Abstract

The contributions assembled in this volume examine a fundamental question that is usually only implicitly presupposed in the natural sciences: under what conditions can world arise and persist at all. The point of departure is the observation that modern physical theories have achieved an extraordinary degree of formal precision, yet at the same time often presuppose what they cannot themselves explain—namely, the stabilization of world as a historically effective nexus. The volume therefore introduces a categorical distinction between theoretical correctness and world-founding capacity (World-Capability). Theories can be internally consistent, empirically confirmed, and technically successful without thereby explaining the conditions under which world can appear at all and unfold effects. This difference forms the starting point of the following analyses. On this basis, the question of the direction of time is reformulated. Time does not appear primarily as a parameter of physical processes, but as a trace of irreversible world-binding. World emerges through processes in which possibility is transferred into concrete existence and thereby irreversibly bound. The direction of time is an expression of this binding. Several contributions show how this perspective renders central physical concepts newly readable. Relativistic time differences no longer appear as mere numerical deviations, but as irreversible shifts in the conditions under which world has taken place. World-processes can therefore be conceived neither as linear nor as fully reversible; they follow a curved structure in which recurrence always occurs under altered conditions. Against this background, the limits of formal reconstruction become visible. Simulations, information models, and artificial intelligence operate within reconstructible state spaces and therefore cannot produce world-binding, but only process its traces. Even fundamental physical limits—such as the speed of light—no longer appear solely as dynamical constraints, but as structural conditions of world-connectedness itself. The volume does not present itself as a competitor to physical theories, but as an ontological clarification of their presuppositions. It does not ask how world functions within existing models, but under what conditions it can appear as world at all.