scholarly journals The quantum theory of time, the block universe, and human experience

2018 ◽  
Vol 376 (2123) ◽  
pp. 20170316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joan A. Vaccaro
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Foundations Of Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Present Moment ◽  
Ongoing Research ◽  
Physical Universe ◽  
Phenomenological Consequence ◽  
Nature Of Time ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Block Universe

Advances in our understanding of the physical universe have dramatically affected how we view ourselves. Right at the core of all modern thinking about the universe is the assumption that dynamics is an elemental feature that exists without question. However, ongoing research into the quantum nature of time is challenging this view: my recently introduced quantum theory of time suggests that dynamics may be a phenomenological consequence of a fundamental violation of time reversal symmetry. I show here that there is consistency between the new theory and the block universe view. I also discuss the new theory in relation to the human experience of existing in the present moment, able to reflect on the past and contemplate a future that is yet to happen. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Foundations of quantum mechanics and their impact on contemporary society’.

scholarly journals Causality re-established

2018 ◽  
Vol 376 (2123) ◽  
pp. 20170313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giacomo Mauro D’Ariano
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Classical Theory ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Foundations Of Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Classical Case ◽  
The Status ◽  
Interpretation Of Quantum Theory ◽  
False Idea ◽  
Block Universe ◽  
Probabilistic Theories

Causality has never gained the status of a ‘law’ or ‘principle’ in physics. Some recent literature has even popularized the false idea that causality is a notion that should be banned from theory. Such misconception relies on an alleged universality of the reversibility of the laws of physics, based either on the determinism of classical theory, or on the multiverse interpretation of quantum theory, in both cases motivated by mere interpretational requirements for realism of the theory. Here, I will show that a properly defined unambiguous notion of causality is a theorem of quantum theory, which is also a falsifiable proposition of the theory. Such a notion of causality appeared in the literature within the framework of operational probabilistic theories. It is a genuinely theoretical notion, corresponding to establishing a definite partial order among events, in the same way as we do by using the future causal cone on Minkowski space. The notion of causality is logically completely independent of the misidentified concept of ‘determinism’, and, being a consequence of quantum theory, is ubiquitous in physics. In addition, as classical theory can be regarded as a restriction of quantum theory, causality holds also in the classical case, although the determinism of the theory trivializes it. I then conclude by arguing that causality naturally establishes an arrow of time. This implies that the scenario of the ‘block Universe’ and the connected ‘past hypothesis’ are incompatible with causality, and thus with quantum theory: they are both doomed to remain mere interpretations and, as such, are not falsifiable, similar to the hypothesis of ‘super-determinism’. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Foundations of quantum mechanics and their impact on contemporary society’.

scholarly journals TEORIA FISICA E SUA REALIFICAZIONE. CASO DI STUDIO: LA CAUSALITÀ

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giacomo Mauro D'Ariano
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Joint Probability ◽  
Classical Case ◽  
Causal Connection ◽  
Objective Reality ◽  
Quantum Theories ◽  
Nature Of Time ◽  
Object Ontology ◽  
Block Universe

I will discuss realism of classical and quantum theories, assessing the untenability of the object ontology, and proposing its substitution with the notion of system used in operational theories, notion that represents a theoretical connection between two events. Within operational theories the distinction between theory and objective reality is well defined: the theory provides the mathematical description of systems and events, and predicts the joint probability of the events; objective reality is identified with the collection of events that actually occurred. I then analyse some cases of realification of the theory – namely the fallacy of identifying theory with reality. In particular, the cases of the notion of causality and causal connection between events are analysed, emphasising their purely theoretical nature, contrarily to the widespread connotation of objectivity. I re-establish the role of causality in physics as a theorem of quantum theory, and hence also of classical theory (which is a restriction of quantum theory), showing how it represents a probabilistic generalisation of the same concept used in special relativity, and discussing why such notion may trivialise in the classical case. I end with a critique of David Albert’s Past Hypothesis about the nature of time, and of the resulting Block Universe vision of space-time, to reaffirm Reality of Time.

Causality Then and Now

1993 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-177
Author(s):  
Karen Harding
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Mechanical Model ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Scientific Data ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Universe ◽  
The Way

Ate appearances deceiving? Do objects behave the way they do becauseGod wills it? Ate objects impetmanent and do they only exist becausethey ate continuously created by God? According to a1 Ghazlli, theanswers to all of these questions ate yes. Objects that appear to bepermanent are not. Those relationships commonly tefemed to as causalare a result of God’s habits rather than because one event inevitably leadsto another. God creates everything in the universe continuously; if Heceased to create it, it would no longer exist.These ideas seem oddly naive and unscientific to people living in thetwentieth century. They seem at odds with the common conception of thephysical world. Common sense says that the universe is made of tealobjects that persist in time. Furthermore, the behavior of these objects isreasonable, logical, and predictable. The belief that the univetse is understandablevia logic and reason harkens back to Newton’s mechanical viewof the universe and has provided one of the basic underpinnings ofscience for centuries. Although most people believe that the world is accutatelydescribed by this sort of mechanical model, the appropriatenessof such a model has been called into question by recent scientificadvances, and in particular, by quantum theory. This theory implies thatthe physical world is actually very different from what a mechanicalmodel would predit.Quantum theory seeks to explain the nature of physical entities andthe way that they interact. It atose in the early part of the twentieth centuryin response to new scientific data that could not be incorporated successfullyinto the ptevailing mechanical view of the universe. Due largely ...

The Nature of Time

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald C. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Time Travel ◽  
Dimensional Manifold ◽  
Nature Of Time ◽  
Manifold Theory ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Theoretical Cost ◽  
Do So

This chapter provides a fuller treatment of the pure manifold theory with an expanded discussion of competing doctrines. It is argued that competing doctrines fail to account for the extensive and/or transitory aspect(s) of time, or they do so at great theoretical cost. The pure manifold theory accounts for the extensive aspect of time because it admits a four-dimensional manifold and it accounts for the transitory aspect of time because it hypothesizes that the increase of entropy is the thing that is ‘felt’ in veridical cases of felt passage. A four-dimensionalist theory of time travel is outlined, along with a sketch of large-scale cosmological traits of the universe.

II. Your Present Moment in Spacetime

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (06) ◽  
pp. 0626
Author(s):  
Conrad Dale Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Physics ◽  
Distributed Processing ◽  
Processing System ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Measuring Instruments ◽  
Present Moment ◽  
Local Measurement ◽  
Hyperbolic Structure ◽  
Objective Reality ◽  
Block Universe

This essay extends the argument begun in "Why Quantum Mechanics Makes Sense," exploring the conditions under which a physical world can define and communicate information. I argue that like the structure of quantum physics, the principles of Special and General Relativity can be understood as reflecting the requirements of a universe in which things are observable and measurable. I interpret the peculiar hyperbolic structure of spacetime not as the static, four-dimensional geometry of an unobservable "block universe", but as the background metric of an evolving web of communicated information that we, along with all our measuring instruments and recording devices, actually experience in our local "here and now." Our relativistic universe is conceived as a parallel distributed processing system, in which a common objective reality is constantly being woven out of many kinds of facts determined separately in countless local measurement-contexts.

scholarly journals The Meta-Dynamic Nature of Consciousness

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Barnden
Keyword(s):  
Mathematical Formulation ◽  
Physical Universe ◽  
Time Flow ◽  
Non Local ◽  
Physical Interactions ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
Physical Laws ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Non Locality ◽  
Do So

How, if at all, consciousness can be part of the physical universe remains a baffling problem. This article outlines a new, developing philosophical theory of how it could do so, and offers a preliminary mathematical formulation of a physical grounding for key aspects of the theory. Because the philosophical side has radical elements, so does the physical-theory side. The philosophical side is radical, first, in proposing that the productivity or dynamism in the universe that many believe to be responsible for its systematic regularities is actually itself a physical constituent of the universe, along with more familiar entities. Indeed, it proposes that instances of dynamism can themselves take part in physical interactions with other entities, this interaction then being “meta-dynamism” (a type of meta-causation). Secondly, the theory is radical, and unique, in arguing that consciousness is necessarily partly constituted of meta-dynamic auto-sensitivity, in other words it must react via meta-dynamism to its own dynamism, and also in conjecturing that some specific form of this sensitivity is sufficient for and indeed constitutive of consciousness. The article proposes a way for physical laws to be modified to accommodate meta-dynamism, via the radical step of including elements that explicitly refer to dynamism itself. Additionally, laws become, explicitly, temporally non-local in referring directly to quantity values holding at times prior to a given instant of application of the law. The approach therefore implicitly brings in considerations about what information determines states. Because of the temporal non-locality, and also because of the deep connections between dynamism and time-flow, the approach also implicitly connects to the topic of entropy insofar as this is related to time.

Introduction-Reconstructing Scientific Pasts

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
José G. Perillán
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Research Methods ◽  
Foundations Of Quantum Theory ◽  
Muriel Rukeyser ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Washington Square

The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.1 —MURIEL RUKEYSER Graduate work in both physics and history taught me to use highly specialized research methods to rigorously search out truth and eradicate myths. In spring 2012, I brought this mindset with me as I sat down for lunch with physicist Pierre Hohenberg at the Apple Restaurant near Manhattan’s Washington Square Park. Pierre was a brilliant physicist and a family friend. Toward the end of his life, he was particularly invested in work on the foundations of quantum theory....

The Unchanging Universe

2020 ◽  
pp. 72-86
Author(s):  
Demetris Nicolaides
Keyword(s):  
Space Time ◽  
Sense Perception ◽  
Theory Of Relativity ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Time Continuum ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Block Universe

Heraclitus declares the being (that which exists, nature) but identifies it with becoming, but Parmenides declares just the Being; only what is, is, what is not, is not. All “follows” from that: change, he argues, is logically impossible and so what is, is one and unchangeable! This dazzling absolute monism is in daring disagreement with sense perception, but curiously it has found a well-known genius as a supporter. Emboldened by his theory of relativity, Einstein considers the universe as a four-dimensional “block” (a space-time continuum like a loaf of bread) which, remarkably, contains all moments of time (of past, present, and future) always, and where change is an illusion. He said, “For we convinced physicists, the distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however persistent.” In the block universe, the past is not gone, it is present; and the future, like the present, is, well, present, too.

scholarly journals WHY THERE IS SOMETHING SO CLOSE TO NOTHING: TOWARDS A FUNDAMENTAL THEORY OF THE COSMOLOGICAL CONSTANT

2007 ◽  
Vol 22 (10) ◽  
pp. 1797-1818 ◽  
Author(s):  
VISHNU JEJJALA ◽  
DJORDJE MINIC
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Theory ◽  
String Theory ◽  
Cosmological Constant ◽  
Vacuum Energy ◽  
Uncertainty Relation ◽  
Space Time ◽  
Large Size ◽  
Minkowski Space Time ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Canonical Quantum

The cosmological constant problem is turned around to argue for a new foundational physics postulate underlying a consistent quantum theory of gravity and matter, such as string theory. This postulate is a quantum equivalence principle which demands a consistent gauging of the geometric structure of canonical quantum theory. We argue that string theory can be formulated to accommodate such a principle, and that in such a theory the observed cosmological constant is a fluctuation about a zero value. This fluctuation arises from an uncertainty relation involving the cosmological constant and the effective volume of space–time. The measured, small vacuum energy is dynamically tied to the large "size" of the universe, thus violating naive decoupling between small and large scales. The numerical value is related to the scale of cosmological supersymmetry breaking, supersymmetry being needed for a nonperturbative stability of local Minkowski space–time regions in the classical regime.

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