Clearly, if I'm spinning, I'll feel my arms lift away from my torso. But what sets the preferred angular momentum? Is there a preferred angular momentum in a vacuum? In Newtonian mechanics, I imagine one would appeal to the ether, so I suspect the answer lies in general relativity.
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If you're spinning you'll have intrinsic angular momentum, it doesn't need to have anything to do with extrinsic objects. If you're spinning You'll feel the force proportional to the distance from the axis of rotation pulling each part of your body away from the axis of rotation, and this force will be felt everywhere except along the axis, thus also uniquely fixing it.
Kugutsu-o
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Einstein thought about this and coined the term Mach’s principle. The basic idea behind Mach’s principle is that very distant stars and galaxies (or maybe, in modern cosmology, the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation) define a preferred reference frame against which absolute rotation can be measured.
gandalf61
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