Chapter 4 explored the idea that reality may be an interactive process leading to the stage of time and space rather than set on it, and – perhaps more speculatively – that there may be a role for us as observers in the process of causing reality to unfold. The last chapter investigated synchronicity and noted that there is an apparent overlap between phenomena, such as quantum entanglement and our experience of meaningful coincidences. Now Chapter 6 picks up the thread from Chapter 4 and asks why, if reality is a process, it does not appear random. What is the mechanism by which it appears stable to us, as a continuous stream of events?
Chapter 4 explored the idea that reality may be an interactive process leading to the stage of time and space rather than set on it, and – perhaps more speculatively – that there may be a role for us as observers in the process of causing reality to unfold. The last chapter investigated synchronicity and noted that there is an apparent overlap between phenomena, such as quantum entanglement and our experience of meaningful coincidences. Now Chapter 6 picks up the thread from Chapter 4 and asks why, if reality is a process, it does not appear random. What is the mechanism by which it appears stable to us, as a continuous stream of events?
In the previous chapter, we saw that rather than thinking about reality as a static state, it may be helpful to think of it as a process, and perhaps even a process in which the observer participates: she has an active role in determining what is observed. This is certainly true in quantum physics, where quantum superposition is not resolved until a measurement is made. Our classical way of viewing the world leads us to interpret it as being much more absolute at the (larger) scale at which we live our lives. But, as we saw in Chapter 4, quantum processes play much more of a role in our daily lives than we typically realise. For example, entanglement, where two quantum systems interact immediately irrespective of their distance, is a central concept in quantum physics. Yet it appears to defy causality, as we are used to defining it (where one event causing another must always precede it). Erik Verlinde said the following about quantum entanglement:
The new physics just described was still based largely on Newtonian ideas. Indeed, in its theoretical aspects, it might not unfairly be described as a final attempt to explain the world in materialistic terms—as particles being pushed and pulled about in space and time. Nevertheless, the new physics had found it necessary to abolish most of the forces of pushing and pulling, replacing the gradual changes of motion of the particles under these forces by sudden and unpredictable jumps. These appeared to involve violations of the law of causality, both in the disintegration of radioactive atoms and also in the internal changes of ordinary atoms. We seemed to see Fate defying this law as she picked out certain atoms for disintegration or collapse and, by her apparently capricious acts, sent the universe along one path or another according to her whim. On such lines the new physics had explained many phenomena which had hitherto seemed inexplicable, but it had by no means met with complete success. For instance, while it gave a perfect interpretation of the simplest spectrum of all, namely that of the hydrogen atom, it failed with more complex spectra. This was not necessarily a fatal objection; a few emendations and possibly a few new ad hoc assumptions might have effected a complete reconciliation, although this seems improbable.
State collapse is a very peculiar process, and I will have a lot more to say about it through this book. However, it is not the only way that quantum states can change. For most of the time, the various quantum systems in nature wander about the universe not being involved in experiments, yet clearly things can and do change. Any self-respecting theory must be capable of describing the ordinary business of a world in which things interact with one another, change, and develop. Part of our dealings in this chapter will be to develop the machinery that quantum theory uses to portray the changes of ordinary development and the, rather more mysterious, changes due to measurement.
What if global time is not a fundamental axis of the Universe, but an emergent scale of the observer? This paper presents LTST — Local Time Synchronization Theory. The central claim of LTST is that the primary level of physical reality is not space, global time, or particles, but local times of processes and the structure of their synchronization. Physical objects are interpreted as stable attractors of local times, space as a secondary structure of stable relations between such attractors, and energy as a measure of reconfiguration between synchronization regimes. The key idea is that the Universe does not possess an external clock already synchronized with the observer. What is usually called global time is interpreted in LTST as the scale of a high-level observer-attractor. Observation is not treated as a passive registration of a pre-existing reality, but as a physical act of synchronization that turns a possible configuration into a manifested event. LTST does not reject the existing mathematical apparatus of physics. The equations of mechanics, electrodynamics, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, and cosmology continue to work within their domains of applicability. What changes is their ontological interpretation: after introducing local time, these equations can be read not only as descriptions of objects moving in a given space-time, but also as projections of deeper synchronization processes. This approach offers a different perspective on quantum uncertainty, the role of the observer, scale irreducibility, and cosmological difficulties. Instead of relying on quantum mysticism, persistent paradoxes, or premature explanatory entities, LTST proposes to understand physical reality as the manifestation of possible configurations through the synchronization of local times.
It has become ever more clear over the past 70 years that reality is best described by a theory that no one fully understands and which cannot be applied to most everyday phenomena. Quantum theory has been subjected to many stringent tests and all of its predictions, however strange, have always been borne out. Originally developed to account for why atoms do not collapse and why they radiate and absorb energy in discrete amounts (quanta), it has now gone far beyond these rather simple beginnings. It is essentially a mathematical theory, so trying to describe it in words is analogous to transforming a picture into a poem. Inaccuracies, distortions and over-simplifications inevitably creep in. Nevertheless, one can convey the essence of the picture, and that is what is attempted here. Some grasp of what the material world is really like, and of the unfamiliar ways in which it can behave, is probably necessary to reaching an understanding of awareness and is certainly needed to comprehend the experimental evidence set out in Chapter 5.
The Vanishing Present: What We Experience Is Always the Immediate Past This article explores a fundamental insight into the nature of reality: the present moment, as commonly understood, is unattainable. Through physical analogies—such as the instantaneous, zero-duration contact point of a rolling wheel, and neurological realities of perceptual delay, we demonstrate that conscious awareness perpetually reconstructs events that have just occurred. At the heart of this framework lies Event Density, the true foundational dimension of reality. Time is not a primary flow but an emergent sequential tool employed by consciousness to organize the otherwise chaotic stream of events into coherent, interpretable sequences, one event at a time. This ordering acts as the translator that renders raw interactions meaningful, transforming a potential conglomerate of simultaneous changes into the structured unfolding we perceive as reality. By replacing temporal variables with frequency (1/t) in classical and quantum formulas, the theory reveals how varying densities of energy interactions across space underpin motion, change, and causality. It offers fresh explanations for key quantum phenomena, including the observer effect in the double-slit experiment, superposition, and Schrödinger’s cat, where measurement influences local event densities and collapses probabilistic sequences. This perspective reframes our experience of the "now" as a useful illusion: the present is real as a vanishing boundary but has no measurable duration. It complements established physics while inviting a deeper understanding of consciousness, perception, and the event-based structure of the universe. The work unifies philosophical inquiry with physical rigor, proposing that what we call time is simply the sequential organization of events by consciousness, governed by their density.