I think of the Past Hypothesis as "entropy was low at the beginning of our observable universe.” It's definitely true, but it would be great if we could *derive* it without explicitly violating time symmetry, rather than simply postulating it.https://twitter.com/PhilSciArchive/status/1083832934618951680 …
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Replying to @seanmcarroll
I understand that Lorentz invariance => CPT invariance, so we should impose our lagrangians be CPT invar.. But what I don't see as obvious is why we should impose T-invaraince on our fundamental theories if we know T-invariance doesn't seem to be a symmetry of nature
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Replying to @InertialObservr
Different notions of time symmetry. I’m talking about statistical symmetry of early and late conditions, not T invariance of the Lagrangian.
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Replying to @seanmcarroll
so the trouble of all this lies in the fact that our QFTs don’t know about the arrow of time, and you’re saying (I think) it’d be preferred construct a model that explains how/when these fundamental particles “know” in which direction their entropy should increase, or something
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Replying to @InertialObservr @seanmcarroll
Ok, I’ll freely admit I’m out of my depth, but is quantum wavefunction-collapse not a time irreversible process? Doesn’t this give rise to the (an?) arrow of time at some fundamental level, not just as an emergent statistical property?
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Replying to @MattBecker82 @seanmcarroll
The Schrödinger equation does obey T-symmetry, so the time evolution of a state would obey it.. the fact that the measurement collapses a wave function at some later time doesn’t imply that time has a preferred direction
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Replying to @InertialObservr @seanmcarroll
I agree with the first part but don’t understand the second. Are you saying that a measurement leading to wave function collapse should not be considered part of the evolution of the system in time? (I am not a physicist so have little more than a pop-sci understanding of this.)
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That’s right.. If you continually measure a particle’s observable (position, momentum, spin etc) it will not evolve in time.. it’s known as the quantum Zeno paradox
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Many physics problems can be resolved by not observing them.
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