The Emergence of Spacetime: Transactions and Causal Sets

TL;DR

This paper explores how the transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics can explain the emergence of discrete spacetime events from a quantum substrate, aligning with causal set theory and challenging the continuum view.

Contribution

It proposes a transactional framework for spacetime emergence that integrates quantum dynamics with causal set theory, emphasizing discreteness and event actualization.

Findings

Spacetime emerges from actualized quantum events.

Spacetime is fundamentally discrete, not continuous.

Transactional interpretation underpins causal set dynamics.

Abstract

This paper discusses how the transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics can provide for a natural account of the emergence of spacetime events from a quantum substratum. In this account, spacetime is not a substantive manifold that becomes occupied with events; rather, spacetime itself exists only in virtue of specific actualized events. This implies that spacetime is discrete rather than continuous, and that properties attributed to spacetime based on the notion of a continuum are idealizations that do not apply to the real physical world. It is further noted that the transactional picture of the emergence of spacetime can provide the quantum dynamics that underlie the causal set approach as proposed by Sorkin and others.