Disappearing without a Trace

The Arrows of Time in Kent's Solution to the Lorentzian Quantum Reality Problem

Bibliographic Data

ID8396137
AuthorsEmily Adlam (0000-0002-5998-7685, Rothman Orthopaedics, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume77
Issue2
Pages373-398
Publication date2023-06-13
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0007-0882 • E-ISSN: 1464-3537
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/726085
OpenAlexW4380446870
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited23

Most existing proposals to explain the temporal asymmetries we see around us are sited within an approach to physics based on time evolution, and thus they typically put the asymmetry in at the beginning of time in the form of a special initial state. But there may be other possibilities for explaining temporal asymmetries if we don’t presuppose the time-evolution paradigm. In this article, I explore one such possibility, based on Kent’s ‘final-measurement’ interpretation of quantum mechanics. I argue that this approach potentially has the resources to explain the electromagnetic asymmetry, the thermodynamic asymmetry, the coarse-graining asymmetry, the fork asymmetry, the record asymmetry, and the cosmological asymmetry, and that the explanations it offers may be better than explanations appealing to a special initial state. My hope is that this example will encourage further exploration of novel approaches to temporal asymmetry outside of the time-evolution paradigm.

Epistemology · Philosophy of science · Sociology · TRACE (psycholinguistics) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Quantum Mechanics and Applications

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