Related papers: Hyperdeterminism? Spacetime 'Analyzed'
Among the various attempts to formulate a theory of quantum gravity, a class of approaches suggests that spacetime, as modeled by general relativity, is destined to fade away. A major issue becomes then to identify which structures may…
This chapter is an up-to-date account of results on globally hyperbolic spacetimes, and serves several purposes. We begin with the exposition of results from a foundational level, where the main tools are order theory and general topology,…
When compared to quantum mechanics, classical mechanics is often depicted in a specific metaphysical flavour: spatio-temporal realism or a Newtonian "background" is presented as an intrinsic fundamental classical presumption. However, the…
The canonical formalism of general relativity affords a particularly interesting characterisation of the infamous hole argument. It also provides a natural formalism in which to relate the hole argument to the problem of time in classical…
General relativity treats spacetime as dynamical and exhibits its breakdown at singularities. This failure is interpreted as evidence that quantum gravity is not a theory formulated within spacetime; instead, it must explain the very…
All gauge theories need ``something fixed'' even as ``something changes.'' Underlying the implementation of these ideas all major physical theories make indispensable use of an elaborately designed spacetime model as the ``something…
Spacetime singularities in general relativity are commonly thought to be problematic, in that they signal a breakdown in the theory. We address the question of how to interpret this breakdown, restricting our attention to classical…
It is often conjectured that a choice of time function merely sets up a frame for the quantum evolution of gravitational field, meaning that all choices should be in some sense compatible. In order to explore this conjecture (and the…
Black holes are extremely relativistic objects. Physical processes around them occur in a regime where the gravitational field is extremely intense. Under such conditions, our representations of space, time, gravity, and thermodynamics are…
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…
In light of G\"{o}del's undecidability results (incomplete theorems) for math, quantum indeterminism indicates that physics and the Universe may be indeterministic, incomplete, and open in nature, and therefore demand no single unification…
Classical mechanics, relativity, electrodynamics and quantum mechanics are often depicted as separate realms of physics, each with its own formalism and notion. This remains unsatisfactory with respect to the unity of nature and to the…
In recent publications in physics and mathematics, concerns have been raised about the use of real numbers to describe quantities in physics, and in particular about the usual assumption that physical quantities are infinitely precise. In…
Physicists are increasingly beginning to take seriously the possibility of laws outside the traditional time-evolution paradigm; yet our understanding of determinism is still predicated on a forwards time-evolution picture, making it…
A deformation of special relativistic kinematics (possible signal of a theory of quantum gravity at low energies) leads to a modification of the notion of spacetime. At the classical level, this modification is required when one considers a…
Scientists often think of the world (or some part of it) as a dynamical system, a stochastic process, or a generalization of such a system. Prominent examples of systems are (i) the system of planets orbiting the sun or any other classical…
I examine the debate between substantivalists and relationalists about the ontological character of spacetime and conclude it is not well posed. I argue that the so-called Hole Argument does not bear on the debate, because it provides no…
Superdeterminism - where the Measurement Independence assumption in Bell's Theorem is violated - is frequently assumed to imply implausibly conspiratorial correlations between properties $\lambda$ of particles being measured and measurement…
This is the first of four papers prompted by a recent literature about a doctrine dubbed spacetime functionalism. This paper gives our general framework for discussing functionalism. Following Lewis, we take it as a species of reduction. We…
Recent advances in observational cosmology are changing the way we view the nature of time. In general relativity, the freedom in choosing a time hypersurface has hampered the implementation of the theory. Fortunately, Hamilton-Jacobi…