On time as an emergent informational rate linked to quantum entropy There is an alternative
Title: On time as an emergent informational rate linked to quantum entropy
There is an alternative to treating time as a fundamental geometric dimension or extending it to multiple temporal axes. The proposal is to treat physical time as an emergent rate associated with quantum informational change.
In this framework, local physical time is proportional to the rate of change of the von Neumann entropy of a quantum subsystem. As a subsystem becomes increasingly entangled with degrees of freedom that are traced out, its reduced density matrix loses purity. This loss of purity provides an effective, relational notion of time. Clocks are therefore not fundamental, but probes of informational evolution.
Gravitational time dilation can be reinterpreted as a spatial variation in this informational update rate. Regions characterized by higher informational density or stronger entanglement structure exhibit slower local rates, reproducing the Newtonian and weak-field relativistic limits without introducing additional temporal dimensions.
The arrow of time is not postulated independently. It emerges from the effective irreversible dynamics of subsystems described by CPTP maps, while the global system evolves unitarily. The temporal asymmetry is therefore a consequence of coarse-graining and limited access to correlations, rather than fundamental information loss.
This is not presented as a complete theory of quantum gravity, but as a parsimonious reformulation that translates the time–gravity problem into the language of quantum information. The open question is whether spacetime geometry is fundamental, or whether it is an emergent description of underlying informational structure.
There is an alternative to treating time as a fundamental geometric dimension or extending it to multiple temporal axes. The proposal is to treat physical time as an emergent rate associated with quantum informational change.
In this framework, local physical time is proportional to the rate of change of the von Neumann entropy of a quantum subsystem. As a subsystem becomes increasingly entangled with degrees of freedom that are traced out, its reduced density matrix loses purity. This loss of purity provides an effective, relational notion of time. Clocks are therefore not fundamental, but probes of informational evolution.
Gravitational time dilation can be reinterpreted as a spatial variation in this informational update rate. Regions characterized by higher informational density or stronger entanglement structure exhibit slower local rates, reproducing the Newtonian and weak-field relativistic limits without introducing additional temporal dimensions.
The arrow of time is not postulated independently. It emerges from the effective irreversible dynamics of subsystems described by CPTP maps, while the global system evolves unitarily. The temporal asymmetry is therefore a consequence of coarse-graining and limited access to correlations, rather than fundamental information loss.
This is not presented as a complete theory of quantum gravity, but as a parsimonious reformulation that translates the time–gravity problem into the language of quantum information. The open question is whether spacetime geometry is fundamental, or whether it is an emergent description of underlying informational structure.
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