Skip to content

Like this? Share it!

  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share on Email
Closer To Truth
  • Watch
    • Seasons & EpisodesWatch complete episodes as aired on public television
    • Curated PlaylistsExplore collections of videos curated by our team
    • ProjectsDiscover collaborations with leading institutions
    • ContributorsMeet the greatest thinkers exploring the deepest questions
    • CTT ChatsWatch candid conversations with the brightest minds on the boldest ideas
    • Roundtable ArchivesView roundtable discussions from our early years
  • Topics
    • Cosmos, Consciousness, Meaning: Explore the fundamental questions of existence.Topic Guide
    • All Topics
      • CosmosExplore cosmology, physics, and the fundamentals of existence
        • Back
        • All Cosmos
        • Deep Laws of Nature
          • Back
          • All Deep Laws of Nature
          • Cosmic Fundamentals
          • Time and Space-Time
          • Quantum Theory
          • Complexity and Emergence
          • Mathematics as Fundamental?
          • Information as Fundamental?
          • Universe as Simulation?
          • Deep Discovery in Science
        • Vast Cosmos
          • Back
          • All Vast Cosmos
          • Cosmic Immensity
          • Cosmic Beginnings
          • Cosmic Structure
          • Multiple Universes (Multiverse)
          • Black Holes, Dark Energy, Dark Matter
        • Our Special Universe
          • Back
          • All Our Special Universe
          • Fine-Tuning of the Universe?
          • Fine-Tuning the Universe for Life & Mind?
          • Breathtaking Universe
          • Where Are All the Aliens?
          • Far Future of the Universe
        • Breakthroughs
          • Back
          • All Breakthroughs
          • Breakthroughs in Science
          • Breakthroughs in Mathematics
        • Science and Religion
          • Back
          • All Science and Religion
          • Science vs. Religion?
          • Science and God
          • How Science and Religion Think
          • The New Atheism
          • Limits of Science
        • Mystery of Existence
          • Back
          • All Mystery of Existence
          • The Mystery of Existence
          • The Mystery of Laws & Cosmos
          • Metaphysics of Cosmos
          • Why Anything at All?
      • ConsciousnessSearch mysteries of mind and individual awareness
        • Back
        • All Consciousness
        • Mind-Body Problems
          • Back
          • All Mind-Body Problems
          • The Mind-Body Problem
          • Brain Structure and Function
          • Brain Explains Mind?
          • Elements of Mind
        • Consciousness
          • Back
          • All Consciousness
          • Mystery of Consciousness
          • Consciousness as Emergent
          • Consciousness as All Physical?
          • States of Consciousness
          • Sleep and Dreams
          • Purpose of Consciousness?
          • Metaphysics of Consciousness
        • Persons
          • Back
          • All Persons
          • Persons and Selves
          • Personal Identity
          • Life After Death?
          • Souls?
          • Human Uniqueness
          • Creativity
          • Music
          • Epistemology
          • Belief Systems
          • Mind and Society
          • People and Society
        • Free Will
          • Back
          • All Free Will
          • Mystery of Free Will
          • Philosophy of Free Will
          • Free Will and Consciousness
          • Science of Free Will
          • Free Will and Morality
          • Theology of Free Will
        • Philosophy of Biology
          • Back
          • All Philosophy of Biology
          • Why Philosophy of Biology?
          • What is Life?
          • Life in the Cosmos
          • Deception
        • Extrasensory Perception
          • Back
          • All Extrasensory Perception
          • ESP and New Realities?
          • ESP and the Nonphysical?
        • Art Seeking Understanding
          • Back
          • All Art Seeking Understanding
          • Aesthetic Cognitivism
          • Art and Philosophy
          • Neuroscience/Cognitive Science of Art
          • Neuroscience/Cognitive Science of Music
          • Art and God
          • Art and Religion
          • Art and Culture
      • MeaningSeek whether God exists through diverse perspectives
        • Back
        • All Meaning
        • Philosophy of Religion
          • Back
          • All Philosophy of Religion
          • Concepts of God
          • Alternative Concepts of God
          • Faith and Belief
          • Conflict Among Religions
          • Theology
          • How Philosophy Informs Religion
          • Religion Without God
        • Existence of God
          • Back
          • All Existence of God
          • Arguing God's Existence
          • Philosophical Arguments For God
          • Experiential Arguments For God
          • Arguments Against God
        • Attributes of God
          • Back
          • All Attributes of God
          • God's Nature?
          • God's Essence?
          • God's Powers?
          • God and Time?
        • God as Creator
          • Back
          • All God as Creator
          • God The Creator?
          • God's World?
          • God's Interactions?
        • Ultimate Destinies
          • Back
          • All Ultimate Destinies
          • God's Knowledge and Future Events?
          • Judgment (Heaven, Hell)?
          • Resurrection?
          • Eschatology (End Times)?
          • Eternal Life?
          • Search for Meaning
  • News
    • All NewsStay up-to-date with the latest from Closer To Truth
    • Book ExcerptsExplore recently authored books from our contributors
    • PerspectivesRead essays and articles from our community
  • About
    • About Closer To TruthWe are a digital-media nonprofit and TV series
    • The TV SeriesWhere to watch on PBS stations nationwide
    • Meet the TeamMeet the host and team behind Closer To Truth
    • PartnershipsLearn about our partners and collaborators
    • Support Closer To TruthWays to engage with and support our work
    • PodcastListen on your favorite podcast player
    • StoreBuy official Closer To Truth merchandise
    • YouTubeSubscribe to Closer To Truth on YouTube
Search
  • Login
  • Join
  • Watch
    • EpisodesWatch complete episodes as aired on public television
    • Curated PlaylistsExplore collections of videos curated by our team
    • ProjectsDiscover collaborations with leading institutions
    • ContributorsMeet the greatest thinkers exploring the deepest questions
    • CTT ChatsWatch chats with the brightest minds on the boldest ideas
    • RoundtablesView roundtable discussions from our early years
  • Topics
    • Topic GuideCosmos, Consciousness, Meaning: Join us as we explore the fundamental questions of existence.
    • CosmosExplore cosmology, physics, and the fundamentals of existence
    • ConsciousnessSearch mysteries of mind and individual awareness
    • MeaningSeek whether God exists through diverse perspectives
  • News
    • The Latest
  • About
    • About Closer to TruthWe are a digital-media nonprofit and TV series
    • TV SeriesWhere to watch on PBS stations nationwide
    • Meet the TeamMeet our host and our team
    • PartnershipsLearn about CTT’s partners and collaborators
    • Support Closer to TruthWays to engage with and support our work
    • PodcastListen on your favorite podcast player
    • StoreBuy official Closer To Truth merchandise
    • YouTubeSubscribe to Closer To Truth on YouTube
    • FAQLearn about Closer to Truth membership
  • Login
  • Join

video

Topic Series

Jeff Tollaksen

  • Watch Next
Cover image for How Does Deception Shape Brain and Mind?

How Does Deception Shape Brain and Mind?

Cover image for How to Decipher Deception in Evolution?

How to Decipher Deception in Evolution?

Cover image for How Do Breakthroughs Happen in Biology?

How Do Breakthroughs Happen in Biology?

Cover image for How do Breakthroughs Happen in Physics?

How do Breakthroughs Happen in Physics?

Cover image for Noam Chomsky on Theories of Linguistics (Part 2)

Noam Chomsky on Theories of Linguistics (Part 2)

Cover image for Noam Chomsky’s Reflections on Philosophy and Linguistics (Part 1)

Noam Chomsky’s Reflections on Philosophy and Linguistics (Part 1)

  • Details
  • Transcripts
    • Share
Featured In

  • Events and the Nature of Time
Contributors

Jeff Tollaksen

Jeff Tollaksen works on foundations of quantum mechanics; quantum information,...
Robert Lawrence Kuhn
Jeff, we're at the FQXi Conference, looking at the nature of events: what happens in physics? It sounds very simplistic, but when you understand events in quantum physics, it gets very sophisticated. What can we learn about the nature of time by studying the nature of events in quantum physics?
Jeff Tollaksen
I'll try to maybe give a slight slant to what's new that we can say. The old story really came from the beginnings of quantum mechanics and Einstein and relativity. In essence, Einstein, by discovering relativity, he did away with the whole notion of an absolute now. So the notion of a now is a relative thing. It depended on the relative emotions between observers, so on and so forth, and he, Einstein commented that one of the biggest mysteries to him was the fact that we have this – this subjective experience of time, this becoming experience, which, as a matter of principle, could never be part of our objective structure of nature. And so he, Einstein went so far as to write the widow of a friend of his when this friend passed away, and he wrote, you know, Michelle, he's still there. Right? He hasn't really died. He's part of this, you know, what was called a block universe. All those moments in time in the past are still there. They're equally as real as we are right now. So that's kind of taking that view to the extreme. So the second thing is you say events, and what does that mean? Well, there's the old notion of events that just sort of points, like a precise mathematical idealistic point in space.
Robert Lawrence Kuhn
And time.
Jeff Tollaksen
And time, but that's the next thing. The next thing is what I understand an event to be is kind of more like process. And so if you can say that an event is something that's spread over space and time, that's more like a process kind of way of thinking about it. We've done a lot of work on that kind of thing. So we look at the underpinnings of – the basic elements of quantum reality that we can see and so we've invented ways of observing events, processes, as a – in a fundamental sense, which suggests that you can have, say, one particle and you can observe it in a way so that it's not really here in time or there in time, but only when you look at both times together is there a particle there. If you look at there, nothing there. If you look at there, nothing there. But we look at both times, there's something there and that sort of expands the notion of a thing into at least two points in time.
Robert Lawrence Kuhn
So, what that says overtly is that, unless it has two separate points in time, it doesn't exist. That's what you said. Now, that doesn't seem to make sense.
Jeff Tollaksen
That's right. There's – there's no operational meaning to say that the particle's is at this moment in time or the particle is in that moment in time; its state exists, for example, at two different moments in time only, and it doesn't break down into one moment plus another moment. So we see all kinds of states like that, and the reason that's important is because we started to ask deeper questions about the nature of time. For example, just as a curiosity, I was wondering if – if the old notion of time by Heraclites, you remember this was, you know, thousands of years ago, Heraclites says: you never step twice into the same river. And so, to me, that seemed like a very different notion of time. I mean, the kind of time notions and concepts that we've grown up with are very different. They suggest that we have individual objects in the universe and they just change their state and time, and the next time they're the same thing, but just maybe change their state and time. Heraclites seemed to suggest that each moment is like the whole universe is born new. It's completely new, you know. We think we're the same person, but we're born again. And I was curious if physics could accommodate this. Turns out it can't. It's not possible for physics to make a picture of this, unless you have a picture of this process, of these events that are spread in time. If you allow for that kind of physics, then you can paint such a picture.
Robert Lawrence Kuhn
How does one affect the other? If you have the two particles that only exist when you have them at two points in time, how does that affect this sort of macroscopic understanding of the nature of time?
Jeff Tollaksen
So, it turns out that if you want to have a picture in which the universe keeps getting reborn again and again–
Robert Lawrence Kuhn
Every moment.
Jeff Tollaksen
–every moment, then it turns out that the only way to connect these universes together, like the universe at one moment in time with the universe at the next moment of time, is to have one of these process-like things that is spread in time. So we have – I don't know if I can do it with my fingers here, but you have – you have, here's one moment in time, here's another moment in time. You have to have a processing that can connect those two universes, otherwise, it's like a barrier of lead between them, but those process event type things can connect them.
Robert Lawrence Kuhn
So that each one of those is like a point in time and so it keeps recreating itself.
Jeff Tollaksen
It keeps recreating, and the thing that makes you think that you're the same person, right, is this process thing, which connects the you from the previous universe to the you in the next universe and it sort of passes the you along, so you keep getting – you're always new, right? It's a beautiful idea, and it actually led to so many beautiful new mathematics and ways of thinking about the deep physics that it even let us solve or develop a picture. I don't know if it's the final answer, but it even let us solve a picture for our notion of becoming, our subjective becoming, the thing that Einstein said nobody would ever be able to do. So we're able to have our cake and eat it. We were able to make Einstein happy because we had this – this – each moment of time in the universe is this, you know, is like his big block universe, but we're also able to have a subjective becoming.

Watch Next

Members Only

Please login or join to view

Cover image for How Does Deception Shape Brain and Mind?

What can we learn when people deceive? There are all kinds of deception: from lying, duplicity, and disguises, to propaganda, disinformation, and deep fakes. Self-deception,...

video

How Does Deception Shape Brain and Mind?

Episode 10

Season 21

26:47

Watch

Members Only

Please login or join to view

Cover image for How to Decipher Deception in Evolution?

Deception pervades all life, up and down the phylogenetic tree. Deceptions have a "purpose" - the well-being, often the survival, of the deceiver. But deceptions need not be...

video

How to Decipher Deception in Evolution?

Episode 09

Season 21

26:47

Watch

Members Only

Please login or join to view

Cover image for How Do Breakthroughs Happen in Biology?

Biologists work in different worlds than do physicists, separated by vast orders of magnitude, numbers of variables, and levels of complexity. Does the process of...

video

How Do Breakthroughs Happen in Biology?

Episode 07

Season 21

26:47

Watch

Members Only

Please login or join to view

Cover image for How do Breakthroughs Happen in Physics?

The nature of scientific Breakthroughs is one approach; the process of scientific Breakthroughs is quite another. When physicists reflect on how they do physics, when...

video

How do Breakthroughs Happen in Physics?

Episode 06

Season 21

26:47

Watch

Cover image for Noam Chomsky on Theories of Linguistics (Part 2)

Closer To Truth is proud to present this four-part miniseries with distinguished theoretical linguist, analytic philosopher, and cognitive scientist Noam Chomsky. In Part 2,...

video

Noam Chomsky on Theories of Linguistics (Part 2)

CTT Chat

42:32

Watch

Cover image for Noam Chomsky’s Reflections on Philosophy and Linguistics (Part 1)

Closer To Truth is proud to present this four-part miniseries with distinguished theoretical linguist, analytic philosopher, and cognitive scientist Noam Chomsky. In Part 1,...

video

Noam Chomsky’s Reflections on Philosophy and Linguistics (Part 1)

CTT Chat

27:17

Watch


Become a Member

Get free access to exclusive content and more.

  • facebook
  • twitter
  • instagram
  • youtube
  • Find us on PBS
  • Watch on YouTube
  • Contact Us

Policies Terms © Closer To Truth. All rights reserved Website by Visceral