Related papers: Space and time as containers, Space divisibility, …
I discuss three connections between Dummett's writings about time and philosophical aspects of physics. The first connection (Section 2) arises from remarks of Dummett's about the different relations of observation to time and to space. The…
The problem of understanding quantum mechanics is in large measure the problem of finding appropriate ways of thinking about the spatial and temporal aspects of the physical world. The standard, substantival, set-theoretic conception of…
The relationship between inner and outer time is discussed. Inner time is intrinsically future directed and possesses the quality of a distinguished "now". Both of these qualities get lost in the operationalized external physical time,…
A goal of physics is to understand the greatest possible breadth of natural phenomena in terms of the most economical set of basic concepts. However, as the understanding of physics has developed historically, its pedagogy and language have…
This article presents a novel interpretation of quantum mechanics. It extends the meaning of ``measurement'' to include all property-indicating facts. Intrinsically space is undifferentiated: there are no points on which a world of locally…
Although the standard viewpoint in theoretical physics is that the unification of quantum theory and general relativity requires the quantization of gravity and spacetime, there is not consensus about whether spacetime must fundamentally…
In quantum gravity there is no notion of absolute time. Like all other quantities in the theory, the notion of time has to be introduced "relationally", by studying the behavior of some physical quantities in terms of others chosen as a…
This paper examines the various arguments that have been put forward suggesting either that time does not exist, or that it exists but its flow is not real. I argue that (i) time both exists and flows; (ii) an Evolving Block Universe…
Physicists and philosophers are increasingly prone to regarding our current physical theories as providing 'effective descriptions' of real-world systems. In the context of quantum gravity research, this fuels a common view that the…
"The last remnant of physical objectivity of space-time" is disclosed, beyond the Leibniz equivalence, in the case of a continuous family of spatially non-compact models of general relativity. The {\it physical individuation} of…
Experience of time is one of the primordial human experiences which is deeply tied to human consciousness. But despite this intimate relation of time with human conscious experience, time has proved to be very elusive. Particularly in…
The concept of event provides the essential bridge from the realm of virtuality of the quantum state to real phenomena in space and time. We ask how much we can gather from existing theory about their localization and point out that…
The absolute/relative debate on the nature of space and time is ongoing for thousands of years. Here we attempt to investigate space and time from the information theoretic point of view to understand spatial and temporal correlations under…
This is a chapter for an upcoming book, "Space, Time, and the Limits of Human Understanding", edited by Shyam Wuppuluri and Giancarlo Ghirardi. I first present the classical picture of flat space and ever-flowing time, as generally accepted…
Here we will discuss the philosophical differences between an approach to the deep nature of physical space based on the concept of coordinates and one based on the concept of relation. The philosophical superiority of the second approach…
We review the current status of dimensions, as the result of a long and controversial history that includes input from philosophy and physics. Our conclusion is that they are subjective but essential concepts which provide a kind of…
The concept of proper time cannot be just taken over from classical theory and applied to quantum theory. There are a number of serious ambiguities related to it. Similarly, the concept of mass has some inconsistencies attached to it. We…
Is there a number for every bit of spacetime, or is spacetime smooth like the real line? The ultimate fate of a quantum theory of gravity might depend on it. The troublesome infinities of quantum gravity can be cured by assuming that…
The nature of the change in perspective that accompanies the proposal of a unified physical theory deriving from the single dimension of time is elaborated. On expressing a temporal interval in a multi-dimensional form, via a direct…
We show here that what we call visual space of consciousness, the space of what we see, is a specific space different from the purely physical one and that its properties imply that it cannot be reduced to or deduced from physical laws.…