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The Direction of Time
Edited by Sam Baron (University of Melbourne)
Assistant editor: Brigitte C. G. Everett (University of Sydney)
About this topic
| Summary | That things appear to be different across times when looking from earlier to later as opposed to from later to earlier is what it is for time to be anisotropic. But this alone doesn’t mean that time has a direction. Time has a direction if and only if there is an objective fact as to whether or not time goes from earlier to later or later to earlier. From this starting assumption, there are two core debates in the literature. The first is whether or not time has a direction. A-theorists and B-theorists hold that time has an objective direction, whereas C-theorists deny this. For those who think time does have a direction, then, there is the further disagreement about whether direction is an intrinsic or extrinsic feature of time. For the A-theorist, the directionality is intrinsic to time and is grounded in temporal passage, or objective becoming – i.e., time is directed from the past to the future because time passes as which moment is present changes. Some B-theorists likewise hold that direction is an intrinsic feature of time but that it is grounded in some B-theoretic feature, rather than temporal passage. On the other hand, other B-theorists make the stronger claim that the direction of time is reducible to B-theoretic features and is therefore extrinsic to time. The second core debate, then, is amongst those who hold that the direction of time is merely extrinsic. Put simply, the problem is how the temporal asymmetries that exist in the world can be accounted for, given that the laws of nature are time reversal invariant – i.e., hold even if the order of times were reversed. So called reductionist B-theorists have appealed to a few features of the universe in order to explain the directedness of time. They include the expansion of the universe, increase in entropy over time, causal order, and the fact that we deliberate about future events but not past events. |
| Key works | Early foundational texts include Reichenbach 1956, and Earman 1974. Craig 1999 argues for the direction of time on the A-theory, Price 1997 includes a range of interesting topics related to the physics of the direction of time and causation, and Zeh 1989 offers some options for grounding the direction of time. See also Albert 2000, Fernandes 2021, and Chen & Goldstein 2022. |
| Introductions | Good introductions include Savitt 1996, Callender 1997, Ridderbos & Savitt 1997, and Mellor 2009. |
Show all references
Related
Siblings
- Persistence (1,207 | 170)
- Physics of Time (630)
- Temporal Experience (787 | 278)
- Temporal Logic (507)
- Temporal Expressions (476)
- Time Travel (457)
- Aspects of Time, Misc (234)
Contents
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| 1 — 50 / 284 |
- Brussels-Austin nonequilibrium statistical mechanics in the early years: Similarity transformations between deterministic and probabilistic descriptions.Robert Bishop - manuscriptThe fundamental problem on which Ilya Prigogine and the Brussels-Austin Group have focused can be stated briefly as follows. Our observations indicate that there is an arrow of time in our experience of the world (e.g., decay of unstable radioactive atoms like Uranium, or the mixing of cream in coffee). Most of the fundamental equations of physics are time reversible, however, presenting an apparent conflict between our theoretical descriptions and experimental observations. Many have thought that the observed arrow of time (...)
- Principles of physical time directionality and fallacies of the conventional philosophy.Andrew Holster - manuscriptThese are the first two chapters from a monograph (The Time Flow Manifesto, Holster, 2013-14; unpublished), defending the concepts of time directionality and time flow in physics and naturalistic metaphysics, against long-standing attacks from the ‘conventional philosophy of physical time’. This monograph sets out to disprove twelve specific “fallacies of the conventional philosophy”, stated in the first section below. These are the foundational principles of the conventional philosophy, which developed in the mid-C20th from positivist-inspired studies. The first chapter begins by (...)
- The Time Flow Manifesto CHAPTER 3 REVERSIBILTY IN PHYSICS.Andrew Holster - manuscriptThe conventional claims and concepts of 5* - 8* are a hang-over from the classical theory of thermodynamics – i.e. thermodynamics based on a fully deterministic micro-theory, developed in the time of Boltzmann, Loschmidt and Gibbs in the late C19th. The classical theory has well-known ‘reversibility paradoxes’ when applied to the universe as a whole. But the introduction of intrinsic probabilities in quantum mechanics, and its consequent time asymmetry, fundamentally changes the picture.
- Two-Dimensional Time.Michael Kowalik - manuscriptPhilosophical views about the logical structure of time are typically divided between proponents of A and B theories, based on McTaggart's A and B series. Drawing on Paul Ricoeur's hermeneutic phenomenology, I develop and defend McTaggart's thesis that the C series and the A series working together give a consistent description of temporal experience, provided that the two series are treated as distinct dimensions internal to time. In the proposed two-dimensional model, the C series expresses a nesting order of the (...)
- The Empirical Content of the Epistemic Asymmetry.Douglas Kutach - manuscriptI conduct an empirical analysis of the temporally asymmetric character of our epistemic access to the world by providing an experimental scheme whose results represent the core empirical content of the epistemic asymmetry. I augment this empirical content by formulating a gedanken experiment inspired by a proposal from David Albert. This second experiment cannot be conducted using any technology that is likely to be developed in the foreseeable future, but the expected results help us to state an important constraint on (...)
- Programming relativity and gravity via a discrete pixel space in Planck level Simulation Hypothesis models.Malcolm J. Macleod - manuscriptOutlined here is a simulation hypothesis approach that uses an expanding (the simulation clock-rate measured in units of Planck time) 4-axis hyper-sphere and mathematical particles that oscillate between an electric wave-state and a mass (unit of Planck mass per unit of Planck time) point-state. Particles are assigned a spin axis which determines the direction in which they are pulled by this (hyper-sphere pilot wave) expansion, thus all particles travel at, and only at, the velocity of expansion (the origin of $c$), (...)
- A Dynamical Perspective on the Arrow of Time.Kian Salimkhani - manuscriptIt is standardly believed that the generally time-reversal symmetric fundamental laws of physics themselves cannot explain the apparent asymmetry of time. In particular, it is believed that CP violation is of no help. In this paper, I want to push back against a quick dismissal of CP violation as a potential source for the arrow of time and argue that it should be taken more seriously for conceptualising time in physics. I first recall that CP violation is a key feature (...)
- How necessary is the past? Reply to Campbell.Matthew H. Slater - manuscriptJoe Campbell has identified an apparent flaw in van Inwagen’s Consequence Argument. It apparently derives a metaphysically necessary conclusion from what Campbell argues is a contingent premise: that the past is in some sense necessary. I criticise Campbell’s examples attempting to show that this is not the case (in the requisite sense) and suggest some directions along which an incompatibilist could reconstruct her argument so as to remain immune to Campbell’s worries.Remove from this listExport citation
Bookmark - (1 other version)Counterfactuals, Irreversible Laws and The Direction of Time.Terrance A. Tomkow - manuscriptThe principle of Information Conservation or Determinism is a governing assumption of physical theory. Determinism has counterfactual consequences. It entails that if the present were different, then the future would be different. But determinism is temporally symmetric: it entails that if the present were different, the past would also have to be different. This runs contrary to our commonsense intuition that what has happened in the future depends on the past in a way the past does not depend on the (...)
- Does the Best System Need the Past Hypothesis?Chris Dorst - forthcoming - Philosophy of Science.Many philosophers sympathetic with a Humean understanding of laws of nature have thought that, in the final analysis, the fundamental laws will include not only the traditional dynamical equations, but also two additional principles: the Past Hypothesis and the Statistical Postulate. The former says that the universe began in a particular very-low-entropy macrostate M(0), and the latter posits a uniform probability distribution over the microstates compatible with M(0). Such a view is arguably vindicated by the orthodox Humean Best System Account (...)
- Who Shouldn't Reduce Time's Arrow?Jake Khawaja - forthcoming - Erkenntnis:1-14.Reductive accounts of the direction of time are often paired with Humean accounts of laws, while non-reductive accounts of time are often paired with anti-Humean accounts of laws. The traditional pairing of views has recently come under question. This paper aims to clarify what sorts of anti-Humean views motivate anti-reductionism about the direction of time. It is argued that those who think (i) that the laws are metaphysically fundamental, and (ii) that the laws contain time-asymmetric contents, should treat the arrow (...)
- Negative-Energy Matter and the Direction of Time.J. C. Lindner - forthcomingThis report offers a modern perspective on the problem of negative energy, based on a reexamination of the concept of time direction as it arises in a classical and quantum-mechanical context. From this analysis emerges an improved understanding of the general-relativistic stress-energy of matter as being a manifestation of local variations in the energy density of zero-point vacuum fluctuations. Based on those developments, a set of axioms is proposed from which are derived generalized gravitational field equations which actually constitute a (...)
- The Practical Arrow.Huw Price - forthcoming - Australasian Philosophical Review.Ismael traces our sense that the past is fixed and the future open to what she calls ‘the practical arrow’ – ‘the sense that we can affect the future but not the past.’ In this piece I draw a sharper distinction than Ismael herself does between agents and mere observers, even self-referential observers; and I use it to argue that Ismael’s explanation of the practical arrow is incomplete. To explain our inability to affect the past we need to appeal to (...)
- Lessons from the Void: What Boltzmann Brains Teach.Bradford Saad - forthcoming - Analytic Philosophy.Some physical theories predict that almost all brains in the universe are Boltzmann brains, i.e. short-lived disembodied brains that are accidentally assembled as a result of thermodynamic or quantum fluctuations. Physicists and philosophers of physics widely regard this proliferation as unacceptable, and so take its prediction as a basis for rejecting these theories. But the putatively unacceptable consequences of this prediction follow only given certain philosophical assumptions. This paper develops a strategy for shielding physical theorizing from the threat of Boltzmann (...)
- About time, concisely. [REVIEW]Matias Slavov - forthcoming - Metascience:1-4.Adrian Bardon has produced a new version of his historical introduction to the philosophy of time. Originally published in 2013, the second edition of 2024 is partly rewritten and supplemented with a more extensive discussion on our disposition to project the passage of time [...] Although the book’s title emphasizes history, most of the chapters are directed at issues in systematic philosophy of time: the realism/antirealism debate, temporal passage, temporal experience, spacetime, direction, time travel, time and free will, and the (...)
- Philosophy of Time: The Basics.Graeme Forbes - 2024 - New York, NY: Routledge.What is time? Does it pass? Is the future open? Why do we care? Philosophy of Time: The Basics doesn’t answer these questions. It does give you an opinionated introduction to thinking a bit more deeply about them. Written in a way that assumes no philosophical background from its readers, this book looks at central topics in philosophy of time and shows how they relate to other time-related topics – from theoretical physics (without the maths!) to your own mortality. Additional (...)
- How to think about time.Graeme A. Forbes - 2024 - Psyche Guides.This philosopher’s introduction to the nature of time could radically alter how you see your past and imagine your future.
- Are Kinetic and Temporal Continuities Real for Aristotle?Mark Sentesy - 2024 - History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis 26 (2):275-302.Aristotle argues that time depends on soul to count it, but adds that motion, which makes time what it is, may be independent of soul. The claim that time depends on soul or mind implies that there is at least one measurable property of natural beings that exists because of the mind’s activity. This paper argues that for Aristotle time depends partly on soul, but more importantly on motion, which defines a continuum. This argument offers a robust metaphysics of time. (...)
- Pure shape dynamics, self-subsisting structures, and the nature of time.Antonio Vassallo & Pedro Naranjo - 2024 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie.The paper discusses the possible implications of the relational framework of Pure Shape Dynamics for the metaphysics of time. The starting point of the analysis is an interpretation of shapes in ontic structural realist terms, which gives rise to the notion of self-subsisting structure. The relational version of a Newtonian-particle toy model is introduced and discussed as a concrete example.
- Memory Systems, the Epistemic Arrow of Time, and the Second Law.David H. Wolpert & Jens Kipper - 2024 - Entropy 26 (2).The epistemic arrow of time is the fact that our knowledge of the past seems to be both of a different kind and more detailed than our knowledge of the future. Just like with the other arrows of time, it has often been speculated that the epistemic arrow arises due to the second law of thermodynamics. In this paper, we investigate the epistemic arrow of time using a fully formal framework. We begin by defining a memory system as any physical (...)
- The Past Hypothesis and the Nature of Physical Laws.Eddy Keming Chen - 2023 - In Barry Loewer, Brad Weslake & Eric Winsberg (eds.), The Probability Map of the Universe: Essays on David Albert’s _Time and Chance_. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. pp. 204-248.If the Past Hypothesis underlies the arrows of time, what is the status of the Past Hypothesis? In this paper, I examine the role of the Past Hypothesis in the Boltzmannian account and defend the view that the Past Hypothesis is a candidate fundamental law of nature. Such a view is known to be compatible with Humeanism about laws, but as I argue it is also supported by a minimal non-Humean "governing'' view. Some worries arise from the non-dynamical and time-dependent (...)
- Perceiving Direction in Directionless Time.Matt Farr - 2023 - In Kasia M. Jaszczolt (ed.), Understanding Human Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 199-219.Modern physics has provided a range of motivations for holding time to be fundamentally undirected. But how does a temporally adirectional metaphysics, or ‘C-theory’ of time, fit with the time of experience? In this chapter, I look at what kind of problem human time poses for C-theories. First, I ask whether there is a ‘hard problem’ of human time: whether it is in principle impossible to have the kinds of experience we do in a temporally adirectional world. Second I consider (...)$122.49 used (collection) View on Amazon.comRemove from this list Direct download (3 more)Export citation Bookmark 3 citations
- Time, Flies, and Why We Can't Control the Past.Alison Fernandes - 2023 - In Barry Loewer, Brad Weslake & Eric Winsberg (eds.), The Probability Map of the Universe: Essays on David Albert’s _Time and Chance_. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.David Albert explains why we can typically influence the future but not the past by appealing to an initial low-entropy state of the universe. And he argues that in the rare cases where we can influence the past, we cannot use this influence to knowingly gain future rewards: so it does not constitute control. I introduce an important new case in which Albert's account implies we can not only influence the past but control it: a case where our actions in (...)
- What's Wrong with Prepunishment?Alex Kaiserman - 2023 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 104 (3):622-645.Punishing someone for a crime before they have committed it is widely considered morally abhorrent. But there is little agreement on what exactly is supposed to be wrong with it. In this paper, I critically evaluate several objections to the permissibility of prepunishment, making points along the way about the connections between time, knowledge, desert, deterrence and duty. I conclude that, although the conditions under which it could permissibly be administered are unlikely ever to arise in practice, nevertheless in principle, (...)
- The Probability Map of the Universe: Essays on David Albert’s Time and Chance.Barry Loewer, Brad Weslake & Eric Winsberg (eds.) - 2023 - Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.A collection of newly commissioned papers on themes from David Albert's Time and Chance (HUP, 2000), with replies by Albert. Introduction [Barry Loewer, Brad Weslake, and Eric Winsberg] I. Overview of Time and Chance 1. The Mentaculus: A Probability Map of the Universe [Barry Loewer] II. Philosophical Foundations 2. The Metaphysical Foundations of Statistical Mechanics: On the Status of PROB and PH [Eric Winsberg] 3. The Logic of the Past Hypothesis [David Wallace] 4. In What Sense Is the Early Universe (...)
- Hume on the Temporal Priority of Cause Over Effect.David Palmer - 2023 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 53 (1):81-94.In A Treatise of Human Nature, David Hume claims that causes must temporally precede their effects. However, his main argument for this claim has long puzzled commentators. Indeed, most commentators have dismissed this argument as confused, but beyond this dismissal, the argument has provoked relatively little critical attention. My aim in this paper is to rectify this situation. In what follows, I (i) clarify the argument’s interpretive challenges, (ii) critique two existing interpretations of it, and (iii) offer my own improved (...)
- From Time Asymmetry to Quantum Entanglement: The Humean Unification.Eddy Keming Chen - 2022 - Noûs 56 (1):227-255.Two of the most difficult problems in the foundations of physics are (1) what gives rise to the arrow of time and (2) what the ontology of quantum mechanics is. I propose a unified 'Humean' solution to the two problems. Humeanism allows us to incorporate the Past Hypothesis and the Statistical Postulate into the best system, which we then use to simplify the quantum state of the universe. This enables us to confer the nomological status to the quantum state in (...)
- Governing Without A Fundamental Direction of Time: Minimal Primitivism about Laws of Nature.Eddy Keming Chen & Sheldon Goldstein - 2022 - In Yemima Ben-Menahem (ed.), Rethinking Laws of Nature. Springer. pp. 21-64.The Great Divide in metaphysical debates about laws of nature is between Humeans, who think that laws merely describe the distribution of matter, and non-Humeans, who think that laws govern it. The metaphysics can place demands on the proper formulations of physical theories. It is sometimes assumed that the governing view requires a fundamental / intrinsic direction of time: to govern, laws must be dynamical, producing later states of the world from earlier ones, in accord with the fundamental direction of (...)
- State-to-State Cosmology: A New View on the Cosmological Arrow of Time and the Past Hypothesis.J. M. Deutsch & Anthony Aguirre - 2022 - Foundations of Physics 52 (4):1-21.Cosmological boundary conditions for particles and fields are often discussed as a Cauchy problem, in which configurations and conjugate momenta are specified on an “initial” time slice. But this is not the only way to specify boundary conditions, and indeed in action-principle formulations we often specify configurations at two times and consider trajectories joining them. Here, we consider a classical system of particles interacting with short range two body interactions, with boundary conditions on the particles’ positions for an initial and (...)
- Conventionalism about time direction.Matt Farr - 2022 - Synthese 200 (1):1-21.In what sense is the direction of time a matter of convention? In 'The Direction of Time', Hans Reichenbach makes brief reference to parallels between his views about the status of time’s direction and his conventionalism about geometry. In this article, I: (1) provide a conventionalist account of time direction motivated by a number of Reichenbach’s claims in the book; (2) show how forwards and backwards time can give equivalent descriptions of the world despite the former being the ‘natural’ direction (...)
- What’s so special about initial conditions? Understanding the past hypothesis in directionless time.Matt Farr - 2022 - In Yemima Ben-Menahem (ed.), Rethinking Laws of Nature. Springer.It is often said that the world is explained by laws of nature together with initial conditions. But does that mean initial conditions don’t require further explanation? And does the explanatory role played by initial conditions entail or require that time has a preferred direction? This chapter looks at the use of the ‘initialness defence’ in physics, the idea that initial conditions are intrinsically special in that they don’t require further explanation, unlike the state of the world at other times. (...)
- How to explain the direction of time.Alison Fernandes - 2022 - Synthese 200 (5):1-30.Reichenbach explains temporally asymmetric phenomena by appeal to entropy and ‘branch structure’. He explains why the entropic gradients of isolated subsystems are oriented towards the future and not the past, and why we have records of the past and not the future, by appeal to the fact that the universe is currently on a long entropic upgrade with subsystems that branch off and become quasi-isolated. Reichenbach’s approach has been criticised for relying too closely on entropy. The more popular approach nowadays (...)
- The Asymmetric Nature of Time.Vincent Grandjean - 2022 - Springer Nature.This open access monograph offers a detailed study and a systematic defense of a key intuition we typically have, as human beings, with respect to the nature of time: the intuition that the future is open, whereas the past is fixed. For example, whereas it seems unsettled whether there will be a fourth world war, it is settled that there was a first world war. -/- The book contributes, in particular, three major and original insights. First, it provides a coherent, (...)
- Spontaneous Collapse Theories and Temporal Primitivism about Time’s Direction.Cristian López - 2022 - Foundations of Physics 52 (5):1-22.Two views on the direction of time can be distinguished—primitivism and non-primitivism. According to the former, time’s direction is an in-built, fundamental property of the physical world. According to the latter, time’s direction is a derivative property of a fundamentally directionless reality. In the literature, non-primitivism has been widely supported since most our fundamental dynamical laws are time-reversal invariant. In this paper, I offer a way out to the primitivist. I argue that we do have good grounds to support a (...)
- Is Time the Real Line?Bruno F. Rizzuti, Luca M. Gaio & Lucas T. Cardoso - 2022 - Foundations of Physics 52 (5):1-26.This paper is devoted to discussing the topological structure of the arrow of time. In the literature, it is often accepted that its algebraic and topological structures are that of a one-dimensional Euclidean space \, although a critical review on the subject is not easy to be found. Hence, leveraging on an operational approach, we collect evidences to identify it structurally as a normed vector space \\), and take a leap of abstraction to complete it, up to isometries, to the (...)
- What’s So Spatial about Time Anyway?Sam Baron & Peter W. Evans - 2021 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 72 (1):159-183.Skow ([2007]), and much more recently Callender ([2017]), argue that time can be distinguished from space due to the special role it plays in our laws of nature: our laws determine the behaviour of physical systems across time, but not across space. In this work we assess the claim that the laws of nature might provide the basis for distinguishing time from space. We find that there is an obvious reason to be sceptical of the argument Skow submits for distinguishing (...)
- The Cosmic Void.Eddy Keming Chen - 2021 - In Sara Bernstein & Tyron Goldschmidt (eds.), Non-Being: New Essays on the Metaphysics of Nonexistence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.What exists at the fundamental level of reality? On the standard picture, the fundamental reality contains (among other things) fundamental matter, such as particles, fields, or even the quantum state. Non-fundamental facts are explained by facts about fundamental matter, at least in part. In this paper, I introduce a non-standard picture called the "cosmic void” in which the universe is devoid of any fundamental material ontology. Facts about tables and chairs are recovered from a special kind of laws that satisfy (...)
- Time's arrow and self‐locating probability.Eddy Keming Chen - 2021 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 105 (3):533-563.One of the most difficult problems in the foundations of physics is what gives rise to the arrow of time. Since the fundamental dynamical laws of physics are (essentially) symmetric in time, the explanation for time's arrow must come from elsewhere. A promising explanation introduces a special cosmological initial condition, now called the Past Hypothesis: the universe started in a low-entropy state. Unfortunately, in a universe where there are many copies of us (in the distant ''past'' or the distant ''future''), (...)
- Time travel and counterfactual asymmetry.Alison Fernandes - 2021 - Synthese 198 (3):1983-2001.We standardly evaluate counterfactuals and abilities in temporally asymmetric terms—by keeping the past fixed and holding the future open. Only future events depend counterfactually on what happens now. Past events do not. Conversely, past events are relevant to what abilities one has now in a way that future events are not. Lewis, Sider and others continue to evaluate counterfactuals and abilities in temporally asymmetric terms, even in cases of backwards time travel. I’ll argue that we need more temporally neutral methods. (...)
- Symmetric and asymmetric theories of time.Vincent Grandjean - 2021 - Synthese 199 (5-6):14403-14426.There is a feeling of dissatisfaction with the traditional way of defining the A-theories of time. One reason is that these definitions rest on an ontological question—‘Do the future and the past exist?’—to which no non-speculative answer can be provided. Another reason is that these definitions fail to distinguish between various A-theories of time at all times and, therefore, cannot be regarded as essential to them. In the present paper, I make a fresh start in the debate, by introducing two (...)
- Time: a very short introduction.Jenann Ismael - 2021 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.What is time? What does it mean for time to pass? Is it possible to travel in time? What is the difference between the past and future? Until the work of Newton, these questions were purely topics of philosophical speculation. Since then we've learned a great deal about time, and its study has moved from a subject of philosophical reflection to instead became part of the subject matter of physics. This Very Short Introduction introduces readers to the current physical understanding (...)
- Modelling Temporal Assertions for Global Directional Eliminativists.Naoyuki Kajimoto, Kristie Miller & James Norton - 2021 - Philosophers' Imprint 21 (2):1-16.Global directional eliminativists deny that there is any global direction to time. This paper provides a way to understand everyday temporal assertions—assertions made outside the physics or metaphysics rooms, the truth of which appears to require that time has a global direction—on the assumption that global directional eliminativism is true.
- How Anti-Humeans Can Embrace a Thermodynamic Reduction of Time’s Causal Arrow.Eli I. Lichtenstein - 2021 - Philosophy of Science 88 (5):1161-1171.Some argue that time’s causal arrow is grounded in an underlying thermodynamic asymmetry. Often, this is tied to Humean skepticism that causes produce their effects, in any robust sense of ‘produce’. Conversely, those who advocate stronger notions of natural necessity often reject thermodynamic reductions of time’s causal arrow. Against these traditional pairings, I argue that ‘reduction-plus-production’ is coherent. Reductionists looking to invoke robust production can insist that there are metaphysical constraints on the signs of objects’ velocities in any state, given (...)
- On the Direction of Time: From Reichenbach to Prigogine and Penrose.Said Mikki - 2021 - Philosophies 6 (4):79.The question why natural processes tend to flow along a preferred direction has always been considered from within the perspective of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, especially its statistical formulation due to Maxwell and Boltzmann. In this article, we re-examine the subject from the perspective of a new historico-philosophical formulation based on the careful use of selected theoretical elements taken from three key modern thinkers: Hans Reichenbach, Ilya Prigogine, and Roger Penrose, who are seldom considered together in the literature. We (...)
- The Circle of Time.Ilexa Yardley - 2021 - Https://Medium.Com/the-Circular-Theory/.Conservation of a Circle explains ‘One’ and ‘Two.’ (Zero and one). Exposing the reality called 'circular-linear time.'.
- Time's Arrow in a Quantum Universe: On the Status of Statistical Mechanical Probabilities.Eddy Keming Chen - 2020 - In Valia Allori (ed.), Statistical Mechanics and Scientific Explanation: Determinism, Indeterminism and Laws of Nature. Singapore: World Scientific. pp. 479–515.In a quantum universe with a strong arrow of time, it is standard to postulate that the initial wave function started in a particular macrostate---the special low-entropy macrostate selected by the Past Hypothesis. Moreover, there is an additional postulate about statistical mechanical probabilities according to which the initial wave function is a ''typical'' choice in the macrostate. Together, they support a probabilistic version of the Second Law of Thermodynamics: typical initial wave functions will increase in entropy. Hence, there are two (...)(collection) View on Amazon.comRemove from this list Direct download (4 more)Export citation Bookmark 14 citations
- Welcome to the Fuzzy-Verse.Eddy Keming Chen - 2020 - New Scientist 247 (3298):36-40.We expect the laws of nature that describe the universe to be exact, but what if that isn't true? In this popular science article, I discuss the possibility that some candidate fundamental laws of nature, such as the Past Hypothesis, may be vague. This possibility is in conflict with the idea that the fundamental laws of nature can always and faithfully be described by classical mathematics. -/- [Bibliographic note: this article is featured on the magazine website under a different title (...)
- Causation and Time Reversal.Matt Farr - 2020 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 71 (1):177-204.What would it be for a process to happen backwards in time? Would such a process involve different causal relations? It is common to understand the time-reversal invariance of a physical theory in causal terms, such that whatever can happen forwards in time can also happen backwards in time. This has led many to hold that time-reversal symmetry is incompatible with the asymmetry of cause and effect. This article critiques the causal reading of time reversal. First, I argue that the (...)
- C‐theories of time: On the adirectionality of time.Matt Farr - 2020 - Philosophy Compass (12):1-17.“The universe is expanding, not contracting.” Many statements of this form appear unambiguously true; after all, the discovery of the universe’s expansion is one of the great triumphs of empirical science. However, the statement is time-directed: the universe expands towards what we call the future; it contracts towards the past. If we deny that time has a direction, should we also deny that the universe is really expanding? This article draws together and discusses what I call ‘C-theories’ of time — (...)
- An Empirical Investigation of the Role of Direction in our Concept of Time.Andrew J. Latham, Kristie Miller & James Norton - 2020 - Acta Analytica 36 (1):25-47.This paper empirically investigates one aspect of the folk concept of time by testing how the presence or absence of directedness impacts judgements about whether there is time in a world. Experiment 1 found that dynamists, showed significantly higher levels of agreement that there is time in dynamically directed worlds than in non-dynamical non-directed worlds. Comparing our results to those we describe in Latham et al., we report that while ~ 70% of dynamists say there is time in B-theory worlds, (...)
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