Related papers: Reality, No Matter How You Slice It
Time is one of those issues about which many thinkers and scientists have tried to pronounce their finest thoughts, but the discourse about time has remained vague and often inconsistent. In this paper we put forward a conceptual framework…
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…
Quantum theory is extremely successful in explaining most physical phenomena, and is not contradicted by any experiment. Yet, the theory has many puzzling features : the occurrence of probabilities, the unclear distinction between the…
This is intended to be a serious paper, in spite of the title. The idea is that quantum mechanics is about probabilistic correlations, i.e., about the structure of information, since a theory of information is essentially a theory of…
Despite the success of modern physics in formulating mathematical theories that can predict the outcome of experiments, we have made remarkably little progress towards answering the most fundamental question of: why is there a universe at…
In contemporary physics space and time are intertwined entities so that kinematical and dynamical quantities are expressed in the four-dimensional space-time. This formulation seems to contradict our every-day experience and perception…
Starting from the guiding principles of spacetime locality and operationalism, a general framework for a probabilistic description of nature is proposed. Crucially, no notion of time or metric is assumed, neither any specific physical…
In a recent result, Frauchiger and Renner argue that if quantum theory accurately describes complex systems like observers who perform measurements, then "we are forced to give up the view that there is one single reality." Following a…
We give a condensed and accessible summary of a recent derivation of quantum theory from information-theoretic principles, and use it to study the consequences of this and other reconstructions for our conceptual understanding of the…
If a wave function does not describe microscopic reality then what does? Reformulating quantum mechanics in path-integral terms leads to a notion of "precluded event" and thence to the proposal that quantal reality differs from classical…
In this essay I develop quantum contextuality as a potential candidate for Wheeler's universal regulating principle, arguing -- \textit{contrary} to Wheeler -- that this ultimately implies that `bit' comes from `it.' In the process I…
The question whether quantum measurements reflect some underlying objective reality has no generally accepted answer. We show that description of such reality is possible under natural conditions such as linearity and causality, although in…
Understanding the emergence of a tangible 4-dimensional space-time from a quantum theory of gravity promises to be a tremendously difficult task. This article makes the case that this task may not have to be carried. Space-time as we know…
The world is four-dimensional according to fundamental physics, governed by basic laws that operate in a spacetime that has no unique division into space and time. Yet our subjective experience is divided into present, past, and future.…
We discuss the nature of reality in the ontological context of Penrose's math-matter-mind triangle. The triangle suggests the circularity of the widespread view that math arises from the mind, the mind arises out of matter, and that matter…
I will propose the notion that the universe is digital, not as a claim about what the universe is made of but rather about the way it unfolds. Central to the argument will be the concepts of symmetry breaking and algorithmic probability,…
According to our current conception of physics, any valid physical theory is supposed to describe the objective evolution of a unique external world. However, this condition is challenged by quantum theory, which suggests that physical…
We discuss views about whether the universe can be rationally comprehended, starting with Plato, then Leibniz, and then the views of some distinguished scientists of the previous century. Based on this, we defend the thesis that…
Quantum information is radically different from classical information in that the quantum formalism (Hilbert space) makes necessary the introduction of irreducible ``nits,'' n being an arbitrary natural number (bigger than one), not just…
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…