Relative Matters

While reading about the amazing NASA New Horizons Space Probe (which is due to arrive at Pluto in less than a year!) I came across a webpage tracking the movement of the probe. On the webpage (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/whereis_nh.php), the software NASA uses to produce nice visuals of where the probe is and other information about it includes a special statistic: heliocentric velocity.
Now, initially I didn't know what this was, but looking at the description given:

Heliocentric Velocity. The current position graphic also notes the spacecraft's heliocentric velocity - its speed with respect to the Sun - in kilometers per second. One kilometer per second is equivalent to 0.62 miles per second, or 2,237 miles per hour.

This might seem like a pretty normal statement, but think about it carefully. If there has to be a central reference point for this probe's velocity to be measured from, then that must mean that all velocities are relative (which according to the theory of relativity, they are). This must also mean however, that the sun has a velocity, and that velocity is relative to other large stellar objects, or even things as small as atoms perhaps, which have a definite position in our universe. This makes sense, in earthly terms, where we measure our velocity relative to what can be regarded for all purposes as the stationary ground.
But, say that there existed just one object in the universe, with no other atoms around to help measure its velocity. Would that object ever have velocity? Actually, wouldn't that mean that even if a force was exerted on the object (somehow without another object causing it) that the object would seemingly simply be as good as stationary, since there would be no reference points to measure any acceleration in its movement from. Do not be fooled by the fact that if you were standing next to the object, that you would see it moving away from you, since this assumes that you would also be in this completely empty universe, meaning that there are now two objects which can be measured relative to each other (you and the object).
But of course, when I said that a force was caused, and implied that this happened without another object causing it, then this would be impossible. In fact, the only way for that object to have a force effected on it, would for it to split in two (in an unexplained and spontaneous explosion) and so resulting in two parts of the object having pushed away from each-other with equal force. Of course, we could not actually measure how large that force was in terms of our standard units since that would mean that we were there as well, and would be measuring the forces relative to the current system of our universe, which is wrong since the single object (now dual-object) universe is a different universe with different physical rules of relativity - our universe contains a complex set of objects relative to each other not comparable to that universe.
The way our universe is comparable to that single-to-dual object universe is that they seem to both have started in the same way. Perhaps our universe started as a very similar object. Of course, since that object was the only thing that existed, there was nothing to compare it to and so it existed relative to itself both in size and motion: meaning in fact that it had infinitely small size and motion (or infinitely large depending on how you want to think about it). This concept seems similar to the concept of a singularity - the thing that our universe is thought to have evolved from. Perhaps physical laws and rules emerged at the beginning of our universe in a similar way to the object splitting in that alternative universe, and did so for no apparent reason (this concurs with the spontaneous expansion idea of the Big Bang Theory). Of course, maybe I can now attempt to explain the complicated notion of 'non-existence' outside the universe: perhaps this simply implies that outside the boundaries of relative relationships between matter in our universe, nothing exists since there is simply nothing to measure it relative to, since that space is immeasurable relative to objects in our universe and we cannot simply get out a ruler and say how large objects outside the 'boundaries of the universe' are or how fast they are travelling.
This relativity might also explain (in a convoluted manner) the deveptively-simple, ever-so-weird concept of gravity. The explanation might be that gravity is simply a result of the relative equilibrium of all the particles of the universe having been disturbed by that unknown force which caused the Big Bang to begin. Ever since then, there has been an imbalance in that equilibrium, however since the universe is so complex and matter-full, the particles were unable to regain their original structure (the structure they held when they were a singularity) and have simply been trying to "locally compensate". What I mean by this is that instead of the whole network of the particles in the universe simply returning to their original relative positions, they have formed 'mini equilibria' in certain areas of the universe, such as on that lovable place we like to call earth, or even in our galaxy as a whole. Were every single particle in the universe to suddenly become aligned in such a way that they might be able to come together again to reform overall equilibria, that might be more favourable, and perhaps it has happened before (a la the theory of repeating universes: where universes continually form and collapse upon themselves to form cycles of singularities). Perhaps, this will happen again in the future? Nobody knows whether it will however, and if it will, when it will happen? Or is time, in this context, strangely relative as well? I leave that question to you.

Credit to:
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/whereis_nh.php
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/#.VBSbcMJdVA0