Time Structures Reality, Reality Produces Time

Here I propose new conceptions of cause and effect.

Cause and effect are two sides of the same reality. According with the Aharonov, Bergman, and Lebowitz view of Time Symmetric Quantum Mechanics, we cannot separate past, present, and future.

This has to do with the logical relation between the maximum speed, and the smallest action in our Universe. To put them together one has to reconcile the relativity of time and the existence of the minimum action. One way out is that proposed by these three great physicists in the fields of Quantum Mechanics, General Relativity, and Statistical Mechanics.

Here I state how I think our conceptions of cause and effect have to change. If the past-future relation depends on the motions of the parts of the Universe, there are only interacting events, one causes the other and vice versa.

To paraphrase John Archibald Wheeler, matter tells space how to curve, space tells matter how to move. That dialectical view, to my mind is the more concise expression of how our Universe works. If we start to consider a hierarchical structure of reality we get into a chicken and egg conflict.

Now I state my conclusion.

Time is a large scale dimension of our Universe. Causes are before effects, this is called the Causality Principle. This view is untenable in the most straightforward interpretation. Aharonov and Tollaksen postulate that causality has to be preserved, as a consequence reality becomes uncertain. Nevertheless something must produce the structure we perceive in our Universe.

I postulate that time structures reality, and vice versa, neither reality is more important than time nor time more important than reality.

One example is the following. If a ball is kicked every fifth of a periodic motion, with a force proportional to the position cyclically; one finds numerically that a fivefold symmetric structure appears. Only at well defined instants effects add up in sync, this synchronicity produces a structure one can see in the screen of a personal computer modelling this situation. If the time between kicks is not a rational fraction of the period, there is no web one can give a predictive interpretation. We just do not know where and how things can happen.

In my view it is because of this predictability that we are aware of time. Time then structures reality, and reality produces time. Reality and time are two faces of the same thing dialectically.