We typically imagine that two things don’t influence each other because space separates them: Flares from alien stars are far away, and that’s why they don’t knock out power on Earth. But it from qubit suggests we have it backward. Perhaps space seems to separate two things precisely because they don’t influence each other. Consider a video game sun passing behind a video game tree. The sun pixels touch the tree pixels directly, yet the tree does not burst into flames. This is because the sun pixels are independent of the tree pixels. Their independence is what makes the sun “far” from the tree.
Physics
The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli
Our “present” does not extend throughout the universe. It is like a bubble around us.
How far does this bubble extend? It depends on the precision with which we determine time. If by nanoseconds, the present is defined only over a few meters; if by milliseconds, it is defined over thousands of kilometers. As humans, we distinguish tenths of a second only with great difficulty; we can easily consider our entire planet to be like a single bubble where we can speak of the present as if it were an instant shared by us all.