Africa-Press – Sierra-Leone. Noting that deeming time as non-existent “would seem to bring the entire world to a grinding halt”, Baron argued that there may still be “a way out of the mess” in the form of causation.
Future developments in the field of physics may lead to time itself being regarded as non-existent, at least in the context of some theories, says Sam Baron, associate professor in philosophy at the Australian Catholic University.
As Baron explains in an article published in The Conversation, physics is currently in crisis, and physicists are looking to find a replacement for general relativity and quantum mechanics, as while these two theories “work extremely well in their own right”, they are also “thought to conflict with one another”.
The so-called loop quantum gravity – a theory of quantum gravity which seeks replace general relativity and quantum mechanics “while capturing the extraordinary success of both” – appears to “eliminate time entirely”, he notes, adding that “a number of other approaches also seem to remove time as a fundamental aspect of reality”.
So what might happen if a new physical theory that does not feature time turns out to be correct, Baron asks, pointing out that people’s entire lives are “built around time”.
Yet while a possible discovery that time does not exist “would seem to bring the entire world to a grinding halt”, there may still be “a way out of the mess”, Baron suggests, noting that causation – “the sense in which one thing can bring about another” – appears to be left intact by physics.
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