Entanglement as the world-making relation: distance from entanglement

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Distance, it is often argued, is the only coherent and empirically adequate world-making relation that can glue together the elements of the world. This paper offers entanglement as an alternative world-making relation. Entanglement is interesting since it is consistent even with quantum gravity theories that do not feature space at the fundamental level. The paper thereby defends the metaphysical salience of such non-spatial theories. An account of distance (space) is the predominant problem of empirical adequacy facing entanglement as a world-making relation. A resolution of this obstacle utilizes insights from the Ryu–Takayanagi formula (a holographic relation between entanglement and spacetime) and Susskind and Maldacena’s related ER = EPR conjecture (a relation between bell pairs and wormholes). Together these indicate how distance can be recovered from entanglement and thus carves the way for entanglement fundamentalism.

Original languageEnglish
JournalSynthese
Volume198
Issue number10
Pages (from-to)9661-9693
Number of pages33
ISSN0039-7857
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, The Author(s).

    Research areas

  • Entanglement, Entanglement fundamentalism, Holography, Primitive ontology, Quantum gravity, World-making relation

ID: 339998547