In summary, the raisin bread analogy fails when you observe it from outside the dough, it is only good so long as you are inside the dough. The only way you can tell the dough is expanding is by watching the raisins.
Hmm, is it that gravity holds things together AGAINST expansion, or is it that once enough mass is in a volume of space the gravity simply causes expansion NOT to occur at all?
Yes we know the inflation factor is much weaker than any other attraction even gravity and therefore, despite a small effect gravity holds systems more or less in Newtonian motion. What I struggle to conceptualize is how this spacial/distance inflation plays out as you move from intergalactic to interstellar and so on down to quantum scales.
I have read some work that attempts to rationalize continuity and discreteness at smaller scales by working with differentiable 'non-continuous' objects (but my understanding of this and the math is weak).
Despite the divergence of the math with everyday experience I think it still important that things should be reasonably explainable in terms of more familiar concepts.
Even though a 4th (or more) spatial dimension is unimaginable it is sort of conceptualisable with some practice and dumping preconceived notions, so is infinity etc. But at the end of the day, all this heavy physics has to explain what we see, perceive and expect at the human scale.
But the inflation of space where every 'observer' sees themselves as the centre, sort of 4th dimensional expansion - surface of hypershere etc, may not be what's happening at smaller scales.
Or as you say 'drakkith' does the interaction of matter/gravity with space change things. So if particles are introduced into space then the normal forces would resist a spatial inflation that is happening around them, or their presence negates the inflation. But if that's the case then it seems to me this variable inflation around matter would create a discontinuity/tension in space? I feel I'm barking up the wrong tree here and that's why I could do with a model. Help!