Emergence of time

TL;DR

This paper explains how the asymmetry of time in macroscopic phenomena arises from the cosmological context, with local arrows of time emerging from a global expanding universe and quantum events shaping the past.

Contribution

It presents a unified framework linking cosmological expansion, the Evolving Block Universe, and quantum collapse to explain the emergence of time asymmetry.

Findings

Time asymmetry arises from the universe's expansion.

Local arrows of time are consistent with the global direction of time.

Quantum wave function collapse converts indefinite future into a definite past.

Abstract

Microphysical laws are time reversible, but macrophysics, chemistry and biology are not. This chapter explores how this asymmetry (a classic example of a broken symmetry) arises due to the cosmological context, where a non-local Direction of Time is imposed by the expansion of the universe. This situation is best represented by an Evolving Block Universe, where local arrows of time (thermodynamic, electrodynamic, gravitational, wave, quantum, biological) emerge in concordance with the Direction of Time because a global Past Condition results in the Second Law of Thermodynamics pointing to the future. At the quantum level, the indefinite future changes to the definite past due to quantum wave function collapse events.