Related papers: A Background Independent Description of Physical P…
We study how physical information can be extracted from a background independent quantum system. We use an extremely simple `minimalist' system that models a finite region of 3d euclidean quantum spacetime with a single equilateral…
A derivation of the equations of motion of general relativity is presented that does not invoke the Axiom of Choice, but requires the explicit construction of a choice function q for continuous three-space regions. The motivation for this…
One of the key ways in which quantum mechanics differs from relativity is that it requires a fixed background reference frame for spacetime. In fact, this appears to be one of the main conceptual obstacles to uniting the two theories.…
Using the background-metric independence for the traceless mode as well as the conformal mode, 4D quantum gravity is described as a quantum field theory defined on a non-dynamical background-metric. The measure then induces an action with 4…
Background independence is often emphasized as an important property of a quantum theory of gravity that takes seriously the geometrical nature of general relativity. In a background-independent formulation, quantum gravity should determine…
This treatise concerns shapes in the sense of constellations of points with various automorphisms quotiented out: continuous translations, rotations and dilations, and also discrete mirror image identification and labelling…
A number of background independent quantizations procedures have recently been employed in 4d nonperturbative quantum gravity. We investigate and illustrate these techniques and their relation in the context of a simple 2d topological…
This paper concerns what Background Independence itself is (as opposed to some particular physical theory that is background independent). The notions presented mostly arose from a layer-by-layer analysis of the facets of the Problem of…
We argue that the demand of background independence in a quantum theory of gravity calls for an extension of standard geometric quantum mechanics. We discuss a possible kinematical and dynamical generalization of the latter by way of a…
A new methodological approach for the study of topology for shapes made of arrangements of lines, planes or solids is presented. Topologies for shapes are traditionally built on the classical theory of point-sets. In this paper, topologies…
We investigate the possibility that a background independent quantum theory of gravity is not a theory of quantum geometry. We provide a way for global spacetime symmetries to emerge from a background independent theory without geometry. In…
In a recent paper we have suggested that a formulation of quantum mechanics should exist, which does not require the concept of time, and that the appropriate mathematical language for such a formulation is noncommutative differential…
One considers geometry with the intransitive equaivalence relation. Such a geometry is a physical geometry, i.e. it is described completely by the world function, which is a half of the squared distance function. The physical geometry…
This monograph attempts a theory of every 'thing' that can be distinguished from other things in a statistical sense. The ensuing statistical independencies, mediated by Markov blankets, speak to a recursive composition of ensembles (of…
It is shown that background fields of a topological character usually introduced as such in compactified string theories correspond to quantum degrees of freedom which parametrise the freedom in choosing a representation of the zero mode…
Loop quantum gravity, a non-perturbative and manifestly background free, quantum theory of gravity implies that at the kinematical level the spatial geometry is discrete in a specific sense. The spirit of background independence also…
I describe a constructive foundation for Quantum Mechanics, based on the discreteness of the degrees of freedom of quantum objects and on the Principle of Relativity. Taking Einstein's historical construction of Special Relativity as a…
Intuitively speaking, a classical field theory is background-independent if the structure required to make sense of its equations is itself subject to dynamical evolution, rather than being imposed ab initio. The aim of this paper is to…
In a background independent theory without boundary, physical observables may be defined with respect to dynamical reference systems. However, I argue here that there may be a symmetry that exchanges the degrees of freedom of the physical…
We present a new metaphysical framework for physics that is conceptually clear, ontologically parsimonious, and empirically adequate. This framework relies on the notion of self-subsisting structure, that is, a set of fundamental physical…