Try thinking of it like this, Steve: In your universe with one object - let's call it a cube, for ease of reference - the object exists in four dimensions. It has height, breadth, depth and duration - three spatial dimensions and a time dimension (up to these four, there's really no difference in the quality of dimensions). Nothing ever, ever, EVER happens to our cube. It doesn't spin, it isn't acted upon by radiation, there's nothing to bang into it, etc. But that nothing happens to our cube doesn't alter the spatial dimensions - it maintains the same height, breadth and depth. Because of Special Relativity, any object - me, you, an elephant, the cube in question - that has spatial dimensions must have a time dimension (this is what is - in this case - meant by 'spacetime'). To talk of something existing - even if is the sole object in a given universe - without a time dimension is nonsensical.
Suppose now that a quantum particle pops into existence (I'm given to understand that they do this) and bangs into our cube. The collision hasn't created time, any more than it created the spatial dimensions of the cube - it has impinged on a dimension that was already there. In your argument, the bridge abutment I drive my car into didn't exist - that is to say, it was non-dimensional - until I hit it.
I hope this helps.
Boru
Suppose now that a quantum particle pops into existence (I'm given to understand that they do this) and bangs into our cube. The collision hasn't created time, any more than it created the spatial dimensions of the cube - it has impinged on a dimension that was already there. In your argument, the bridge abutment I drive my car into didn't exist - that is to say, it was non-dimensional - until I hit it.
I hope this helps.
Boru
‘But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ - Thomas Jefferson
