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DTSTAMP:20260424T040655Z
UID:1747819800@ist.ac.at
DTSTART:20250521T113000
DTEND:20250521T123000
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: George Ellis\nhosted by Zoltan Haiman\nAbstract: Multi
 ple scales in the Universe interact in a non-linear way\, providing the ba
 sis for our existence. A key form of non-linearity is that both upwards a
 nd downwards causation occur at many different scales\, from cosmology thr
 ough to galaxies and down to particles. This is also key to biological fun
 ction. We live in an Evolving Block Universe that provides a global Direct
 ion of Time\, which is basis of all the local arrows of time – a key fe
 ature of astrophysics\, physics\, chemistry\, and life - despite the time 
 symmetry of the underlying physics. The future is not yet determined at s
 mall scales because of quantum uncertainty\, which is magnified to cosmic 
 scales by inflation and to human scales due to damage caused to DNA by co
 smic rays\, and at larger scales because chaotic dynamics occurs both at 
 galactic scales and as regards weather on Earth. Living systems are open s
 ystems so Laplace’s daemon cannot even in principle have the data it nee
 ds to predict unique outcomes from complete initial data of their physical
  state. Existence of a universal wave function would imply everything is 
 uniquely determined by initial conditions\, but no such wave function exis
 ts. Claims that "a universe can arise out of nothing" are incoherent\, bec
 ause "nothing" does not exist.
LOCATION:Raiffeisen Lecture Hall\, ISTA
ORGANIZER:diana.gruber@ista.ac.at
SUMMARY:George Ellis: On the Nature of Causation in Cosmology: The Basis fo
 r our Existence.
URL:https://talks-calendar.ista.ac.at/events/5742
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