Our time-symmetric lifestyle

Abstract

Fundamental physics traditionally views the dynamical laws governing the world as time reversal invariant. The evident arrow of time of nature is then held to be an accident, emerging as we coarse grain and originating in the improbable choice of initial conditions. The main pillar which supports this time-symmetric lifestyle is the fluctuation-dissipation theorem, which connects purely time-symmetric microscopic equations to the emergence of a macroscopic arrow of thermodynamics. I will describe arguments from statistical physics claiming that existing proofs of this theorem are faulty and do not demonstrate the emergence of an arrow from time-symmetric laws. I will argue that, as a result of this assumption of time symmetry, we cosmologists stand to pay an unreasonable price concerning what we’re expected to explain. I argue for instead to turn this picture around and propose a fundamental theory of cosmology and quantum gravity which is fundamentally time asymmetric and based on time-irreversible laws. I will describe a new class of models of quantum space-time, energetic causal sets, in which space-time itself, as well as aspects of quantum theory, emerge under natural conditions. The framework is based on arXiv:1307.6167 and subsequent papers in collaboration with Lee Smolin.