TL;DR
This paper explores the origin of the arrow of time, proposing a top-down causation from cosmological conditions to microstructures, and advocates for an emergent block universe perspective to explain temporal asymmetry.
Contribution
It introduces a framework where the arrow of time originates from a cosmological past condition influencing microstructures, leading to a unified emergent space-time model.
Findings
The arrow of time is rooted in a cosmological past condition.
Microstructures exhibit the arrow of time through top-down causation.
An emergent block universe model explains temporal asymmetry.
Abstract
This paper extends the work of a previous paper [arXiv:1208.2611] on the flow of time, to consider the origin of the arrow of time. It proposes that a `past condition' cascades down from cosmological to micro scales, being realized in many microstructures and setting the arrow of time at the quantum level by top-down causation. This physics arrow of time then propagates up, through underlying emergence of higher level structures, to geology, astronomy, engineering, and biology. The appropriate space-time picture to view all this is an emergent block universe (`EBU'), that recognizes the way the present is different from both the past and the future. This essential difference is the ultimate reason the arrow of time has to be the way it is.
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