Jan 4

How Time is Made

Observation, Collapse, and the Shrinking of Accessible Futures:

A Relational and Thermodynamic Interpretation of Quantum Measurement

Abstract

Standard quantum theory presupposes an external temporal parameter, while general relativity admits no preferred global time, producing the “problem of time” in quantum gravity. Physical time is not fundamental but is locally generated by irreversible classical record formation. We introduce the Future Contraction Postulate (FCP), defining local physical time as proportional to the logarithmic contraction of the set of accessible future macrostates compatible with present classical records,

Δ𝑡 = −𝑘 Δln Ω.

Quantum states are reinterpreted as fundamentally atemporal relational structures, and observation is identified as the physical act that instantiates temporal ordering, causality, and historical narrative. Wavefunction collapse is recast as the crystallization of complete causal histories rather than as a dynamical physical discontinuity. We further derive a physical time-generation law in which local temporal increments are proportional to the decoherence (record-formation) rate of open quantum systems, thereby providing a concrete dynamical mechanism for the emergence of time. Irreversible record formation is shown to be a necessary and sufficient physical condition for the existence of time, establishing a thermodynamic falsifiability criterion: any system forming stable classical records without monotonic contraction of accessible future state-space would contradict the framework. This formulation provides a physically grounded resolution of delayed-choice and apparent retrocausal paradoxes, explains the emergence of the arrow of time, and identifies the physical boundary at which temporal structure appears in open quantum systems and quantum cosmology. Within this view, the present moment is not a location in time but an interface at which futures are consumed into histories. Physical time is not something the universe inhabits; it is something the universe continually makes. Keywords: quantum foundations, time, entropy, measurement problem, emergent spacetime, causal structure

Trey Kirk