REVERSING THE ARROW OF EXPLANATION IN THE RELATIONAL BLOCKWORLD: WHY TEMPORAL BECOMING, THE DYNAMICAL BRAIN AND THE EXTERNAL WORLD ARE ALL “IN THE MIND"

MARK STUCKEY1 and MICHAEL SILBERSTEIN2;3

Departments of Physics1 and Philosophy, 2 Elizabethtown College

Elizabethtown, PA 17022, U.S.A.

(stuckeym@etown.edu, silbermd@etown.edu)

MICHAEL CIFONE

Department of Philosophy, University of Maryland

College Park, MD 20742, U.S.A.

(cifonemc@wam.umd.edu)

Abstract: We introduce the Relational Blockworld (RBW) as a paradigm for deflating the mysteries associated with quantum non-separability/non-locality and the measurement problem. We begin by describing how the relativity of simultaneity implies the blockworld, which has an explanatory potential subsuming both dynamical and relational explanations. It is then shown how the canonical commutation relations fundamental to non-relativistic quantum mechanics follow from the relativity of simultaneity. Therefore, quantum mechanics has at its disposal the full explanatory power of the blockworld. Quantum mechanics exploits this expanded explanatory capability since event distributions among detectors per the density matrix follow from spacetime relations (symmetry group) alone. Thus, the event distributions of non-relativistic quantum mechanics follow from a blockworld wherein spacetime relations are fundamental. Per RBW “quantum mysteries" are deflated and the implications for consciousness and the perception of temporal flow and absolute becoming are explored. We conclude that given RBW, consciousness is no less fundamental than any “physical" feature of the world such as brain states. Further, active consciousness is needed to explain the illusion that it is a dynamical world and consciousness in its most fundamental state is relational and non-local.