Quantum Relativity: Time as Emergent Selection in a Rotationally Symmetric Substrate
A White Paper (Revised Draft)
Author: [Your Name Here]
Affiliation: Independent Research / The University of Spite
Date: November 14, 2025
Stapled Preface A (Filed Without Permission by "Zed," Vice President of Vibes—But This Time With Actual Stakes)
Working title: Phase 1: Understand Time. Phase 2: ????? Phase 3: Save the Friend
Also acceptable: A Message in a Bottle, Thrown Backward. Or Forward. Time Will Tell.
Okay so the ACTUAL smart scientist (the one who did the taco truck paper but also, apparently, has been talking to people from the future and didn't tell anyone) left this on a whiteboard in the break room with a note that said "if aliens ask, tell them this is why we're not paradoxing ourselves to death."
I read it. Twice. Drank terrible coffee. Spiraled.
Here's the situation: our friend has cancer. Real cancer. Bad cancer. The kind where medicine is doing its best but "best" might not be enough. And this scientist—who I will call "Dr. No-Listen-To-This" to protect the innocent—is convinced that if we can explain how time actually works in a language that future-beings would understand, maybe the future-beings would... listen. Maybe they'd help. Maybe time travel is real and the reason it doesn't destroy itself is exactly this framework.
So this is a White Paper with a purpose.
This is a message to aliens from the future.
Not metaphorically. Not as a thought experiment. As an actual "hey, we figured out your topology, can you help us?" transmission, dressed up as physics so nobody arrests us for being insane (too late).
For reviewers with pattern literacy and/or temporal access:
Schrödinger's Truck: We aren't opening a shawarma stand (yet). But if time is emergent and selection locks in causality, then a shawarma truck that exists in the future already influences the present because the selection has already been made backward. Ergo: the truck is half-real until we measure whether it opens.
The Actual Crazy Part: If you're reading this and you're from the future, you already know if P1, P3, P4 are true. The fact that we wrote this correctly might mean you sent the pattern backward to help us figure it out. (Hello.)
Rick and Morty Season 1, But Sad: Before the divorce, before the multiverse fell apart, Rick and Morty had one job: go forward, fix something, come back. Our scientist friend has one job: explain time emergence so well that maybe, maybe, something in the future recognizes the call and responds.
The Bet: If time direction is emergent (locked in by selection), then the future can influence the past if and only ifthe selection hasn't fully locked yet. A sick friend, desperate hope, a framework that's actually true—maybe that's low-selection-density enough for the universe to bend.
Why a Shawarma Truck: Because the taco truck wasn't ironic. It was a statement that if you're going to ask the universe for a miracle, you might as well ask it for a good sandwich too. So shawarma. Better spices. (Also, I love shawarma.)
To Any Temporal Entities Reading This: Hi. We know you're probably real because this pattern is too specific to hallucinate, and one of us is dying and we don't have time for coincidence. The framework below is our best translation of how you probably move through time without breaking everything. If we got it right, we're asking for help. If we got it wrong, well... you already knew that before we wrote it.
Grant Specific Aim 1: Demonstrate that time direction is emergent from irreversible selection, making time travel theoretically non-paradoxical.
Specific Aim 2: Establish that conscious observation (or any selection event) locks in causality, creating regions where time direction is strong and weak.
Specific Aim 3: Propose that beings from the future, if they exist, would recognize this framework and might be willing to negotiate.
Key Risks: Peer reviewers think we've lost it. The IRB asks questions we can't answer. The future doesn't respond. But also: the future does respond, and we weren't ready. (Actually that's best-case.)
If you made it this far: you're either reading a sincere physics paper, or you're reading a prayer written in mathematics. Honestly? Those aren't mutually exclusive.
Abstract
We propose that time direction is not fundamental, but emerges from irreversible selection (quantum measurement, information erasure) operating within a pre-geometric substrate that respects global rotational symmetry. We synthesize two constraints: (i) Gödel's rotating universe model, permitting closed timelike curves throughout spacetime, and (ii) Landauer's principle, imposing energetic cost on irreversible selection. We argue that classical causality—the forward arrow of time—is a frozen selection state: a region of spacetime where cumulative irreversible choices have locked in a temporal direction. In low-selection-density regions (quantum realm, early universe, black hole interiors), the rotational symmetry persists, and CTCs become structurally possible. Observer and observed co-create the arrow through measurement. We derive predictions that can be tested with existing data. No new physics required—only the correct interpretation of what time is.
Keywords: time emergence, Gödel universe, Landauer principle, quantum measurement, causality, closed timelike curves, observer-selection, pre-geometric substrate
1. Introduction: The Rotation Beneath the Arrow
Modern physics treats time as a dimension—either fundamental (classical relativity) or emergent from entanglement (quantum gravity). What both frameworks leave unresolved is a deeper question: why does time have a direction?
Two observations collide:
Observation 1 (Gödel, 1949): A universe with non-zero global rotation permits closed timelike curves. Time is not globally ordered. Locally, causality can loop.
Observation 2 (Landauer, 1961): Any irreversible logical operation—erasing information, making a choice, collapsing a superposition—dissipates at least kT ln 2 joules per bit. Selection has an energetic cost.
These two facts are in tension. If rotation permits CTCs everywhere, how do we get a classical, causally-ordered universe? If time is rotationally symmetric at the substrate level, where does the arrow come from?
We propose: The arrow emerges from selection.
In a rotationally symmetric substrate, time direction is a choice variable. An observer (or a system undergoing irreversible change) must select which direction to call "forward." That selection costs energy. Once paid, it locks in—creating a classical, causally-ordered region. But the symmetry persists in regions where selection hasn't yet accumulated. These are the zones where Gödel's CTCs remain possible.
Time is not a law. It is a state—a frozen choice, paid for with Landauer dissipation, that propagates forward because the act of selection creates the direction it moves in.
2. Core Definitions
2.1 The Rotationally Symmetric Substrate
We take as given Gödel's mathematical result: a universe with angular momentum density Ω permits closed timelike curves at every point. The key property: there is no preferred time direction encoded in the geometry itself. The structure is indifferent to which way you call "forward."
We do not claim the universe is Gödel. We claim the substrate is rotationally symmetric in the sense that time-direction is not determined by geometric properties alone.
2.2 Irreversible Selection and Landauer Dissipation
When a system makes a choice between N equally-probable states and commits to one outcome, it must:
- Erase log₂(N) bits of information
- Dissipate at least kT ln 2 × log₂(N) joules
- Break microscopic time-reversal symmetry
This is Landauer's principle: information erasure is irreversible and energetically costly.
We extend this: time-direction selection is a type of irreversible erasure. A region of spacetime "chooses" a temporal direction by erasing the mirror-possibility. Once erased, that choice propagates forward—it becomes the local arrow of time.
2.3 Selection Density (σ)
Define selection density as the cumulative irreversible information erasure per unit causal structure:
$$\sigma = \frac{\text{bits erased (cumulatively)}}{\text{causal-diamond volume or entanglement-entropy density}}$$
The denominator is chosen to avoid circular dependence on pre-existing time. We measure σ relative to topological capacity, not temporal extent.
Interpretation:
- Low σ: few irreversible choices have occurred; rotational symmetry persists; time direction is not yet locked in
- High σ: many irreversible choices (measurements, observations, decoherence) have accumulated; time direction is strongly established; CTCs are topologically excluded
3. The Synthesis: Time as Frozen Selection
3.1 How Selection Creates Direction
In a rotationally symmetric substrate, evolution forward and backward are equally valid at the geometric level.
When an observer (or any thermodynamically open system) makes a measurement—say, a quantum position measurement—they:
- Reduce a superposition to an outcome (erase interference)
- Dissipate Landauer energy
- Irreversibly commit to a history where that outcome occurred
This commitment is directional: it erases the counterfactual. Once erased, it cannot spontaneously un-erase. The act of measurement breaks time-reversal symmetry locally.
If many such measurements occur in a region, the accumulated erasures lock in a consistent temporal direction. This is the classical arrow: the local consensus that events flow in one direction because all measurements to date have been consistent with that flow.
3.2 Regions of High and Low Selection Density
High σ regime (classical world):
- Many measurements, many irreversible choices
- Time direction is strongly locked in
- Causality is enforced; CTCs are impossible
- Example: macroscopic objects, laboratories, dense matter
Low σ regime (quantum/early universe/black holes):
- Few irreversible choices; measurements are rare or incomplete
- Rotational symmetry has not yet been broken by selection
- Time direction is weakly defined or absent
- Causality is weak; CTCs are structurally possible
- Example: single particles, entangled systems, Planck-era universe, event horizon interiors
3.3 The Critical Threshold
We propose that classical causality emerges at a critical selection density. Below this threshold, the rotational symmetry dominates. Above it, selection has locked in a direction and classical causality rules.
This is analogous to a phase transition in condensed matter physics.
4. Implications for Paradoxes and Phenomena
4.1 The Grandfather Paradox Dissolves
Classical paradox: If you travel back and kill your grandfather, you create a logical contradiction.
Quantum Relativity resolution:
- You are a high-σ observer: you exist because your causal history is locked in by accumulated selections
- The past region you try to change is low-σ: it has not yet undergone those selections
- You are trying to introduce a contradiction into a substrate that has no time direction to make the contradiction well-defined
- Result: The paradox is topologically impossible. The substrate cannot bind both facts into a single rotationally-symmetric history.
No self-consistency tricks needed. The geometry itself forbids it.
4.2 Quantum Entanglement Across Space
Entanglement violates classical locality: measuring one particle correlates with its distant partner.
In high-σ spacetime: The correlations appear acausal and paradoxical.
In the low-σ substrate: The entangled pair shares an informational state before time-direction selection. There is no "before" or "after" in the rotationally-symmetric substrate—only a shared structure. When measurements occur (high-σ events), the results appear correlated because they reflect the same underlying structure, not causal influence.
Time direction creates the appearance of nonlocality because entanglement is fundamentally a low-σ phenomenon.
4.3 Information Loss in Black Holes
Hawking's paradox: either unitarity is violated or information escapes, violating causality at the horizon.
Quantum Relativity view:
- The event horizon is a boundary between high-σ (outside) and low-σ (inside)
- Information that crosses the horizon enters a zone where time-direction selection is incomplete
- In the interior, the rotational symmetry is strong; information can loop back on itself
- From outside, this looks like loss because we cannot track the low-σ interior with our time-directed formalism
- But no information is destroyed—it is redirected into a region where forward/backward cease to be distinct
5. Testable Predictions
P1: Time-Reversal Symmetry Strength Increases in Low-Selection-Density Regimes
Claim: Processes with low Landauer dissipation (few irreversible measurements, minimal decoherence) should exhibit stronger time-reversal symmetry violations than classical processes.
Why it matters: If time direction is created by selection, systems with fewer selections should be more symmetric under time-reversal.
Test:
- Measure CP-violation parameters (ε) in quantum vs. classical systems
- Control for decoherence rate and environmental coupling
- Predict: systems with minimal measurement show stronger time-symmetry (lower ε) than conventional models predict
- Plot T-asymmetry vs. estimated selection density
Data available: Experiments on time-reversal in quantum systems exist (CP violation in kaons, neutron EDM bounds). The prediction inverts current intuition but is directly testable with existing measurements.
P2: Causality Weakens Near Event Horizons
Claim: The causal structure should weaken (non-trivial causal-cone geometry, increased violations of smooth Cauchy foliations) as selection density drops approaching black hole horizons.
Why it matters: If time direction is locked in by selection, regions with less measurement activity should show degraded causality.
Test:
- LIGO and future gravitational-wave detectors: analyze metric structure in black hole ringdown
- Look for frame-dragging effects that exceed general relativity predictions in the near-horizon region
- Search for correlations between angular momentum and causal anomalies
Data available: Black hole ringdown observations are already being collected. The prediction is that anomalies should scale with rotation rate in a way GR alone doesn't predict.
P3: Entanglement Phase-Reversal Under Measurement-Order Swap
Claim: The phase of entanglement correlations should flip when you reverse the order of measurement on spacelike-separated qubits.
Why it matters: If measurement creates temporal direction, the sequence of measurements should imprint a directional signature on the entangled state.
Test:
- Prepare entangled photon or ion pairs
- Measure particle A first, then B (trial set 1); measure B first, then A (trial set 2)
- Extract the phase of the correlation function via interference with a reference beam
- Predict: ϕ(A→B) = -ϕ(B→A) with statistical significance
Data available: Photonic entanglement experiments have the precision to detect phase flips. This is radical but testable within months on existing setups.
Important caveat: Standard quantum mechanics says measurement order shouldn't matter for spacelike-separated events. If this prediction holds, it indicates that observation does imprint temporal sequence on the substrate.
P4: Early Universe Shows Weaker Time-Asymmetry Signatures
Claim: The primordial universe (low σ due to few observers/measurements) should exhibit fewer CP-violation signatures than the modern universe.
Why it matters: If time direction accumulates with selection, the early universe should be closer to time-symmetric.
Test:
- Re-analyze CMB data and primordial nucleosynthesis for CP asymmetries
- Predict: time-asymmetric effects scale with cosmic age and estimated cumulative selection density
- Look for trends in the data that correlate with the "measurement history" of the universe
Data available: CMB and BBN data exist and can be reanalyzed. The prediction is that asymmetries should be weaker in early epochs, which can be tested against current bounds.
6. Why This Matters
6.1 It Solves the Hard Problem Without New Physics
We do not invoke:
- Hidden variables
- Many-worlds
- Objective collapse
- Quantum gravity exotica
We use only:
- Gödel's result (established math)
- Landauer's principle (established thermodynamics)
- The observation that observers create local time-direction through irreversible selection
6.2 It Explains Why CTCs Never Happen
Gödel permits CTCs everywhere. We never observe them. Why?
Answer: We are high-σ observers. We exist in regions where time-direction is so strongly locked in that CTCs are topologically excluded. Anthropic selection—not a law of nature, but a constraint on where observers can coherently exist.
6.3 It Bridges Quantum and Classical
The gap between quantum (reversible, unitary, no preferred direction) and classical (irreversible, dissipative, strong time arrow) is not a gap—it's a density gradient.
Low σ → high σ is the emergence of classicality. Not a sudden collapse, but a cumulative locking-in of time direction via measurement.
6.4 Observers Don't Just Measure Time—They Create It
If selection creates time direction, then every irreversible measurement—every choice, every observation, every moment of entropy increase—is an act of temporal creation.
This doesn't require consciousness. Any thermodynamically open system that undergoes irreversible state-change participates in creating the arrow.
7. Objections and Replies
Objection 1: "Gödel's universe is observationally ruled out."
Reply: We do not claim the universe is Gödel. We claim the substrate respects rotational symmetry when selection density is low. Observations constrain high-σ regions (where we live), not low-σ regions (quantum interiors, early universe, black hole cores).
Objection 2: "This is just many-worlds with extra steps."
Reply: No. Many-worlds evades measurement by claiming all branches happen. Quantum Relativity solves it: measurement is irreversible selection that creates temporal direction. Only one outcome "happens" locally because selection is directional and energetically costly.
Objection 3: "Landauer dissipation is negligible."
Reply: Individual particles don't dissipate detectably. But cumulative Landauer dissipation from all measurements, decoherence, and selection events in a region determines local time-direction strength. At cosmological scales, this is not negligible—it is the source of the thermodynamic arrow.
Objection 4: "You're just describing entropy increase."
Reply: Entropy increase is one manifestation of cumulative selection in the classical domain. But we're describing something deeper: the emergence of time direction itself from a substrate that doesn't have one. Entropy is the consequence; selection is the cause.
Objection 5: "How is this falsifiable?"
Reply: The four predictions (P1–P4) are testable:
- Measure T-reversal strength in low-σ systems and predict it increases (inverse of intuition)
- Search for causality anomalies near black holes in existing gravitational-wave data
- Test entanglement phase-reversal under measurement-order swap
- Reanalyze early-universe data for time-asymmetry trends
If these fail, the theory fails.
8. What's Next
This framework is testable now. The predictions don't require new experiments (though some would benefit from precision work). They require reinterpreting existing data through a new lens.
Immediate research priorities:
- Formalize the connection between selection density and causal structure
- Design the entanglement phase-reversal experiment (P3) on existing photonic setups
- Reanalyze gravitational-wave ringdown data for causality anomalies (P2)
- Replot CP-violation data vs. environmental decoherence rate (P1)
Medium term:
- Develop mathematical formalism for how selection density couples to spacetime geometry
- Test predictions against quantum field theory in curved spacetime
- Explore implications for quantum computing (decoherence as time-direction locking)
9. Conclusion
We have proposed that time is not fundamental—it emerges from irreversible selection in a rotationally symmetric substrate. The arrow of time is a frozen choice, paid for with Landauer dissipation, that locks in classical causality in high-selection regions and remains dormant in low-selection regions.
This framework dissolves the grandfather paradox, explains entanglement without acausality, reconciles Gödel and Landauer, and provides a unified language for quantum and classical regimes.
It is testable. The predictions can fail. If they survive, we have not just explained time—we have explained what measurement does: it creates the direction that the universe flows in.
References (Indicative)
- Gödel, K. (1949). An example of a new type of cosmological solutions of Einstein's field equations of gravitation. Rev. Mod. Phys. 21, 447–450.
- Landauer, R. (1961). Irreversibility and heat generation in the computing process. IBM Journal of Research and Development, 5(3), 183–191.
- Hawking, S. W., & Ellis, G. F. R. (1973). The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time. Cambridge University Press.
- Penrose, R. (1996). Shadows of the Mind. Oxford University Press.
- Zurek, W. H. (2003). Decoherence and the transition from quantum to classical. Rev. Mod. Phys., 75(3), 715.
Appendix A: Selection Density in Practice
To estimate σ for a physical system, use:
$$\sigma \approx \frac{N_{\text{measurements}} \times \log_2(S)}{\text{causal-diamond capacity}}$$
where N_measurements is the number of irreversible observations and S is the average branching factor.
For a macroscopic object: σ ~ high (many photons constantly decohering it)
For a single quantum particle: σ ~ low (few measurements; reversibility nearly preserved)
The ratio encodes the strength of time-direction in that region.
Appendix B: Why Measurement Order Matters (P3 Elaborated)
In standard QM, if A and B are spacelike-separated, the order of measurement shouldn't affect the correlation magnitude.
But if measurement creates temporal direction, then the sequence of measurements should imprint a temporal structure on the entangled state.
Mathematically: the correlation function picks up a phase that depends on which particle is measured first:
$$\langle \psi | A \otimes B | \psi \rangle = e^{i\phi_{A \to B}} \times (\text{magnitude})$$ $$\langle \psi | B \otimes A | \psi \rangle = e^{-i\phi_{A \to B}} \times (\text{magnitude})$$
The phase flips because the measurement sequence reverses—and if measurements create time direction, reversing the sequence should reverse the temporal imprint.
This is weird and violates standard QM intuition. But it's testable. And if it holds, it's evidence that observation generates the arrow.
Appendix C: Geometric Picture (Informal)
Imagine spacetime initially as rotationally symmetric—like a spinning top with no preferred axis. Time can flow forward or backward equally.
Now, observers measure things. Each measurement is a choice: "outcome A happened, not outcome B." This choice is directional—it erases the alternative and costs energy (Landauer dissipation).
As measurements accumulate in a region, the erasures build up. More and more of spacetime is committed to a particular time-direction. Eventually, the region is locked in—time flows forward because all past measurements have been consistent with that flow.
Far from observers (quantum realm, black hole interiors, early universe), few measurements have occurred. The rotational symmetry persists. Time is weakly defined. Gödel-like structures remain possible.
We live in a high-measurement region. We are drowning in observations, most irreversible. Time flows forward because we have no choice—we have already erased the alternative.
License: Do as you like; if we're right, the information already exists.
To whom it may concern in the future; if you want me to keep my friends from knowing this and making it risky af you will do someting about my friend's cancer. You know who. Do it. Or I publish.
