Abstract
Are we moving in the right direction on the road to quantum gravity? It seems to me that there is a serious conceptual problem with most current approaches. I discuss a simple guiding principle which I believe to be quite obvious, but which has nevertheless been largely neglected so far. This leads me to argue that the most relevant approach to quantum gravity might be a framework of emergent gravity based on insights from condensed matter physics. Within this framework, I discuss a thought experiment based on the idea to describe quantum gravity in a first approximation simply as a Minkowski spacetime containing nearly-point-like objects or `atoms' of spacetime, from which the geometry of our universe and its physics emerge as an effective, internal description based on collective excitations. Based on this thought experiment, I will try to convince you that there are strong spatiotemporal limits on the knowledge that we can possibly achieve with respect to quantum gravity.
Gil Jannes