Jon Trevathan
Former transactional attorney, former economist with the U.S. Department of Commerce, and former Congressional staffer. Currently conducting research in philosophy, physics, and neuroscience and studying at George Mason University.
Phone: 540-222-2426
Address: 8345 Opal Road
Warrenton, VA 20186
Phone: 540-222-2426
Address: 8345 Opal Road
Warrenton, VA 20186
less
InterestsView All (13)
Uploads
Papers by Jon Trevathan
***The three parts of this paper tell a layered story. ***Part One established the technical backbone: the Keldysh contour as interpretively extended by Ridley and Adlam, and this paper first provides a mathematically rigorous framework for time-symmetric and event-symmetric quantum mechanics. By treating the contour structure as ontologically real rather than merely calculational, we obtain a picture in which quantum states are inherently multi-temporal objects, probabilities emerge from wavefunction structure, and the entire history is globally self-consistent. This framework does not require new microscopic dynamical laws beyond standard unitary evolution; it satisfies the same empirical predictions as standard quantum mechanics; and resolves conceptual tensions with relativity’s block universe by treating all moments democratically while preserving genuine quantum indeterminacy.
***Part Two extended this formal structure to cosmology. The contour space serves as a phase space of all possible histories, within which our universe's trajectory is one path among infinitely many. The Big Bang is reinterpreted as the first actualization in our temporal sequence rather than the origin of existence itself. Destiny states emerge naturally as future-fixed points, whose constraints, encoded in the backward-branch wavefunction component, participate in the global consistency requirement that determines amplitude distributions across all times. Free will is reconciled with the block universe by recognizing that the future exists as a probability distribution over superposed possibilities rather than as a fixed classical outcome. The thermodynamic arrow of time is explained not as a fundamental law but as an emergent feature arising from boundary-condition asymmetries: the “Big Bang” as a micro-constraint of low entropy and the “Good” as an asymptotic macro-constraint toward which the system perpetually reaches without ever exhausting.
***Part Three ventured into explicitly speculative territory, asking how far the same mathematical architecture might reach if we allow it to engage with questions traditionally reserved for metaphysics and theology. The Forms, in this reading, correspond to high-amplitude configurations in low-event sectors that constrain the admissible initial conditions through spectral selection mechanisms. The World Soul is the universal wavefunction itself, stratified into sectors of differing event-density and exhibiting correlations across this stratification, such that transcendent structures shape the probabilities of embodied events. The soul (as discussed in Appendix C) is modeled as a contingent standing-wave configuration occupying intermediate event-sectors, coupled to Forms through upward resonance and to physical embodiment through downward correlation, with mind as the active intermediary navigating this vertical gradient. Conscious intentionality, addressed in Appendix D, operates through fixed points in mental sectors that constrain correlated physical sectors through the global consistency requirement rather than through causal propagation in the usual sense.
***These metaphysical extensions are optional. The physics does not require them. A reader convinced by Parts One and Two but skeptical of Platonic Forms or atemporal souls loses nothing essential to the FPF's descriptive and explanatory power. The formalism accommodates these interpretations without modification, but it does not mandate them. What the framework does establish is that if one seeks to integrate contemporary physics with the Socratic vision of an intelligible cosmos structured by transcendent principles, the FPF provides the mathematical tools to rigorously do so.
“On the Socratic Cosmos” is additionally a reexamination of many interpretive orthodoxies that the Socratic dialogues engendered. The basis for these reconsiderations is a scientific model premised on the following: (i) the emergence of an information space before the “Big Bang,” (ii) time symmetry, (iii) destiny states, (iv) reverse causality, and (v) the interactive operation of attractors and protectorates. The evaluative standard of “Scientific Plausibility” required credible scientific sponsorship and rational argument for both the model’s elements and the new interpretations I have proffered. The paper’s central thesis is that Socrates’ dialogues gave voice to intuitive visions of “reality” that were essentially correct. When Socrates utilized the “elenctic method” to draw these intuitions into sensible apperceptions, he was limited to the beliefs and language of his times. As a result, Socrates’ dialectic examinations frequently generated inconclusive outcomes or were otherwise ambiguous and varied, often producing conflicting scholarly interpretations. This paper attempts to reconstruct the basis for Socrates’ “intuitive visions” by conjoining defendable interpretations of Socrates’ dialectic explorations with the underlying physics. The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead famously claimed:
“The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought that scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings. I allude to the wealth of general ideas scattered through them.”
Very few of Plato’s “general ideas” have been overlooked in the “systematic scheme of thought” “On the Socratic Cosmos” has presented.
Because “On the Socratic Cosmos” remains a work in progress, I am very interested in your comments and suggestions, especially your negative evaluations and concerns.