When Time Emerges from Information

The scientific article “Causal-Symmetric Quantum Dynamics of Spacetime” by Dr. Elias Rubenstein asks an unusual question: What if time does not simply “flow” like a cosmic clock, but actually emerges from the flow of information? Instead of treating time as a fixed stage on which the universe evolves, this work interprets cosmic time as the result of an exchange of information between the boundary conditions of the universe – put simply: between the beginning and the end of the cosmos.

Building on a previously introduced informational law at the quantum level, this principle is here extended to spacetime itself. The central idea is that there exists a quantity describing how well the beginning and the end of the universe are “tuned” to each other in terms of information. If this alignment is strong, time flows quickly; if it is weak, time flows more slowly. As the universe expands, this alignment decreases – time passes, in a sense, more “gently.” In a hypothetical contracting phase, it would increase again and time would speed up. Time thus appears not as a rigid background parameter, but as a measure of how strongly the great cosmic boundary conditions are connected through information.

From this, the paper develops a consistent physical framework in which microscopic processes (quantum irreversibility, entropy production) and the large-scale evolution of the cosmos are brought together under a single informational law. The same flow of information that shapes the direction of time on the smallest scales is reflected in the behavior of spacetime itself. The work also shows that this “informational energy” can contribute to the curvature of spacetime – and therefore, alongside ordinary matter and radiation, influence the dynamics of the universe.

Crucially, this perspective is not left as mere speculation. The paper explains how the proposed informational coupling can be tested against astronomical data – for example using supernova observations, baryon acoustic oscillations, and the cosmic microwave background. At the same time, it points to laboratory experiments with precise clocks and quantum random number generators that can constrain the same informational quantity on very small scales. In this way, a bridge is created between the physics of the very small and the cosmology of the entire universe.

The relevance of this work lies in the new access it offers to the question of what time actually is. Instead of taking time as given, it suggests understanding time as the expression of an imperfect but finite causal symmetry between the beginning and the end of the universe – as a continuous flow carried by the exchange of information throughout the cosmos.

You can find the full scientific article at:

Elias Rubenstein (2025): Causal–Symmetric Quantum Dynamics of Spacetime
DOI: 10.5281/ZENODO.17432984