The Potential of a Thick Present through Undefined Causality and Non-Locality.

Alessandro Capurso

doi:10.3390/e24030410

Abstract

This paper elaborates on the interpretation of time and entanglement, offering insights into the possible ontological nature of information in the emergence of spacetime, towards a quantum description of gravity. We first investigate different perspectives on time and identify in the idea of a “thick present” the only element of reality needed to describe evolution, differences, and relations. The thick present is connected to a spacetime information “sampling rate”, and it is intended as a time symmetric potential bounded between a causal past of irreversible events and a still open future. From this potential, spacetime emerges in each instant as a space-like foliation (in a description based on imaginary paths). In the second part, we analyze undefined causal orders to understand how their potential could persist along the thick present instants. Thanks to a C-NOT logic and the concept of an imaginary time, we derive a description of entanglement as the potential of a logically consistent open choice among imaginary paths. We then conceptually map the imaginary paths identified in the entanglement of the undefined orders to Closed Time-like Curves (CTC) in the thick present. Considering a universe described through information, CTC are interpreted as “memory loops”, elementary structures encoding the information potential related to the entanglement in both time and space, manifested as undefined causality and non-locality in the emerging foliation. We conclude by suggesting a possible extension of the introduced concepts in a holographic perspective.

Highlights

The nature of Time is often at the root of the debate in physics and possibly sits at the core of the General Relativity (GR) and Quantum Mechanics (QM) incompatibility.In recent years, the search for a theory of Quantum Gravity (QG), able to include the success of both GR and QM, revived the study of time as a key ingredient for the understanding of a quantum description of spacetime.After an investigation on multiple perspectives on the subject, this paper suggests the interpretation of time through the concept of a time symmetric “thick present”
Following a path integral approach, we describe the information in the undefined order through entangled imaginary paths in the C-NOT circuit, which develop as superposed imaginary times in each space-like foliation
A Presentism perspective on time has ancient origins, it is rooted in several western and eastern philosophies, and it is coherent with the latest interpretations in neuroscience

Summary

Introduction

The nature of Time is often at the root of the debate in physics and possibly sits at the core of the General Relativity (GR) and Quantum Mechanics (QM) incompatibility. Within each thick present instant, intended as the only element of reality along an emerging axis of a thermodynamic and causal time, a quantum information potential Tk is considered, from which spacetime emerges in a sequence of space-like foliations. In the context of a Quantum Information Science (QIS) description of spacetime, CTC@Tk are interpreted as logically consistent “memory-loops”, in which the information potential of an “open choice” (temporal order or spatial position) persists along the succession of the present instants. Our perception is not always physically accurate but to our brain looks coherent, and this is enough for a perception of a “flowing time”: a memory of the past connected to the future through what is happening in the present It could be considered a local presentism, with no interest for the idea of time at quantum or cosmological scales, but the wish to reconcile the human perception with more fundamental phenomena. Additional insights on a time-symmetric description with elements of Energetic Causal Sets has been developed by Cohen et al in Refs. [10,11], further smoothing the tension between a causal and irreversible perspective irremediably opposed to time symmetry

Identifying a Quantum of Evolution

Conclusion on Presentism and Open Challenges

Causality and Logical Consistency

Towards a Holographic Perspective