Related papers: Relativity Is Not About Spacetime
We show that the local and deterministic mode of description is not only in conflict with the quantum theory, but also with relativity. We argue that elementary relativistic properties of spacetime lead to the emergence of a…
Quantum theory is a mathematical formalism to compute probabilities for outcomes happenning in physical experiments. These outcomes constitute events happening in space-time. One of these events represents the fact that a system located in…
A theory governing the metric and matter fields in spacetime is {\it locally causal} if the probability distribution for the fields in any region is determined solely by physical data in the region's past, i.e. it is independent of events…
Theories of quantum gravity generically presuppose or predict that the reality underlying relativistic spacetimes they are describing is significantly non-spatiotemporal. On pain of empirical incoherence, approaches to quantum gravity must…
In the light of some recent results, it is argued that usual concepts of causality and locality are approximations valid at scales greater than the Compton wavelength and corresponding time scales. It follows that the "spooky" non-locality…
In non relativistic physics it is assumed that both chronological ordering and causal ordering of events (telling whether there exists a causal relationship between two events or not) are absolute, observer independent properties. In…
I discuss the ontological assumptions and implications of General Relativity. I maintain that General Relativity is a theory about gravitational fields, not about space-time. The latter is a more basic ontological category, that emerges…
The theory of measurement is employed to elucidate the physical basis of general relativity. For measurements involving phenomena with intrinsic length or time scales, such scales must in general be negligible compared to the (translational…
Because of the non-locality of quantum entanglement, realist approaches to completing quantum mechanics have implications for our conception of space. Quantum gravity also is expected to predict phenomena in which the locality of classical…
Although time is one of our most intuitive physical concepts, its understanding at the fundamental level is still an open question in physics. For instance, time in quantum mechanics and general relativity are two distinct and incompatible…
In general relativity, the causal structure between events is dynamical, but it is definite and observer-independent; events are point-like and the membership of an event A in the future or past light-cone of an event B is an…
As repeatedly emphasized by Einstein our knowledge of the structure of space and time is based entirely on inferences from observations of physical objects and processes. At the most fundamental level these objects and processes are…
We argue that space and space-time emerge as a consequence of dynamical collapse of the wave function of macroscopic objects. Locality and separability are properties of our approximate, emergent universe. At the fundamental level,…
Quantum non-local correlations and the acausal, spooky action at a distance suggest a discord between quantum theory and special relativity. We propose a resolution for this discord by first observing that there is a problem of time in…
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…
General relativity is a background-independent theory of a dynamical classical spacetime geometry. Quantum theory is formulated in a classical spacetime, as an intrinsically probabilistic, contextual theory of non-classical, interfering…
In this paper I argue that the fundamental aspect of our notion of time is that it defines an order relation, be it a total order relation between configurations of the world or just a partial order relation between events. This position is…
In quantum mechanics, not everything that can be observed can be observed simultaneously. Observational data exhibits \emph{contextuality} -- a generalisation of nonlocality -- if the result of an observation is necessarily dependent on…
The standard formulation of quantum theory relies on a fixed space-time metric determining the localisation and causal order of events. In general relativity, the metric is influenced by matter, and is expected to become indefinite when…
It is argued that quantum and relativistic correlations can be described in a unified way, in that both assume free will as an axiom, and happen without any continuous connection in space-time. This description may contribute to a coherent…