[deleted]
Douglas
Leaving aside the possibility that the entirety of reality is expanding, space is neither emergent or created. It is the corollary of entity. And here one also has to be clear, in ontological terms, about the concept: entity. There is only one physically existent state at a time. Each time it is different. However, we keep referring to different existent states as 'it', because superficially certain features are retained which are deemed to constitute that particular 'it'. That is, we are attributing a level of persistence to reality which does not actually occur.
Anyway(!), space is just the reverse of object. There are only objects which occupy spatial position. In that sense one could say that that which is being designated as space in any given instance, is another object from the ones being used as a reference for the definition. For example: the space which is the consequence of identifying two molecules, is part of the ball which is formed from these, and other, molecules. If the reference is ball to another object, ie the extrinsic space, then the former is not space but ball. Etc, etc, etc. The extent to which all possible spatial positions are occupied by 'something' at any given point in time, is another matter.
As I hinted before, with the definition of time, spacetime is a flawed model of reality. There is no 'time', or more accurately, change, in reality. It can only exist in one state at a time. The subsequent one is different, and so on. Comparison reveals change which involves substance (ie what altered) and frequency (ie the rate at which it did so).
That cat knew what happened, as indeed did the fleas, etc, on its body. Their rights were denied. Or put another way round, the underlying philosophy there as to how reality occurs is incorrect.
Paul