Related papers: The passage of time and top-down causation
The observed general time-asymmetric behavior of macroscopic systems -- embodied in the second law of thermodynamics -- arises naturally from time-symmetric microscopic laws due to the great disparity between macro and micro-scales. More…
Time can be defined as the duration between events. It is irreversible. When used as a variable in quantifying the changing properties of matter, this irreversibility of time is incompatible with Newton's deterministic mechanics and with…
This paper argues that the physics of condensed matter cannot be fully reduced to the supposedly fundamental quantum mechanical theory for all the atoms of which the system consists. In fact, there are many reasons to reject the idea that…
The problem of the Nature of Time is twofold: whether or not time is a fundamental quantity of Nature, and how does clock time of metrology emerge in the experimental description of dynamics. This work strongly supports the fundamental…
Most physics theories are deterministic, with the notable exception of quantum mechanics which, however, comes plagued by the so-called measurement problem. This state of affairs might well be due to the inability of standard mathematics to…
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…
According to quantum theory, randomness is a fundamental property of the universe yet classical physics is mostly deterministic. In this article I show that it is possible for deterministic systems to arise from random ones and discuss the…
We propose a definition of determinism for a physical system that includes, besides the measurement device, the surrounding environment. This enlarged system is assumed to follow a predefined trajectory starting from some (unknown) initial…
The descriptions of the quantum realm and the macroscopic classical world differ significantly not only in their mathematical formulations but also in their foundational concepts and philosophical consequences. When and how physical systems…
We report an inconsistency found in probability theory (also referred to as measure-theoretic probability). For probability measures induced by real-valued random variables, we deduce an "equality" such that one side of the "equality" is a…
Quantum mechanics marks a radical departure from the classical understanding of Nature, fostering an inherent randomness which forbids a deterministic description; yet the most fundamental departure arises from something different. As shown…
Quantum theory expresses the observable relations between physical properties in terms of probabilities that depend on the specific context described by the "state" of a system. However, the laws of physics that emerge at the macroscopic…
Time-asymmetric behavior as embodied in the second law of thermodynamics is observed in {\it individual macroscopic} systems. It can be understood as arising naturally from time-symmetric microscopic laws when account is taken of a) the…
We propose a definition of determinism for a physical system that includes, besides the measured system, the measurement device and the surrounding environment. This enlarged system is assumed to follow a predefined trajectory starting from…
A tradition handed down among physicists maintains that classical physics is a perfectly deterministic theory capable of predicting the future with absolute certainty, independently of any interpretations. It also tells that it was quantum…
A broken time-reversal symmetry, i.e. broken detailed balance, is central to non-equilibrium physics and is a prerequisite for life. However, it turns out to be quite challenging to unambiguously define and quantify time-reversal symmetry…
Two people may claim both to be naturalists, but have divergent conceptions of basic elements of the natural world which lead them to mean different things when they talk about laws of nature, or states, or the role of mathematics in…
Dynamics, the study of change, is normally the subject of mechanics. Whether the chosen mechanics is ``fundamental'' and deterministic or ``phenomenological'' and stochastic, all changes are described relative to an external time. Here we…
We pursue the view that quantum theory may be an emergent structure related to large space-time scales. In particular, we consider classical Hamiltonian systems in which the intrinsic proper time evolution parameter is related through a…
If the block universe view is correct, the future and the past have similar status and one would expect physical theories to involve final as well as initial boundary conditions. A plausible consistency condition between the initial and…