Can we craft a theory in which space and time aren’t assumed to exist?

In some versions of quantum gravity, time itself condenses into existence.

According to Oriti, the field of quantum gravity now needs more radical ideas to push itself forward. That's because something new is needed to bring the ideas around LQG, which has been developed at the microscopic scale, up to the scale of the Universe as a whole. Over the past decade or so, he has led research in the direction of Group Field Theory (GFT) condensate cosmology, which proposes that the Universe as we know it came about through a kind of hydrodynamic condensation process.

“One can think of this process in GFT condensate cosmology as being analogous to steam,” he says. “Steam is a phase in which the entities which constitute all of space—or atoms of space as we call them—can find themselves condensing into water, which is our analogy for space-time.”

According to this version of LQG, once this transition takes place—at the beginning of the Universe for example—then the familiar constructs of space and time are born. Awkwardly, even speaking of a 'transition' or 'beginning' implicitly assumes the notion of time, or a process happening over time. In the context of these ideas, we must learn to forget that.

Coronavirus is causing a mental health crisis. Here’s how to fight it.

Covid-19 patients and those caring for them could be especially at risk for anxiety, depression, and other conditions.

"Even under more normal circumstances, prolonged loneliness can contribute to depression and anxiety, as well as to physical health problems. One 2016 study, for example, found that being lonely was associated with an increased risk of stroke and heart disease. Today, the ordinary risks of loneliness could be magnified by the stress of living during a pandemic. For people who are social distancing right now, “there is a high risk that they’re going to become more anxious, much more depressed, and it’s going to have longer-term effects,” Rima Styra, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto, told Vox.

Overall, a lot of people around the world are experiencing a dip in mental well-being. Factors from “looming severe shortages of resources” to the “imposition of unfamiliar public health measures that infringe on personal freedoms” are likely to increase emotional distress during this time, psychiatry professors Betty Pfefferbaum and Carol S. North wrote in a paper published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine."

"The metaphors of neuroscience – computers, coding, wiring diagrams and so on – are inevitably partial. That is the nature of metaphors..."

Why your brain is not a computer

"The metaphors of neuroscience – computers, coding, wiring diagrams and so on – are inevitably partial. That is the nature of metaphors, which have been intensely studied by philosophers of science and by scientists, as they seem to be so central to the way scientists think. But metaphors are also rich and allow insight and discovery. There will come a point when the understanding they allow will be outweighed by the limits they impose, but in the case of computational and representational metaphors of the brain, there is no agreement that such a moment has arrived. From a historical point of view, the very fact that this debate is taking place suggests that we may indeed be approaching the end of the computational metaphor. What is not clear, however, is what would replace it."