Arrow of time

The literature on arrows of time in classical physics is vast. The literature on arrows of time in quantum physics is tiny. I think this is bad, because classical physics is outdated by quantum physics.

In the tiny literature on arrows of time in quantum physics, most of what I read is problematic for sloppy thinking (see the first part of Jia2024 for an exposition) {To do: elaborate}. I’m not at all convinced by the folklore explanation that entropy tends to increase because of a special boundary condition for the universe.

In Jia2024, I develop an explanation for entropy increase perceived by experiencing and living beings by explicitly modeling experiencing and living systems in quantum theory. This explanation works even when both the dynamics and the boundary condition are symmetric in time. The key lies in the interior condition instead.

In the future, I hope to see to what extent the explanation applies to more general and realistic situations, beyond the toy model universe (a quantum cellular automata) of the original study.