Spacetime Localization Without a Global Frame: Quantum Reference Frames, Relational Observables, and Domain-Restricted Covariance for Localizing Records

Abstract

This paper is the thirty-first in a sequence developing an interpretive framework that redescribes physical reality as a causally consistent history of information updates. It is the capstone of the eighth grouping, a foundational-physics trilogy. Its subject is spacetime localization: where and when a record or system is — its position, orientation, relative phase, and time. The claim is that localization is real but not authoritatively global. There is no Global Frame: no physically privileged reference system that fixes absolute location and orientation, a privileged global simultaneity, a classical frame standing outside quantum theory, and one physically privileged, globally valid perspectival gauge-fixing. Localization is relational: positions and times are defined relative to a declared quantum reference frame (QRF), itself a quantum system that may be superposed and entangled with what it localizes (Giacomini, Castro-Ruiz, & Brukner, 2019; Loveridge, Miyadera, & Busch, 2018). Objectivity is kept by a strict typing of cross-frame comparison: a single gauge-invariant relational (Dirac) observable has one invariant prediction, its perspectival representations intertwined by a frame-change map (case A); distinct relational observables form a relationally consistent web (case B); and where two frames share no common refinement their claims are declared incomparable (case C). The flagship R-A is a dynamics-independent kinematic existence witness: a finite Z_N three-particle model exhibits one physical state and two admissible ideal QRFs under which localization and entanglement differ — a sharp product relative to one particle; an entangled state with a delocalized, mixed marginal relative to another — while the same relational observable's distribution is preserved. R-B splits into a domain covariance on shared refinements and a model-dependent global-perspective obstruction (Gribov-type; Vanrietvelde, Höhn, & Giacomini, 2023), the latter distinct from the absence of a privileged frame and not precluding a perspective-neutral description. R-C places Paper 8's relational time as the time-translation special case, requiring an instantiated record–clock relation rather than mere Page–Wootters conditioning, and separating the retired no-global-clock claim from the deferred relativistic-foliation one. R-D partially discharges Paper 30's grain-coherence gluing — the frame-representable localization sector only — leaving interaction, fragmentation, redundancy, and history-family structure grain-relative. This completes the trilogy's dismantling of the Global Bookkeeper while keeping geometry fixed; the quantum-mechanics–gravity interface is prepared, not entered. Localization is frame-relative but objective: no absolute frame, no globally gauge-fixed perspective claimed beyond what models establish, and no anarchy.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

  • Only published works are available at libraries.

Analytics

Added to PP
2026-06-30

Downloads
19 (#1,856,375)

6 months
19 (#567,129)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations