A layman's doubts about space-time

Einstein once said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge." This prompted me to imagine things beyond my reach. Obviously, it led to a lot of doubts in my mind which I dare to put before the authorities of your sort. I further beg your kind permission to present some of my views, which are of course only speculative, based on intuition and not on objective science. SPACE General relativity tells us that we live in curved space. Suppose we have a straight but flexible rod. It occupies a definite place in space. We curve it and it occupies a new place in space. Now the place left vacant by the rod is occupied by space. So when space is curved, it also occupies a new place. Then what occupies the place left vacant by the space? We are told that space and time originated at the moment of the Big Bang. What should we call the place that was occupied by the newly created space and that is still being occupied by the expanding universe? Why don't we define space simply as empty space, with no boundaries, finite size, or expansion? TIME In my view, time has a similar static nature as space. Time does not flow in any direction. Instead, objects move through it by undergoing ageing. Objects age only in one direction due to thermodynamic compulsions. It is the ageing of objects that gives us the perception that time is flowing, just like in a moving train, sometimes we feel that the platform is moving. Thus, time may be a static sea through which objects are flowing actively under the direction of thermodynamic laws. In my view, time is nothing but a virtual fossil of the thermodynamic progression of the universe. Archived source: https://web.archive.org/web/20160403025337/http://www.spacetimeandtheuniverse.com/against-mainstream/5840-laymans-doubts-about-space-time.html