The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Physics

It seems to me that the abolition of time in quantum gravity must bring us back to a more Pythagorean perspective, though with a quantum slant, for now we must simply ask what structures are probable. It seems to me that the first decisive step in this direction was the discovery by Schrödinger of his time-independent wave equation, with its all-important condition that its solutions must be well behaved, and Born’s probability interpretation of quantum mechanics. For we know that these two basic elements of quantum mechanics work together to bring forth exquisite structures in great profusion, doing so moreover without any boundary or initial conditions and with total disregard for what might seem statistically likely. That is the story of atomic, molecular and solid-state physics. I think it may even be the story of the universe.

EPILOGUE

Life Without Time

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things –

For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;

And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

Praise him

It is a pity that Gerard Manley Hopkins’s finest line in this poem implies that creation is a male prerogative and is so inappropriate for the dawning millennium. But what beauty past change the wave function does manage to find in the nooks and crannies of Platonia! What are we to think of life if time and motion are nothing but very well-founded illusions? I have selected a few topics, trying to anticipate some of the questions that the reader, as a human being rather than a scientist, might ask. I also give some hints of how I think the divide between impersonal science and the world of the arts, emotions and religious aspirations might be bridged somewhere in Platonia. I love and respect the disciplines of both. Can they be shown to flow from a common view of the world?

Can We Really Believe in Many Worlds?

The evidence for them is strong. The history of science shows that physicists have tended to be wrong when they have not believed counterintuitive results of good theories. However, despite strong intellectual acceptance of many worlds, I live my life as if it were unique. You might call me a somewhat apologetic ‘many-worlder’! There are occasions when the real existence of other worlds, other outcomes, seems very hard to accept. Soon after I started writing this book, Princess Diana was killed, and Britain – like much of the world – was gripped by a most extraordinary mood. Watching the funeral service live, I did wonder how seriouslyone can take a theory which suggests that she survived the crash in other worlds. Death appears so final.

Such doubts may arise from the extraordinary creative power – whatever it is – that lies behind the world. What we experience in any instant always appears to be embedded in a rich and coherent story. That is what makes it seem unique. I would be reassured if the blue mist did indeed seek out only such stories. Shakespeare wrote many plays, nearly all masterpieces. But we do not even have a unique Hamlet: producers are always cutting different lines, and producing the play in novel ways. Variety is no bad thing: I have enjoyed many outstanding Hamlets. In the timeless many-instants interpretation, they were all other worlds, and that is what makes timeless quantum cosmology fascinating. Our past is just another world. This is the message that quantum mechanics and the deep timeless structure of general relativity seem to be telling us. If you accept that you experienced this morning, that commits you to other worlds. All the instants we have experienced are other worlds, for they are not the one we are in now. Can we then deny the existence of worlds on which ψ collects just as strongly as on our remembered experiences?

Does Free Will Exist?

Anyone committed to science has difficulty with free will. In The Selfish Gene (2nd edition, pp.270-71), Dawkins asks, ‘What on earth do you think you are, if not a robot, albeit a very complicated one?’ From personal introspection, I do not believe that my conscious self exercises free will. Certainly I ponder difficult decisions at length, but the decision itself invariably comes into consciousness from a different, unconscious realm. Brain research confirms that what we think are spontaneous decisions, acts of free will, are prepared in the unconscious mind before we become aware of them.