14.5 Record Formation as Environmental Redundancy
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The physical mechanism by which records form is decoherence. When a system interacts with its
environment, correlations with the system’s state are copied into many environmental degrees of
freedom; because entanglement is monogamous, the system’s coherence with any isolated partner is
correspondingly diluted. What survives into later stages is therefore not a preserved earlier state
but a redundant, environmentally distributed record of selected properties of it — the structure
Zurek calls quantum Darwinism (Zurek 2003, 2009). This gives Postulate 4 a concrete physical basis.
A causal record is a present correlation, multiply copied into the environment, whose structure is a
lawful transformation of an earlier organization that no longer exists. Coherence is lost through
specific environmental mechanisms at specific rates, and records are correspondingly finite,
redundant, and degradable (§14.6).
14.6 Limits of the Causal Archive
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Crucially, causal propagation is selective and lossy. Record formation is governed by local physical
dynamics — decoherence, amplification, thermalization — whose rates vary enormously across the
universe: dense, strongly interacting regions both create and scramble records rapidly, while near-
vacuum regions transmit signals over long distances with little distortion. The fidelity with which
information about prior events is carried forward is therefore not uniform across spacetime.
(1) Finite Encoding Capacity. The amount of information that can be carried forward from Σ_{σ′} to
Σ_σ is limited by the physical degrees of freedom of intervening fields and their dynamical
evolution. Processes such as thermalization, decoherence, gravitational mixing, and nonlinear
interactions progressively degrade fine-grained information. CTGP therefore suggests that most
microphysical details of earlier stages will not be recoverable at later stages, even in principle,
because their causal imprints are dispersed below any reconstructible threshold.
(2) Coarse-Graining and Record Formation. What survives into Σ_σ are not full microstates of prior
hypersurfaces, but coarse-grained invariants—stable, redundantly encoded features of the dynamics.
Cosmological relics such as the cosmic microwave background, large-scale structure correlations, and
conserved quantities function as high-fidelity carriers of such information.
(3) Local Variability of Epistemic Access. Because record formation depends on local physical
conditions, the efficiency of causal encoding varies across spacetime. Matter-dense regions may both
generate and rapidly scramble information, while near-vacuum regions can preserve signals over long
distances with minimal distortion. The epistemic accessibility of past events is therefore spatially
heterogeneous, reflecting underlying physical conditions rather than any global indeterminacy.
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15. Relationship to Causal Set Theory and Growing-Block Models
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The conceptual structure of Cosmic-Time Generative Presentism shares significant similarities with
several existing approaches in the foundations of spacetime physics while also differing from them
in important respects. Understanding these relationships clarifies CTGP’s position within the
broader landscape of temporal ontologies.
15.1 Growing-Block Universe Models
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Growing block models propose that the past and present exist while the future does not yet exist,
with spacetime expanding as new moments are added to the existing structure. CTGP’s architecture is
broadly continuous with this tradition, particularly with Ellis and Rothman’s crystallizing block
universe (2010). The continuity is architectural rather than ontological: in CTGP, earlier states do
not persist as ontologically existing regions of spacetime — it is precisely through this
ontological absence that the causal records embedded in later physical states become the sole mode
of the past’s reality. Information about prior events survives only through those physical records.
The universe therefore functions not as an ever-accumulating spacetime block but as a sequence of
generated states whose causal history is encoded in present physical structures. The distinction has
formal consequences for the structure of the action, which is integrated only over M(σ) at each
stage rather than over an accumulating manifold containing all past slices as co-existing regions.
CTGP also goes beyond prior growing-block proposals by identifying the growth parameter with a
geometric invariant, cosmological time, whose level sets remain Cauchy surfaces in the presence of
collapsed structure.
15.2 Causal Set Theory
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Causal set theory (Bombelli et al. 1987; Sorkin 2003; Dowker 2005) represents spacetime as a
discrete partially ordered set of causally related events, with spacetime geometry emerging from the
underlying causal network. Classical sequential growth models (Rideout and Sorkin 2000) provide a
dynamical framework in which the causal set grows by sequential addition of new elements. CTGP
shares with causal set approaches the emphasis on causal structure as fundamental to the
organization of spacetime, and the treatment of temporal ordering as arising from causal
connectivity rather than being imposed externally. Both frameworks treat causal ordering as primary
and view spacetime structure as emerging from chains of physical interaction. CTGP can be understood
as a continuum analogue of causal set cosmology: as discussed in §6.2, the continuous generation
parameter σ may correspond, in an appropriate continuum approximation, to an averaged measure of
generated causal structure — a motivating analogy rather than an established correspondence. One
contrast deserves emphasis. Classical sequential growth dynamics is required to satisfy discrete
general covariance: physical content must be independent of the order in which elements are born, so
the birth order is itself a gauge labeling, and causal-set theorists generally read the resulting
becoming as asynchronous, without a global now. CTGP’s physically calibrated global present is
therefore an additional commitment, supplied by cosmological time in the continuum regime (§6.1),
rather than something inherited from causal-set dynamics. CTGP differs from causal set theory in
that it does not require spacetime to be fundamentally discrete. The framework remains fully
compatible with the continuous spacetime manifolds of general relativity while interpreting their
temporal structure as dynamically generated through the variational structure of σ.
15.3 Process-Based and Dynamical Approaches
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Several philosophical and physical frameworks treat reality as fundamentally processual rather than
static. Smolin’s temporal naturalism (2013) argues that time is ontologically fundamental and that
physical laws evolve, sharing with CTGP the rejection of a completed four-dimensional block as the
primary ontological category. Process cosmology in the tradition of Whitehead treats reality as
composed of processes of becoming rather than static substances, a commitment that maps naturally
onto CTGP’s generative hypersurface structure. Penrose’s conformal cyclic cosmology and various
quantum gravity proposals also invoke dynamical spacetime generation, albeit with different formal
structures. CTGP aligns with these process-oriented approaches in emphasizing the generative
character of physical reality while providing a precise formal framework grounded in standard
general relativity.
15.4 The Distinguishing Integration of CTGP
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The distinguishing feature of CTGP lies in its integration of three elements that are typically
treated separately in the existing literature. First, a generation parameter grounded in
relativistic causal structure: CTGP identifies the growth parameter with cosmological time, fixed by
the spacetime’s causal and metric structure and encoded in a constrained action. Second, a temporal
ordering that is observationally accessible: in FLRW the level sets of cosmological time are the
surfaces of constant cosmic time, so the generation parameter is realized by a quantity cosmology
already measures, without introducing a preferred frame beyond what is already present in standard
cosmology. Third, persistence of past information through physical records: CTGP’s account of causal
records embedded in successive present states provides a precise mechanism for how the past remains
accessible despite no longer existing as an independent spacetime region. Together these components
provide a framework in which temporal passage, causal structure, and cosmological evolution are
treated as aspects of a single underlying generative process rather than as separate explananda
requiring separate theoretical treatments.
CTGP is compatible with all of these, and explicitly incorporates their formal resources where
appropriate. Its distinctive contribution, however, is something none of them provides: most quantum
gravity growth models describe the growth of causal relations — the addition of ordered pairs of
events, the extension of the causal partial order. CTGP adds to this the growth of the experiential
present. The present hypersurface Σ_σ is not merely the most recently added stratum of a growing
causal structure; it is the ontological locus of qualia, the active edge at which physically
instantiated becoming constitutes experience. This connects physics and phenomenology in a way that
causal set theory, temporal naturalism, and process cosmology do not attempt: alongside a formal
account of how generation proceeds, CTGP specifies where within that structure experience occurs. It
does not explain why physically instantiated becoming is accompanied by experience at all; Appendix
D states plainly that the framework solves neither the hard problem nor the mapping problem, and the
core ontology does not depend on it. The quantum gravity frameworks handle the former; CTGP handles
both.
The connection between the growth edge and the experiential edge is not a separate postulate layered
onto the physics but a consequence of what the growth edge is. In causal set theory and in CTGP’s
continuum analog, the present hypersurface Σ_σ is distinguished from all past hypersurfaces by a
single structural fact: it is the only stratum at which causal dynamics are actively instantiated
rather than recorded. Past hypersurfaces are represented within M(σ) as completed causal structure —
fixed, encoded, no longer undergoing lawful evolution. Σ_σ alone is where the evolution equations
are being applied, where fields are being propagated, where the Cauchy problem is being solved. If
qualia require anything at all, they require a physical process that is occurring, not one that has
occurred. The experiential edge coincides with the growth edge not because CTGP stipulates it but
because only the growth edge satisfies the necessary condition of being an active, non-completed
physical process. Past slices, whose reality now consists entirely in present causal records, are
inert with respect to ongoing dynamics; Σ_σ is not. The localization of experience at the present
edge is therefore not an additional postulate but a consequence of applying the
Representation–Instantiation Distinction (§D.4) to the temporal structure of M(σ) itself: past
hypersurfaces represent completed structure, while the physical configuration on the present
hypersurface instantiates ongoing becoming.
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