Related papers: Present time
String theory has transformed our understanding of geometry, topology and spacetime. Thus, for this special issue of Foundations of Physics commemorating "Forty Years of String Theory", it seems appropriate to step back and ask what we do…
We show that the modern quantum mechanics, and particularly the theory of decoherence, allows for formulating a sort of a physical metatheory of consciousness. Particularly, the analysis of the necessary conditions for the occurrence of…
Time plays a fundamental role in our ability to make sense of the physical laws in the world around us. The nature of time has puzzled people -- from the ancient Greeks to the present day -- resulting in a long running debate between…
I present a discussion of some open issues in the philosophy of space-time theories. Emphasis is put on the ontological nature of space and time, the relation between determinism and predictability, the origin of irreversible processes in…
The theory of relativity showed that several Newtonian ideas about spacetime are imperfect. We present here some relativistic concepts related to these ideas: simultaneity of events and synchronization of clocks (both along a line in the…
We argue that (1) our perception of time through change and (2) the gap between reality and our observation of it are at the heart of both quantum mechanics and the dynamical mechanism of physical systems. We suggest that the origin of…
This paper describes a continuation of the program of causal views, in which the world consists of nothing but a vast number of partial views of its past. Each view is associated to an event, and is a representation of the immediate causal…
The fundamental physical theories that interpret and explain behaviour of matter in nature are dependent on several unobservables and insensibles in their construction. While a rigorous natural philosophy cannot take them for granted, there…
Despite the extraordinary successes the two great bastions of $20^{th}$ century science (Quantum Theory and General Relativity) are troubled with serious conceptual and mathematical difficulties. As a result, further growth of fundamental…
Zurek's existential interpretation of quantum mechanics suffers from three classical prejudices, including the belief that space and time are intrinsically and infinitely differentiated. They compel him to relativize the concept of…
The ``Hard Problem" of consciousness refers to a long-standing enigma about how qualia emerge from physical processes in the brain. Building on insights from the development of non-Euclidean geometry, this paper seeks to present a…
We argue that the construction of spacetime is personal, specific to each observer, and requires combining aspects of both discovery and creation. What is usually referred to as the block universe then emerges by noting that part of the…
While speed is an ubiquitous concept in physics, its inverse - known as slowness - sometimes proves more relevant. We discuss some case studies within classical physics where such a notion is fruitful, before exploring how it can be…
The special theory of relativity has fundamentally changed our views of space and time. The relativity of simultaneity in particular, and the theory of relativity as a whole, still presents significant difficulty for beginners in the…
Some principles underpinning the running of the Universe are discussed. The most important, the machine principle, states that the Universe is a fully autonomous, self-organizing and self-testing quantum automaton. Continuous space and…
It has been suggested, on the one hand, that quantum states are just states of knowledge; and, on the other, that quantum theory is merely a theory of correlations. These suggestions are confronted with problems about the nature of…
We review some modern theories about the structure of space and time, in particular those related to discrete space and time. Following an epistemological method we start from theories which discuss discrete space and time as a mathematical…
Local realism has been superseded by recent theoretical and experimental developments in quantum physics which show a synchronic connection between the parts. In contrast to the principle of local realism, which is the basis of classical…
All differences between the role of space and time in nature are explained by proposing the principles in which none of the spacetime coordinates has an {\it a priori} special role. Spacetime is treated as a non-dynamical manifold, with a…
This work presents a brief and non-technical description of the main results and concepts of the modern scientific cosmology, viewing it from an epistemological perspective which allows a dialog with other modes of thinking like e.g.…