Lopez, Cristian (2022) Spontaneous Collapse Theories and Temporal Primitivism about Time’s Direction. Foundations of Physics. ISSN 0015-9018

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Abstract

Two views on the direction of time can be distinguished—primitivism and nonprimitivism.
According to the former, time’s direction is an in-built, fundamental
property of the physical world. According to the latter, time’s direction is a derivative
property of a fundamentally directionless reality. In the literature, non-primitivism
has been widely supported since most (if not all) our fundamental dynamical
laws are time-reversal invariant. In this paper, I offer a way out to the primitivist. I
argue that we do have good grounds to support a primitive direction of time in the
quantum realm. The rationale depends on exploiting the metaphysical and dynamical underdetermination of quantum theories to make a case in favor of primitivism. In particular, primitivism can be grounded in spontaneous collapse theories (e.g., GRW and CSL). The specific sense in which these theories capture a primitive direction of time is that, when the ontology of the theory is seriously taken into account, it does not remain invariant under time reversal. In taking GRW with a matter-density field (GRWm), I will argue that primitivism about the direction of time can be defended in the quantum case.

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Item Type:	Published Article or Volume
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Lopez, Cristian cristian.lopez@unil.ch 0000-0002-2883-4037
Keywords:	Time’s direction · Collapse theories · Primitivism · Time-reversal invariance · Quantum mechanics
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Physics Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Mechanics
Depositing User:	Dr. Cristian Lopez
Date Deposited:	08 Jan 2025 14:18
Last Modified:	08 Jan 2025 14:18
Item ID:	24494
Journal or Publication Title:	Foundations of Physics
Official URL:	https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10701-0...
DOI or Unique Handle:	10.1007/s10701-022-00632-3
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Physics Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Mechanics
Date:	15 September 2022
ISSN:	0015-9018
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/24494

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