Time operator, or Time eigenfunctions

[p764rds]

“Deflating Quantum Mysteries via the Relational Blockworld,” W.M. Stuckey, Michael Silberstein & Michael Cifone, Physics Essays 19, No. 2, 269 – 283 (2006), quant-ph/0503065.

In case you're not allowed to read arXiv papers unless they're published, you'll have to skip the arXiv reference in my previous post with our latest results, but you can check out the RBW path integral formalism at:

“Reconciling Spacetime and the Quantum: Relational Blockworld and the Quantum Liar Paradox,” W.M. Stuckey, Michael Silberstein & Michael Cifone, Foundations of Physics 38, No. 4, 348 – 383 (2008), quant-ph/0510090.

How's that?

Having read the references here's my thoughts:
Quoting “Reconciling Spacetime and the Quantum: Relational Blockworld and the Quantum Liar Paradox,” W.M. Stuckey, Michael Silberstein & Michael Cifone, Foundations of Physics 38, No. 4, 348 – 383 (2008), quant-ph/0510090.:
"dynamical reality is only a proper subset of a spatiotemporally contextual reality given globally" Then a 'spatiotemporally contextual reality' would be something like an quantum / information space that communicates with a dynamic reality and maybe even creates it.

The sequential aspect of causality viewed as a manifestation required in a 3D model, where in order to move (at all) from one coordinate to another, a sequential process is needed. Otherwise it would be impossible to traverse even 1D yet alone a 3D space. An ordered, lorentz covariant sequence is required to move from a position x1 to a postition x2 (in a time t). I see it almost as a design problem to be overcome.

This sequence of traversal events (kinematic motion) must be Lorentz covariant and relativistic to avoid causal and logical conflicts - an annoying necessity necessary in a field model of the universe - even a computer 3D program would require this to avoid emabarrasing crashes in a field model 3D virtualization (eg robot fires laser at mirror and kills himself at the same time that he shoots, also, even relativity problems would occur).

The plausibility of a pure physical 3D space within nothingness has to be questioned, because a 3D space is essentially a mathematical construct waiting for a mathematical implementation.
A 'real physical space' situated in nothingness has logical difficulties (what holds it up - its empty, where are its boundaries - its empty, etc). IMO - impossible.

But, a 3D space is very easy and efficent when constructed from data. e.g. a 3D computer virtual world where arrays (processors love them!) are very efficent algorithmic structures for manipulating 3D space.
Information needs no real physical 3D space to exist itself, nor has it any mass, and is at least a candidate to be able to construct a 3d universe space in what we understand as 'nothingness'.

Instant correlation between entangled quantum states no matter where in physical 3D space lends support and offers at least a possible mechanism to instant entanglement phenomena.

I ask if the above named papers are an accepted viewpoint and to what extent?

 

[RUTA]

Having read the references here's my thoughts:
Quoting “Reconciling Spacetime and the Quantum: Relational Blockworld and the Quantum Liar Paradox,” W.M. Stuckey, Michael Silberstein & Michael Cifone, Foundations of Physics 38, No. 4, 348 – 383 (2008), quant-ph/0510090.:
"dynamical reality is only a proper subset of a spatiotemporally contextual reality given globally" Then a 'spatiotemporally contextual reality' would be something like an quantum / information space that communicates with a dynamic reality and maybe even creates it.

The sequential aspect of causality viewed as a manifestation required in a 3D model, where in order to move (at all) from one coordinate to another, a sequential process is needed. Otherwise it would be impossible to traverse even 1D yet alone a 3D space. An ordered, lorentz covariant sequence is required to move from a position x1 to a postition x2 (in a time t). I see it almost as a design problem to be overcome.

This sequence of traversal events (kinematic motion) must be Lorentz covariant and relativistic to avoid causal and logical conflicts - an annoying necessity necessary in a field model of the universe - even a computer 3D program would require this to avoid emabarrasing crashes in a field model 3D virtualization (eg robot fires laser at mirror and kills himself at the same time that he shoots, also, even relativity problems would occur).

The plausibility of a pure physical 3D space within nothingness has to be questioned, because a 3D space is essentially a mathematical construct waiting for a mathematical implementation.
A 'real physical space' situated in nothingness has logical difficulties (what holds it up - its empty, where are its boundaries - its empty, etc). IMO - impossible.

But, a 3D space is very easy and efficent when constructed from data. e.g. a 3D computer virtual world where arrays (processors love them!) are very efficent algorithmic structures for manipulating 3D space.
Information needs no real physical 3D space to exist itself, nor has it any mass, and is at least a candidate to be able to construct a 3d universe space in what we understand as 'nothingness'.

Instant correlation between entangled quantum states no matter where in physical 3D space lends support and offers at least a possible mechanism to instant entanglement phenomena.

I ask if the above named papers are an accepted viewpoint and to what extent?

In answer to your last question, RBW is a relatively new interpretation of QM having been first introduced at Bub's 2005 annual conference, New Directions in Foundations of Physics. It also survived a screening at Price's 2005 conference, Time-Symmetric QM, among others since, of course. It has been published in Physics Essays, Foundations of Physics, and Studies in History & Philosophy of Modern Physics (v39, No. 4, 736 – 751 (2008)). I would say the interpretation has been properly vetted. Is it widely appreciated? Not at all. Bub said it took him three epiphanies to "get it" and he would have to spend a week lecturing to grad students on each one to teach it, so it's not widely understood.

I greatly appreciate your reading the Foundations paper and responding to it here. I would say from your response that we failed to communicate the adynamical nature of our approach. We're suggesting that space, time and "things" (entities that "move from coordinate x1 to coordinate x2" in your response, for example) are to be co-constructed in a mutually self-consistent fashion. Spacetime and things do not exist independently of one another, so discussion of 3D space as an entity in and of itself (as I infer from your response) is meaningless in our interpretation.

We believe we need a new approach in the formulation of QM to properly convey our interpretation, thus the path integral approach over graphs. This is widely used in QFT of course (e.g., lattice gauge theory) and in fact we're suggesting QM be viewed as a spatially discrete QFT of sorts; it's a little more complicated than that, as you know from reading the Foundations paper. In that paper, we presented the temporally continuous, spatially discrete 2-source amplitude, assuming it's well-behaved at the boundaries. We have, since publication of the Foundations paper, solved the fully discrete two-source amplitude over a graph of N nodes with exact boundary conditions (where it is not well-behaved, the differential operator has a zero eigenvalue) by restricting the path integral to the the row space of the discrete differential operator, which also contains the discrete source vector, in order to avoid singularities. Our interpretation justifies this restriction. That paper (the arXiv shown earlier) is only under review, so we're not allowed to say anything more about it here :-)

Thanks again for your response. Perhaps you should email me if you've more questions.

 

[p764rds]

I greatly appreciate your reading the Foundations paper and responding to it here. I would say from your response that we failed to communicate the adynamical nature of our approach. We're suggesting that space, time and "things" (entities that "move from coordinate x1 to coordinate x2" in your response, for example) are to be co-constructed in a mutually self-consistent fashion. Spacetime and things do not exist independently of one another, so discussion of 3D space as an entity in and of itself (as I infer from your response) is meaningless in our interpretation.

We believe we need a new approach in the formulation of QM to properly convey our interpretation, thus the path integral approach over graphs...

I was saying that 3D space as a 'real physical entity' has certain illogicalities from a point of view that it may (and everything in it) be constructed from information rather than fields, particles etc. But that is only my opinion, not an accepted fact.
What appealed to me: in your words " space, time and "things" are to be co-constructed in a mutually self-consistent fashion".

Or are you saying that "path integrals over graphs" could be used and certain boundary conditions have been solved - aspects of QFT that needed addressing (and would not interest me personally)?

 

[Belzy]

Time doesn't really exist in quantum mechanics (also not in classical physics).

Well put, Time does not exist independently of the life/being that notices it. See anthropic (or man-related) principle.

 

[p764rds]

Well put, Time does not exist independently of the life/being that notices it. See anthropic (or man-related) principle.

'Something that notices' would be a von neumann-like entity. For example a computer, an animal brain, a human brain, an insect brain. This is a data area with an area to process the data. Usually inputs and outputs too. They need something to push the data through i.e. some type of ticking clock. IMO the universe is one itself. But 'a thought' is a mechanical entity rather than something ethereal. It could probably best be described as 'made from' information.

 

[RUTA]

I was saying that 3D space as a 'real physical entity' has certain illogicalities from a point of view that it may (and everything in it) be constructed from information rather than fields, particles etc. But that is only my opinion, not an accepted fact.
What appealed to me: in your words " space, time and "things" are to be co-constructed in a mutually self-consistent fashion".

Or are you saying that "path integrals over graphs" could be used and certain boundary conditions have been solved - aspects of QFT that needed addressing (and would not interest me personally)?

We're trying to change the notion of "things in spacetime" as you imply by "and everything in it," to the notion of a unified "raumzeitmaterie," spacetimematter, as Weyl put it. It would truly make no sense to talk about space, time or things independently of one another. That's why we employ the path integral formalism over graphs. We're not trying to address formal issues in QFT, but certainly the formalism must bear on them ultimately.

Essentially, instead of starting your story with "things" located relative to one another in space and asking how their spatial organization will change (causal dynamics via differential eqns), you construct a picture of what you mean "things" involved in some phenomenon, which REQUIRES notions of space and time, and compute a probability amplitude for the occurance of that phenomenon (spatiotemporally holistic view per path integral).