Related papers: Structure, Individuality and Quantum Gravity
Theories of quantum gravity generically presuppose or predict that the reality underlying relativistic spacetimes they are describing is significantly non-spatiotemporal. On pain of empirical incoherence, approaches to quantum gravity must…
Recently the multitude of vacua in string theory have led some authors to advocate the anthropic principle as a possible resolution for the contrived set of parameters that seem to govern our universe. I suggest that string theories should…
Singularities in general relativity and quantum field theory are often taken not only to motivate the search for a more-fundamental theory (quantum gravity, QG), but also to characterise this new theory and shape expectations of what it is…
More often than not, recently popular structuralist interpretations of physical theories leave the central concept of a structure insufficiently precisified. The incipient causal sets approach to quantum gravity offers a paradigmatic case…
We argue about a conceptual approach to quantum formalism. Starting from philosophical conjectures (Platonism, Idealism and Realism) as basic ontic elements (namely: math world, data world, and state of matter), we will analyze the quantum…
Following a line of research that I have developed for several years, I argue that the best strategy for understanding quantum gravity is to build a picture of the physical world where the notion of time plays no role. I summarize here this…
The effort to discover a quantum theory of gravity is motivated by the need to reconcile the incompatibility between quantum theory and general relativity. Here, we present an alternative approach by constructing a consistent theory of…
I discuss the ontological assumptions and implications of General Relativity. I maintain that General Relativity is a theory about gravitational fields, not about space-time. The latter is a more basic ontological category, that emerges…
The author's attempt to construct a local causal model of quantum theory (QT) that includes quantum field theory (QFT) resulted in the identification of "quantum objects" as the elementary units of causality and locality. Quantum objects…
A theory which claims to describe all the universe is advanced. It unifies general relativity, quantum field theory, and indeterministic conception. Basic entities are: classical metric tensor $g$, cosmic reference frame (including cosmic…
In prior work, we have argued that spacetime functionalism provides tools for clarifying the conceptual difficulties specifically linked to the emergence of spacetime in certain approaches to quantum gravity. We argue in this article that…
We present current theories about the structure of space and time, where the building blocks are some fundamental entities (yes-no experiment, quantum processes, spin net-work, preparticles) that do not presuppose the existence of space and…
Must a theory of quantum gravity have some truth to it if it can recover general relativity in some limit of the theory? This paper answers this question in the negative by indicating that general relativity is multiply realizable in…
We discuss some conceptual issues that any approach to quantum gravity has to confront. In particular, it is argued that one has to find a theory that can be interpreted in a realist manner, because theories with an instrumentalist…
Over the past 25 years, I have been involved in some intriguing developments in the foundations of physics, exploring the quantum reality problem, the relationship between quantum theory and gravity and the interplay between consciousness…
The formalism of quantum theory over discrete systems is extended in two significant ways. First, quantum evolutions are generalized to act over entire network configurations, so that nodes may find themselves in a quantum superposition of…
We put forward a possible new interpretation and explanatory framework for quantum theory. The basic hypothesis underlying this new framework is that quantum particles are conceptual entities. More concretely, we propose that quantum…
We review quantum causal histories starting with their interpretations as a quantum field theory on a causal set and a quantum geometry. We discuss the difficulties that background independent theories based on quantum geometry encounter in…
General relativity is applied to the strong interaction; the nexus between the two being arrived at by constructing a line element having the Yukawa form, which is used to describe geometrically the classical dynamics of a particle moving…
Bringing gravity into a quantum-mechanical framework is likely the most profound remaining problem in fundamental physics. The "unitarity crisis" for black hole evolution appears to be a key facet of this problem, whose resolution will…