Parallax View

On Time, Causality, and the Block Universe

Scientific answers to our deepest questions

Nexus of Life-Time
Cover design, "Nexus of Life-Time", copyright © Anthony C. Proctor.

This Parallax View® website supports the book with the above title. Its theme is the nature of reality, and especially the scope and relationships of physics, philosophy, experience, and mathematics.

Many of us harbour deep questions on subjects such as the nature of consciousness and free will, the origin of the universe, our role in the universe, the meaning of life and death, the concepts of time and causality, the relationship between mathematics and physics, and more. Conventional answers will usually be from fundamental physics (often deeply mathematical) or philosophy (often very abstract), but there is no comprehensive set of consistent answers; no real 'theory of everything'.

This fresh approach weaves a picture that is consistent with what we experience, but also with mathematical physics. It explains why philosophy and physics are no longer peers, and takes us closer to understanding our own role in the universe. This has profound repercussions for the notion of conscious life, the acquisition of knowledge, the legitimacy of metaphysics, the validity of new physical theories, and the scope of mathematics as a tool for understanding our universe.

While some ideas presented in this book are not entirely without precedent (almost nothing is, these days), it brings many ideas together in a novel but satisfyingly corroborative fashion. It begins with a basic but traditionally unpalatable premise and takes it as far as is possible to yield genuine insights into the objective reality.

If you have ever asked about the difference between past and future, why time appears to flow in one direction, the moment we call 'now', the reality of determinism and free will, the difference between causation and correlation, mind-body dualism, why mathematics works at all, the nature of consciousness, Loschmidt’s paradox, wave-function collapse, quantum-eraser scenarios, 'first cause', and supposed temporal anomalies, then this should be an interesting read for you.

A second book is already underway and should be published in 2024. This will examine the repercussions of these conclusions to a deeper and clearer extent, and will explain from first principles rather than presuming a block universe. Interestingly, it cannot really be called a sequel within the context of a block universe.

Note that the way italics and quotes will be used for technical words and phrases, and the particular style of English and citations employed, is explained in the preface of the book.


Published by Clink Street Publishing, London.

ISBN: 978-1-913136-43-7 (hardback)

ISBN: 978-1-913136-44-4 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-913136-45-1 (eBook)

The book was published 15 February 2022, and is currently showing up online at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Barnes & Noble, and Waterstones, and several other online stores. It is also showing up on Goodreads.com, as is my Author Page.

This site is located via https://parallax-view.com.

Content created: 13 January 2022. Last updated 7 September 2023.

Author, Anthony C. Proctor, currently lives in rural Ireland.

Copyright © 2022–2024.