Volume 12, Issue 1, pages 481-496
A recent clock-based proposal in the foundations of quantum theory takes seriously the idea that physical time is grounded in concrete ticking systems and their records, rather than in an already-complete spacetime manifold. In that framework, the “latest tick” of a clock plays a central conceptual role: it marks the upper edge of the clock’s realised history, anchors local present-like bands, and is used to articulate relational views of nonlocal correlations in Bell-type scenarios. But as it stands, this notion is treated too loosely to bear the weight placed upon it. This paper offers a modest clean-up. First, we distinguish three levels at which the latest tick operates: (i) the level of isolated physical systems (oscillators, cycle-to-event converters, recording subsystems, and start/stop mechanisms), (ii) the level of theoretical representation in special relativity and standard quantum mechanics (proper-time worldlines, survival amplitudes and waiting-time distributions), and (iii) an explicitly interpretive level where claims about becoming, presentness, and nonlocality are made. Second, we introduce a minimal stopping-time formalism in which the ticking of a clock is modelled as a proper-time point process that may terminate, so that the latest tick becomes a stopping-time–conditioned event rather than an informal label. Third, we apply this framework to Schrödinger’s cat, treating the experiment as a network of clocks and stopping processes rather than a single macroscopic two-state system, and we argue that the latest tick, thus formalised, is a natural interface object between relativistic proper time and quantum decay time. The aim is not to propose a new dynamics, but to improve the conceptual clarity around clocks so that questions about quantum Zeno behaviour, real-clock approaches to the measurement problem, and relational interpretations can be posed more sharply.
Please comment with your real name using good manners.