Reality & Time evidence.
Physics-adjacent worldviews — block universe, many-worlds, simulation, free will. This hub collects the relevant claims, strongest and weakest evidence positions, source records, and map/library views for the cluster.
Related research reports
Strongest claims in this topic
Does time exist?
Umbrella entry for the time question. Time, in some real sense, undeniably organises both experience and physics. Whether it is fundamental, emergent, or illusory is what's actually contested.
Block Universe / Eternalism
The 4D 'block' picture follows naturally from special relativity, where there is no objective universal 'now'. Many physicists and philosophers accept it.
Compatibilism
Free will, properly understood, is compatible with determinism. The dominant view among philosophers in PhilPapers surveys.
Determinism
Classical physics is deterministic; quantum mechanics complicates the picture; many-worlds and Bohmian readings restore determinism.
Emergent time
If quantum gravity is right, time may be derived rather than fundamental. Active research; nothing settled.
Many-Worlds Interpretation
Everett's solution to the measurement problem. No collapse — every outcome happens in branching universes.
Weakest or most speculative claims
Boltzmann brains
In a long-lived, accelerating universe, random thermal fluctuations could spontaneously assemble a self-aware brain with false memories of a coherent life. Several modern cosmological models appear to predict such observers should statistically dominate — which is widely treated as a reason those models are wrong, not as evidence about you.
Demons — superhuman malevolent intermediary beings
Cross-tradition belief with no direct evidence. Possession, oppression and 'demonic attack' phenomena map cleanly onto sleep paralysis, dissociation, psychosis, and post-traumatic states.
Hell — a postmortem realm of the damned
Massively documented in tradition, zero direct evidence, and substantial harm record from belief — eternal-torment doctrines have warped lives for centuries.
The Devil / Satan — a personal force of evil
The claim that a literal, personal adversary — Satan, Iblis, Mara, Ahriman — is an active intelligent force behind evil and temptation, considered here at the generic level rather than within any specific tradition.
Key verified sources
The clearest statement of how the Boltzmann-brain count is tamed by a finite vacuum lifetime; companion paper to 'Return of the Boltzmann brains'.
Sets up one of the main physical pathways for resolving the paradox — vacuum decay into terminal states before BBs can dominate.
One of the canonical modern statements of the Boltzmann-brain comparison and its implications for inflation.
The paper that reignited modern interest in the Boltzmann-brain problem by linking it directly to the accelerating expansion of our universe.
Is our universe likely to decay within 20 billion years?
The clearest statement of how the Boltzmann-brain count is tamed by a finite vacuum lifetime; companion paper to 'Return of the Boltzmann brains'.
Sinks in the Landscape, Boltzmann Brains, and the Cosmological Constant Problem
Sets up one of the main physical pathways for resolving the paradox — vacuum decay into terminal states before BBs can dominate.
Can the universe afford inflation?
One of the canonical modern statements of the Boltzmann-brain comparison and its implications for inflation.
Disturbing Implications of a Cosmological Constant
The paper that reignited modern interest in the Boltzmann-brain problem by linking it directly to the accelerating expansion of our universe.
Time of conscious intention to act in relation to onset of cerebral activity (readiness-potential): The unconscious initiation of a freely voluntary act
The single study most often cited as evidence against libertarian free will. Almost every later debate is downstream of it.
Why Boltzmann Brains Are Bad
The standard reference for the cognitive-instability resolution and the philosophical case against taking Boltzmann-brain dominance as a real prediction.
Why Boltzmann Brains Don't Fluctuate Into Existence From the De Sitter Vacuum
Major physical objection to Boltzmann-brain dominance: the static de Sitter vacuum is sterile, so the mathematical fluctuation probability does not translate into real observers.
An accumulator model for spontaneous neural activity prior to self-initiated movement
Major reinterpretation of Libet — important counterweight to popular 'neuroscience disproves free will' framing.
The Unreality of Time
Gives the time-exists page a canonical anti-realist anchor rather than treating the question as only a physics issue.
Compatibilism
The default canonical reference for what compatibilism actually claims, against which most popular versions are pitched.