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Beyond the Dynamical Universe: Unifying Block Universe Physics and Time as Experienced
Theoretical physics and foundations of physics have not made much progress in the last few decades. Whether we are talking about unifying general relativity and quantum field theory (quantum gravity), explaining so-called dark energy and dark matter (cosmology), or the interpretation and implications of quantum mechanics and relativity, there is no consensus in sight. In addition, both enterprises are deeply puzzled about various facets of time including above all, time as experienced. The authors argue that, across the board, this impasse is the result of the "dynamical universe paradigm," the idea that reality is fundamentally made up of physical entities that evolve in time from some initial state according to dynamical laws.
Thus, in the dynamical universe, the initial conditions plus the dynamical laws explain everything else going exclusively forward in time. In cosmology, for example, the initial conditions reside in the Big Bang and the dynamical law is supplied by general relativity. Accordingly, the present state of the universe is explained exclusively by its past. This book offers a completely new paradigm (called Relational Blockworld), whereby the past, present and future co-determine each other via "adynamical global constraints," such as the least action principle. Accordingly, the future is just as important for explaining the present as is the past. Most of the book is devoted to showing how Relational Blockworld resolves many of the current conundrums of both theoretical physics and foundations of physics, including the mystery of time as experienced and how that experience relates to the block universe.
Thus, in the dynamical universe, the initial conditions plus the dynamical laws explain everything else going exclusively forward in time. In cosmology, for example, the initial conditions reside in the Big Bang and the dynamical law is supplied by general relativity. Accordingly, the present state of the universe is explained exclusively by its past. This book offers a completely new paradigm (called Relational Blockworld), whereby the past, present and future co-determine each other via "adynamical global constraints," such as the least action principle. Accordingly, the future is just as important for explaining the present as is the past. Most of the book is devoted to showing how Relational Blockworld resolves many of the current conundrums of both theoretical physics and foundations of physics, including the mystery of time as experienced and how that experience relates to the block universe.
448 pages, Hardcover
Published April 15, 2018
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April 10, 2020
A journey into the heart of physical reality
The idea that nature is made up of physical entities that evolve over time from an initial state is not explaining the full nature of physical reality. The mind and matter discussions have created more questions than offer solutions. One of the problems is from the theory of relativity unifying space and time into 4-dimensional spacetime. In this reality, there are no preferred dimensions, and there's nothing special about time. It is like a block universe. Just as space exists in the block and so does time. General relativity says that if we know the conditions at one instant in the block universe, then we can predict the entire future because this chunk of spacetime is deterministic. The future is written, but it's just not accessible to us living inside the block. From this block-time perspective, time-experience is an illusion and not a real property of nature. This introduces the concept of time, and flow of time, is a mind and consciousness phenomenon.
In this book, the authors offer an entirely new paradigm called relational block universe in non-dynamical approach in which the past does not determine the future, and it eliminates the experience of the passage of time by invoking philosophy similar to neutral monism that explains the experience of time without consciousness.
The authors have proposed an unorthodox and untested idea which would be a hard sell. But the philosophical underpinnings are familiar in Hindu and Buddhist philosophical systems. The nature of mind and matter, the essence of physical reality has been widely discussed. According to the school of Vedanta philosophy, the ultimate reality is indefinite and indescribable of which no transformation is predictable. The appearance of the world is due to the imaginative activity of manas, which is also an unreal phenomenon. There is no perceiver, and none perceived. In the early phase of Buddhist metaphysics, there was a system of pluralistic phenomenalism with neither matter nor mind as abiding entities. The doctrine of the unsubstantiality and the impermanence of all elements of existence was a consequence of nihilism.
The early versions of classical neutral monism proposed by physicist Ernst Mach, and philosophers William James, and Bertrand Russell reflect the empiricist outlook which leads to conscious experience that the authors like to avoid. But abstract entities like information processing and mathematical reality have been proposed by Thomas Nagel as the neutral basis of this metaphysical realm.
The idea that nature is made up of physical entities that evolve over time from an initial state is not explaining the full nature of physical reality. The mind and matter discussions have created more questions than offer solutions. One of the problems is from the theory of relativity unifying space and time into 4-dimensional spacetime. In this reality, there are no preferred dimensions, and there's nothing special about time. It is like a block universe. Just as space exists in the block and so does time. General relativity says that if we know the conditions at one instant in the block universe, then we can predict the entire future because this chunk of spacetime is deterministic. The future is written, but it's just not accessible to us living inside the block. From this block-time perspective, time-experience is an illusion and not a real property of nature. This introduces the concept of time, and flow of time, is a mind and consciousness phenomenon.
In this book, the authors offer an entirely new paradigm called relational block universe in non-dynamical approach in which the past does not determine the future, and it eliminates the experience of the passage of time by invoking philosophy similar to neutral monism that explains the experience of time without consciousness.
The authors have proposed an unorthodox and untested idea which would be a hard sell. But the philosophical underpinnings are familiar in Hindu and Buddhist philosophical systems. The nature of mind and matter, the essence of physical reality has been widely discussed. According to the school of Vedanta philosophy, the ultimate reality is indefinite and indescribable of which no transformation is predictable. The appearance of the world is due to the imaginative activity of manas, which is also an unreal phenomenon. There is no perceiver, and none perceived. In the early phase of Buddhist metaphysics, there was a system of pluralistic phenomenalism with neither matter nor mind as abiding entities. The doctrine of the unsubstantiality and the impermanence of all elements of existence was a consequence of nihilism.
The early versions of classical neutral monism proposed by physicist Ernst Mach, and philosophers William James, and Bertrand Russell reflect the empiricist outlook which leads to conscious experience that the authors like to avoid. But abstract entities like information processing and mathematical reality have been proposed by Thomas Nagel as the neutral basis of this metaphysical realm.
December 23, 2021
This work is less than the sum of its parts as 1/3 uneven intro to QM, 1/3 interesting but not disinterested interpretation of QM as discrete 'spacetimesource' elements[1], followed by 1/3 Hindu-Buddhist sermon on non-dualism.
This seems to be the motivating factor behind the more absurd parts of their RBW (relational block world) model - emphasize the 'R', not the block world, as 4-dimensionalism serves the authors primarily as a hook for anti-essentialist, anti-substantial relationalism, denying inherent dispositions to things, and a very religious - but Indian religious - dogmatic nondualism.
The highlight of the work is in the interpretation of nonbaryonic dark matter and dark energy.
The concept of emergent contextuality is intriguing but I'm not sure it can be squared with particles/things having inherent dispositions or essential dispositions in favor of some sort of categoricalism, which in turn can't be reconciled with any sort of realism when it comes to essences or universals.
The rest of the argument, throughout and thoroughly anti-realist and anti-essentialist, is often motivated by an anti(Western)theistic animus which is entirely unexpected in a work of theoretical physics and philosophy of physics that is at the same time so transparently boosting oriental religion, specifically referencing Advaita Vedanta (Hinduism) and various schools of Buddhism as underwriting their ostensible solution to the hard problem of consciousness. The driving motivations of the authors are to disprivilege the supposed privileged position of the Big Bang via flattening with a Lagrangian adynamical global constraint, the elimination of any possible fine-tuning, and the dissolution of the Past Hypothesis as regarding lack of entropy (the entropic arrow) in earlier times.
Enough QM formalism is introduced to not make an introduction to QM, but only enough to (maybe) make their argument seem plausible.
The book is overwritten, like the confluence of a dozen somewhat-overlapping and unedited scientific and philosophical papers, and so is about double what it should be in length with repetition minimized.
I liked this work better at first until getting to the last quarter, which is when the authors reveal their motivation in the preceding interpretation is to give a scientific respectability to Indian nonduality while jettisoning the Western philosophical and theological traditions in toto, including the Western tradition of philosophy of physics which stands back of the Standard Model.
Did I mention the authors never actually do much to demonstrate their vaunted unification of GR and QM and do nothing to 'unite the block universe and time as experienced' but advert to oriental religion?
[1] This becomes 'spacetimesourcesubjectivity' in the last few pages of the book, when the curtain is lifted on the non-dualist motivation.
This seems to be the motivating factor behind the more absurd parts of their RBW (relational block world) model - emphasize the 'R', not the block world, as 4-dimensionalism serves the authors primarily as a hook for anti-essentialist, anti-substantial relationalism, denying inherent dispositions to things, and a very religious - but Indian religious - dogmatic nondualism.
The highlight of the work is in the interpretation of nonbaryonic dark matter and dark energy.
The concept of emergent contextuality is intriguing but I'm not sure it can be squared with particles/things having inherent dispositions or essential dispositions in favor of some sort of categoricalism, which in turn can't be reconciled with any sort of realism when it comes to essences or universals.
The rest of the argument, throughout and thoroughly anti-realist and anti-essentialist, is often motivated by an anti(Western)theistic animus which is entirely unexpected in a work of theoretical physics and philosophy of physics that is at the same time so transparently boosting oriental religion, specifically referencing Advaita Vedanta (Hinduism) and various schools of Buddhism as underwriting their ostensible solution to the hard problem of consciousness. The driving motivations of the authors are to disprivilege the supposed privileged position of the Big Bang via flattening with a Lagrangian adynamical global constraint, the elimination of any possible fine-tuning, and the dissolution of the Past Hypothesis as regarding lack of entropy (the entropic arrow) in earlier times.
Enough QM formalism is introduced to not make an introduction to QM, but only enough to (maybe) make their argument seem plausible.
The book is overwritten, like the confluence of a dozen somewhat-overlapping and unedited scientific and philosophical papers, and so is about double what it should be in length with repetition minimized.
I liked this work better at first until getting to the last quarter, which is when the authors reveal their motivation in the preceding interpretation is to give a scientific respectability to Indian nonduality while jettisoning the Western philosophical and theological traditions in toto, including the Western tradition of philosophy of physics which stands back of the Standard Model.
Did I mention the authors never actually do much to demonstrate their vaunted unification of GR and QM and do nothing to 'unite the block universe and time as experienced' but advert to oriental religion?
[1] This becomes 'spacetimesourcesubjectivity' in the last few pages of the book, when the curtain is lifted on the non-dualist motivation.
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