Abstract
For discussing foundational questions, like the nature of time, we need a framework. Ideally, this would be provided by a Theory of Everything. Until the discovery of TOE, I propose a mathematical structure that can be used to represent theories of Physics in a unitary framework, similarly to the way in which the group actions represent various geometries in the Erlangen program. This construction extracts essential aspects of various theories, concerning the space, time, physical law, and causality. I introduce a causal structure and apply it to models of time and time travel. I propose an argument, based on causality, for the initial singularity of the Universe, and for the physical reality of gauge potentials (all three related in an unexpected way). Then, I discuss a new version of Quantum Mechanics, that replaces the discontinuous wavefunction collapse with delayed initial conditions, and has significant implications on time and causality. After presenting the arrows of time as emergent phenomena, I discuss the mind and its perception of time as flowing, in the context of the block spacetime. Then, I apply the previous observations to analyze the possibility of free-will. I propose a hypothesis about the free-will, and a crucial experiment that can confirm or reject it.
Cristinel Stoica