paper

The Dynamics of Quantum Gravity: the Missing Piece in the Spacetime Emergentist Account

arXiv:2606.31559 · doi:10.1016/j.shpsa.2026.102173

Abstract

Quantum gravity suggests that spacetime may not be fundamental, and it has been argued that we can understand a theory without a fundamental spacetime if we are able to claim that spacetime `emerges' from some non-spatiotemporal entities. In this sense, strategies like functionalism have been deployed to claim that this emergence is possible and plausible, both in principle and in practice for current approaches to quantum gravity. In this article I argue that this analysis is incomplete, as it tends to overlook the way the dynamics of these theories is `quantum' in a way that differs from standard quantum theory. The challenge for the emergentist (and for the quantum gravity theorist) is to give an interpretation not only to the kinematical and classical aspects of these theories, but to the dynamical and quantum ones, and to show how the spacetime roles can be fulfilled, if possible at all. Therefore, I argue that some current approaches to quantum gravity seem to fail to provide meaningful theories, that spacetime functionalism is of no help, and that the position of the spacetime emergentists is weakened, as they lack any example of a successful reduction of spacetime to some truly quantum non-spatiotemporal stuff.

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