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Relativity Theory May not Have the Last Word on the Nature of Time: Quantum Theory and Probabilism

  • ️Sun Dec 04 2016

Abstract

Two radically different views about time are possible. According to the first, the universe is three dimensional. It has a past and a future, but that does not mean it is spread out in time as it is spread out in the three dimensions of space. This view requires that there is an unambiguous, absolute, cosmic-wide “now” at each instant. According to the second view about time, the universe is four dimensional. It is spread out in both space and time—in space-time in short. Special and general relativity rule out the first view. There is, according to relativity theory, no such thing as an unambiguous, absolute cosmic-wide “now” at each instant. However, we have every reason to hold that both special and general relativity are false. Not only does the historical record tell us that physics advances from one false theory to another. Furthermore, elsewhere I have shown that we must interpret physics as having established physicalism—in so far as physics can ever establish anything theoretical. Physicalism, here, is to be interpreted as the thesis that the universe is such that some unified “theory of everything” is true. Granted physicalism, it follows immediately that any physical theory that is about a restricted range of phenomena only, cannot be true, whatever its empirical success may be. It follows that both special and general relativity are false. This does not mean of course that the implication of these two theories that there is no unambiguous cosmic-wide “now” at each instant is false. It still may be the case that the first view of time, indicated at the outset, is false. Are there grounds for holding that an unambiguous cosmic-wide “now” does exist, despite special and general relativity, both of which imply that it does not exist? There are such grounds. Elsewhere I have argued that, in order to solve the quantum wave/particle problem and make sense of the quantum domain we need to interpret quantum theory as a fundamentally probabilistic theory, a theory which specifies how quantum entities—electrons, photons, atoms—interact with one another probabilistically. It is conceivable that this is correct, and the ultimate laws of the universe are probabilistic in character. If so, probabilistic transitions could define unambiguous, absolute cosmic-wide “nows” at each instant. It is entirely unsurprising that special and general relativity have nothing to say about the matter. Both theories are pre-quantum mechanical, classical theories, and general relativity in particular is deterministic. The universe may indeed be three dimensional, with a past and a future, but not spread out in four dimensional space-time, despite the fact that relativity theories appear to rule this out. These considerations, finally, have implications for views about the arrow of time and free will.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    If string theory is correct, there may be 9 or 10 spatial dimensions. The "three dimensional view" becomes the nine or ten dimensional view. The crucial tenet of this view is, not the number of spatial dimensions, but rather that the world is not spread out in time in the way in which it is spread out in space.

  2. 2.

    See [7], where I referred to the three and four dimensional views as C2 and C1 respectively, and briefly made the point that much confusion about time stems from attempting to combine these two incompatible views. The main point of the article was to argue that necessary connections between successive states of affairs are possible, despite Hume’s arguments to the contrary, but only if the three-dimensional, C2, view is true.

  3. 3.

    This incoherent view would seem to be implicit in McTaggart’s A-series, according to which events are initially future, then present, then past, future events being converted into past ones by the passage of the present along time: see McTaggart (1908). It is explicit in all those attempts to rectify the perceived inadequacy of the spacetime view (or McTaggart’s B-series) by adding "the present" to it, or "objective becoming", which is supposed to move steadily from past to future.

  4. 4.

    It is really Hermann Minkowski who first interpreted special relativity in terms of the four-dimensional, space-time view in 1908: see [25]. Einstein’s 1905 paper implicitly takes the three-dimensional view for granted.

  5. 5.

    For a popular exposition and defence of string theory see [5].

  6. 6.

    For criticisms of string theory see [29, 27].

  7. 7.

    The first great unifying theory in physics was Newtonian theory. This theory unifies Kepler’s laws of planetary motion, and Galileo’s laws of terrestrial motion. But in doing so, it reveals that both Kepler’s and Galileo’s laws are, strictly speaking, false. Granted Newtonian theory, planets deviate from precise Keplerian, elliptical motion because the planets attract each other gravitationally, and attract the sun, which leads to deviations. Again, granted Newtonian theory, a stone falling near the earth’s surface does not fall with constant gravitation precisely because, as it falls, it gets closer to the centre of the earth, and thus the gravitational attraction on the stone increases very slightly, which means in turn that its acceleration increases very slightly. Newtonian theory explains why there are deviations from Kepler’s and Galileo’s laws. This almost always occurs whenever a new theory, T3, unifies two predecessor theories, T1 and T2.

  8. 8.

    See, for example, Maxwell [9, 14, 16, 17, 22, 23].

  9. 9.

    For detailed expositions and defence of aim-oriented empiricism see works referred to in note 8, especially [23].

  10. 10.

    For earlier discussion of this idea see [12, 20]. For a much more detailed discussion of the closely related issue of relativity and quantum non-locality see [6].

  11. 11.

    This argument is spelled out in greater detail in Maxwell [8, 10]. See also [2, 13].

  12. 12.

    I first made this point in [8].

  13. 13.
  14. 14.

    Reference [26]. For a quite different proposal for probabilistic collapse see [4].

  15. 15.

    Probabilism and special relativity do not inevitably contradict one another, a point I made in [12]. This point is borne out by the existence of a fundamentally probabilistic, Lorentz invariant version of quantum theory developed by Tumulka [28]. This is a version of the theory of [4]. Tumulka’s theory suffers, however, from severe limitations: its ontology is that of discrete spacetime points, there are no interactions between "particles" and, most serious of all, nothing corresponds physically, in reality, to the quantum state.

  16. 16.

    Here, and in what follows, I take “one rest frame” to mean “one set of reference frames all at rest with respect to each other”.

  17. 17.

    (Reference [3], ch. 10).

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  1. Science and Technology Studies, University College London, 13 Tavistock Terrace, London, N19-4BZ, UK

    Nicholas Maxwell

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  1. Podar Educational Complex, R. N. Podar (CBSE) Podar Educational Complex, Mumbai, India

    Shyam Wuppuluri

  2. Centre for Theoretical Physics, Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy

    Giancarlo Ghirardi

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Maxwell, N. (2017). Relativity Theory May not Have the Last Word on the Nature of Time: Quantum Theory and Probabilism. In: Wuppuluri, S., Ghirardi, G. (eds) Space, Time and the Limits of Human Understanding. The Frontiers Collection. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44418-5_9

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