Baron, Sam (2025) Spacetime Functionalism and the Collapse Problem. [Preprint]

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Abstract

Recent work in quantum gravity (QG) suggests that spacetime is not fundamental. Rather, spacetime emerges from an underlying non-spatiotemporal reality. Spacetime functionalism has been proposed as one way to make sense of the emergence of spacetime. However, spacetime functionalism faces a ‘collapse’ problem. The functionalist analysis seems to force spacetime into the (more) fundamental ontology of QG, thereby conflicting with—rather than elucidating—spacetime emergence. In this paper, I show how to resolve the collapse problem. The solution is to differentiate between physical and metaphysical notions of (relative) fundamentality. With this distinction in hand, we can see that spacetime functionalism does not after all force spacetime into the (more) fundamental ontology of QG in any troubling sense. A side benefit of the paper is that it provides a sharpened characterisation of various notions of
(relative) fundamentality.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Baron, Sam
Keywords:	Spacetime; Functionalism; Emergence; Quantum Gravity; Fundamentality
Subjects:	General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Gravity
Depositing User:	Dr Sam Baron
Date Deposited:	03 Jun 2025 13:09
Last Modified:	03 Jun 2025 13:09
Item ID:	25543
Subjects:	General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Gravity
Date:	2025
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/25543

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