you may know, the universe is expanding; but it's not expanding from some single, central point. Rather, EVERY galaxy is moving away from EVERY other galaxy. In that sense, EVERY point of the universe is the center (since things are expanding from every point). One might say, alternatively, that things aren't flying apart "though" space, but that space itself is expanding.

Okay, pressing on, since the "farthest" points are from every point the oldest points, you might say that one "edge" of the universe is its beginning (the Big bang) and the other edge is every point in the universe, in its own present. The universe is not expanding outward into a larger container (such that some being might be sitting on the outer edge of the universe, looking forward into nothingness). The universe is expanding from the past into the future. (Keep in mind that, as Einstein showed in his theory of "special relativity," there is no uniform "present" across the universe.)

There's a bit more: Physicists and cosmologists are, as I understand it, coming to agreement that the universe will expand until it reaches a more or less steady state where the universe is nothing more than a uniform field of the lowest level of radiiation (the coldest, darkest state of existence possible--I call it "entropic hell"). One might, therefore, call that state the "end" of the universe; or alternatively one might call that state its sad but infinite future. (Kant would say that in light of these conclusions that the universe is "limited" but not "bounded.") See what I mean? Is it really sensible to think of such a wierd "thing" as the universe as "largest."

Now, astrophysicists do think they've recently been able to determine the amount of matter in the universe (based on calculations related to its rate of expansion, I believe); and that amount is finite. Presumably there is some most massive star or black hole or galaxy among the finite configurations of matter (though that will be changing at all times), and one might call that object the largest "thing." The same applies to the spatially-bounded largest. Since it's not the case that all configuations of matter in the universe have been measured, I'm sure that no such specific determination has been made in this regard.

Anyway, that's what this philosopher has to say; but take what I say with a grain of salt and consult a philosopher or science, cosmologist, astrophysicist, sub-atomic physicst, who specializes in these difficult questions. If you find that I've said anything wrong, let me know.

Question Is "largest" and "smallest" only a result of comparison, or is there a single largest thing and single smallest thing that actually exist? Sorry in advance if this gets more scientific than philosophic. Accepted:November 9, 2005

Question Is "largest" and "smallest" only a result of comparison, or is there a single largest thing and single smallest thing that actually exist? Sorry in advance if this gets more scientific than philosophic.

Accepted:
November 9, 2005