Chicks reared in the absence of light and rat pups reared without extra stimulation fail to exhibit behavioral laterality, implying that a threshold amount of environmental stimulation is necessary for the brain to follow an asymmetry pathway. Reverse asymmetry has been reported in the chick, but not the rat, though a sex difference resembling reverse asymmetry has been found in the rat.

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 causal reading requires time-reversal-related models to be understood as representing distinct possible worlds and, on such a reading, causal relations are compatible with time-reversal symmetry. Second, I argue that the former approach does, however, raise serious sceptical problems regarding the causal relations of paradigm causal processes and as a consequence there are overwhelming reasons to prefer a non-causal reading of time reversal, whereby time reversal leaves causal relations invariant. On the non-causal reading, time-reversal symmetry poses no significant conceptual nor epistemological problems for causation. _1_ Introduction _1.1_ The directionality argument _1.2_ Time reversal _2_ What Does Time Reversal Reverse? _2.1_ The B- and C-theory of time _2.2_ Time reversal on the C-theory _2.3_ Answers _3_ Does Time Reversal Reverse Causal Relations? _3.1_ Causation, billiards, and snooker _3.2_ The epistemology of causal direction _3.3_ Answers _4_ Is Time-Reversal Symmetry Compatible with Causation? _4.1_ Incompatibilism _4.2_ Compatibilism _4.3_ Answers _5_ Outlook. (shrink)

'The arrow of time' refers to the curious asymmetry that distinguishes the future from the past. Reversing the Arrow of Time argues that there is an intimate link between the symmetries of 'time itself' and time reversal symmetry in physical theories, which has wide-ranging implications for both physics and its philosophy. This link helps to clarify how we can learn about the symmetries of our world, how to understand the relationship between symmetries and what is real, and how to (...) overcome pervasive illusions about the direction of time. Roberts explains the significance of time reversal in a way that intertwines physics and philosophy, to establish what the arrow of time means and how we can come to know it. This book is both mathematically and philosophically rigorous yet remains accessible to advanced undergraduates in physics and the philosophy of physics. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core. (shrink)

While the fundamental laws of physics are time-reversal invariant, most macroscopic processes are irreversible. Given that the fundamental laws are taken to underpin all other processes, how can the fundamental time-symmetry be reconciled with the asymmetry manifest elsewhere? In statistical mechanics, progress can be made with this question. What I dub the ‘Zwanzig–Zeh–Wallace framework’ can be used to construct the irreversible equations of SM from the underlying microdynamics. Yet this framework uses coarse-graining, a procedure that has faced much criticism. (...) I focus on two objections in the literature: claims that coarse-graining makes time-asymmetry ‘illusory’ and ‘anthropocentric’. I argue that these objections arise from an unsatisfactory justification of coarse-graining prevalent in the literature, rather than from coarse-graining itself. This justification relies on the idea of measurement imprecision. By considering the role that abstraction and autonomy play, I provide an alternative justification and offer replies to the illusory and anthropocentric objections. Finally, I consider the broader consequences of this alternative justification: the connection to debates about inter-theoretic reduction and the implication that the time-asymmetry in SM is weakly emergent. 1Introduction 1.1Prospectus2The Zwanzig–Zeh–Wallace Framework3Why Does This Method Work? 3.1The special conditions account3.2When is a density forwards-compatible?4Anthropocentrism and Illusion: Two Objections 4.1The two objections in more detail4.2Against the justification by measurement imprecision5An Alternative Justification 5.1Abstraction and autonomy5.2An illustration: the Game of Life6Reply to Illusory7Reply to Anthropocentric8The Wider Landscape: Concluding Remarks 8.1Inter-theoretic relations8.2The nature of irreversibility. (shrink)

Dynamical collapse models embody the idea of a physical collapse of the wave function in a mathematically well-defined way. They involve modifications to the standard rules of quantum theory in order to describe collapse as a physical process. This appears to introduce a time reversal asymmetry into the dynamics since the state at any given time depends on collapses in the past but not in the future. Here we challenge this conclusion by demonstrating that, subject to specified model constraints, (...) collapse models can be given a structurally time symmetric formulation in which the collapse events are the primitive objects of the theory. Three different examples of time asymmetries associated with collapse models are then examined and in each case it is shown that the same dynamical rule determining the collapse events works in both the forward and backward in time directions. Any physically observed time asymmetries that arise in such models are due to the asymmetric imposition of initial or final time boundary conditions, rather than from an inherent asymmetry in the dynamical law. This is the standard explanation of time asymmetric behaviour resulting from time symmetric laws. (shrink)

In the last decade, experimental philosophers have documented systematic asymmetries in the attributions of mental attitudes to agents who produce different types of side effects. We argue that this effect is driven not simply by the violation of a norm, but by salient-norm violation. As evidence for this hypothesis, we present two new studies in which two conflicting norms are present, and one or both of them is raised to salience. Expanding one’s view to these additional cases presents, we argue, (...) a fuller conception of the side-effect effect, which can be reversed by reversing which norm is salient. (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty's reversibility thesis argues that self, other and world are inherently relational, interdependent at the level of ontology. What is at stake in the reversibility thesis is whether it overcomes skeptical objections in both assuring real communication and avoiding solipsism in assuring real difference; the Other must be a genuine, irreducible Other. It is objected that across the domains of reversibility, symmetry and reciprocity are not guaranteed. I argue that this is a non-problem; rather the potentialities for asymmetry and (...) non reciprocity in fact guarantee the irreducibility of the Other; reversibility needs to be appreciated as dialectical or aesthetic, not as a literal or ‘mechanistic’ reversal. A further criticism targets the viability of ontology itself, whether alterity is ever compatible with ontology. This paper considers these objections from two of Merleau-Ponty's contemporaries—Claude Lefort and Emmanuel Levinas. Levinas developed a philosophy which while intersecting with Merleau-Ponty's at important junctures, nonetheless arrived at an entirely different destination. I argue alongside Martin Dillon against the objections of Lefort, and alongside Dan Zahavi against the objections of Levinas. Both of these interpreters, I propose remain faithful to the core directions and spirit of Merleau-Ponty's endeavours without becoming diverted by the less significant inconsistencies. (shrink)

This paper argues against a standard view that all deterministic and conservative classical mechanical systems are time-reversible, by asking how the temporal evolution of a system modulates parametric imprecision (either ontological or epistemic). It notes that well-behaved systems (e.g. inertial motion) can possess a dynamics which is unstable enough to fail at reversing uncertainties—even though exact values are reliably reversed. A limited (but significant) source of irreversibility is thus displayed in classical mechanics, closely analogous the lack of predictability revealed by (...) unstable chaotic systems. (shrink)

NGOs have taken a dominant position in setting the agendas of Corporate Responsibility and Socially Responsible Investment matters, thereby skewing the efforts of corporates to limit negative externalities towards their own agendas. As the latter remain to a certain extent unpredictable, corporates must deal with an information asymmetry. This situation can be explained by the historically defensive nature of Corporate Responsibility codes established by companies under pressure of the NGOs. In this paper, I contend that only a new approach (...) to Corporate Responsibility could reverse this asymmetry: one where the social responsibility matters are articulated in a political debate between all stakeholders of a company and where conflicting interests are addressed in a deliberative process. To this end, the corporate world and the NGOs need to understand the need for a larger debate that includes all relevant stakeholders defined as the Public in the sense of Dewey. Latour and the Actor-Network theory provide us with a workable framework to structure such a dialogue, where participants have the authority and legitimacy to speak for the Public. (shrink)

In vowel discrimination, commonly found discrimination patterns are directional asymmetries where discrimination is faster if differing vowels are presented in a certain sequence compared to the reversed sequence. Different models of speech sound processing try to account for these asymmetries based on either phonetic or phonological properties. In this study, we tested and compared two of those often-discussed models, namely the Featurally Underspecified Lexicon model and the Natural Referent Vowel framework. While most studies presented isolated vowels, we investigated a large (...) stimulus set of German vowels in a more naturalistic setting within minimal pairs. We conducted an mismatch negativity study in a passive and a reaction time study in an active oddball paradigm. In both data sets, we found directional asymmetries that can be explained by either phonological or phonetic theories. While behaviorally, the vowel discrimination was based on phonological properties, both tested models failed to explain the found neural patterns comprehensively. Therefore, we additionally examined the influence of a variety of articulatory, acoustical, and lexical factors but also the influence of factors beyond the well-known in depth via multiple regression analyses. The analyses revealed that the perceptual factor of perceived loudness has a greater impact than considered in the literature and should be taken stronger into consideration when analyzing preattentive natural vowel processing. (shrink)

A theory is usually said to be time reversible if whenever a sequence of states S 1 , S 2 , S 3 is possible according to that theory, then the reverse sequence of time reversed states S 3 T , S 2 T , S 1 T is also possible according to that theory; i.e., one normally not only inverts the sequence of states, but also operates on the states with a time reversal operator T . David Albert (...) and Paul Horwich have suggested that one should not allow such time reversal operations T on states. I will argue that time reversal operations on fundamental states should be allowed. I will furthermore argue that the form that time reversal operations take is determined by the type of fundamental geometric quantities that occur in nature and that we have good reason to believe that the fundamental geometric quantities that occur in nature correspond to irreducible representations of the Lorentz transformations. Finally, I will argue that we have good reason to believe that space-time has a temporal orientation. (shrink)

Similar to visual perception, auditory perception also has a clearly described “pop-out” effect, where an element with some extra feature is easier to detect among elements without an extra feature. This phenomenon is better known as auditory perceptual asymmetry. We investigated such asymmetry between shorter or longer duration, and level or falling of pitch of linguistic stimuli that carry a meaning in one language, but not in another. For the mismatch negativity experiment, we created four different types of (...) stimuli by modifying the duration of the first vowel [ɑ] and pitch contour of the stimuli words. The stimuli were synthesized from Estonian words and follow the Estonian language three-way quantity system, which incorporates tonal features together with temporal patterns. This made the meaning of the word dependent on the combination of both features and allows us to compare the relative contribution of duration and pitch contour in discrimination of language stimuli in the brain via MMN generation. The participants of the experiment were 12 Russian native speakers with little or no experience in Estonian and living in Estonia short-term, and 12 Estonian native speakers. We found that participants’ perception of the linguistic stimuli differed not only according to the physical features but also according to their native language, confirming that the meaning of the word interferes with the early automatic processing of phonological features. The GAMM and ANOVA analysis of the reversed design results showed that the deviant with longer duration among shorter standards elicited a MMN response with greater amplitude than the short deviant among long standards, while changes in pitch contour produced neither strong MMN nor asymmetry. Thus, we demonstrate the effect of language background on asymmetric perception of linguistic stimuli that aligns with those of previous studies, and contributes to the growing body of knowledge supporting auditory perceptual asymmetry. (shrink)

This paper argues that the knowledge asymmetry (the fact that we know more about the past than the future) can be explained as a consequence of the causal Markov condition. The causal Markov condition implies that causes of a common effect are generally statistically independent, whereas effects of a common cause are generally correlated. I show that together with certain facts about the physics of our world, the statistical independence of causes severely limits our ability to predict the future, (...) whereas correlations between joint effects make it so that no such limitation holds in the reverse temporal direction. Insofar as the fact that our world conforms to the causal Markov condition can itself be explained in terms of the initial conditions of the universe, my view is compatible with Albert’s well-known account of the origins of temporal asymmetries, but also provides a more illuminating way to derive the knowledge asymmetry from those initial conditions. (shrink)

Physicists routinely claim that the fundamental laws of physics are 'time symmetric' or 'time reversal invariant' or 'reversible'. In particular, it is claimed that the theory of quantum mechanics is time symmetric. But it is shown in this paper that the orthodox analysis suffers from a fatal conceptual error, because the logical criterion for judging the time symmetry of probabilistic theories has been incorrectly formulated. The correct criterion requires symmetry between future-directed laws and past-directed laws. This criterion is formulated and (...) proved in detail. The orthodox claim that quantum mechanics is reversible is re-evaluated. The property demonstrated in the orthodox analysis is shown to be quite distinct from time reversal invariance. The view of Satosi Watanabe that quantum mechanics is time asymmetric is verified, as well as his view that this feature does not merely show a de facto or 'contingent' asymmetry, as commonly supposed, but implies a genuine failure of time reversal invariance of the laws of quantum mechanics. The laws of quantum mechanics would be incompatible with a time-reversed version of our universe. (shrink)

The paper analyzes the philosophical consequences of the recent discovery of direct violations of the time–reversal symmetry of weak interactions. It shows that although we have here an important case of the time asymmetry of one of the fundamental physical forces which could have had a great impact on the form of our world with an excess of matter over antimatter, this asymmetry cannot be treated as the asymmetry of time itself but rather as an asymmetry (...) of some specific physical process in time. The paper also analyzes the consequences of the new discovery for the general problem of the possible connections between direction of time and time-asymmetric laws of nature. These problems are analyzed in the context of Horwich’s Asymmetries in time: problems in the philosophy of science argumentation, trying to show that existence of a time–asymmetric law of nature is a sufficient condition for time to be anisotropic. Instead of Horwich’s sufficient condition for anisotropy of time, it is stressed that for a theory of asymmetry of time to be acceptable it should explain all fundamental time asymmetries: the asymmetry of traces, the asymmetry of causation, and the asymmetry between the fixed past and open future. It is so because the problem of the direction of time has originated from our attempts to understand these asymmetries and every plausible theory of the direction of time should explain them. (shrink)

In his recent book, Time and Chance, David Albert claims that by positing that there is a uniform probability distribution defined, on the standard measure, over the space of microscopic states that are compatible with both the current macrocondition of the world, and with what he calls the “past hypothesis”, we can explain the time asymmetry of all of the thermodynamic behavior in the world. The principal purpose of this paper is to dispute this claim. I argue that Albert's (...) proposal fails in his stated goal—to show how to use the time‐reversible dynamics of Newtonian physics to “underwrite the actual content of our thermodynamic experience” (Albert 2000, 159). Albert's proposal can satisfactorily explain why the overall entropy of the universe as a whole is increasing, but it does not and cannot explain the increasing entropy of relatively small, relatively short‐lived systems in energetic isolation without making use of a principle that leads to reversibility objections. (shrink)

The received view on the problem of the direction of time holds it that time has no intrinsic dynamical properties, and that its apparent asymmetry, to be understood in purely topological terms, is dependent on the directional properties of physical processes. In this paper we shall challenge both claims, in the light of an algebraic representation of time. First, we will show how to give a precise formulation to the intuitive idea that time possesses an intrinsic dynamics; this formulation (...) relies on the fact that the algebraic properties of time can equivalently be understood in dynamical terms. Second, we shall argue that the directional properties displayed by the processes occurring in time depend on the directional properties of time, rather than the converse. (shrink)

David Albert claims that classical electromagnetic theory is not time reversal invariant. He acknowledges that all physics books say that it is, but claims they are ``simply wrong" because they rely on an incorrect account of how the time reversal operator acts on magnetic fields. On that account, electric fields are left intact by the operator, but magnetic fields are inverted. Albert sees no reason for the asymmetric treatment, and insists that neither field should be inverted. I argue, to the (...) contrary, that the inversion of magnetic fields makes good sense and is, in fact, forced by elementary geometric considerations. I also suggest a way of thinking about the time reversal invariance of classical electromagnetic theory -- one that makes use of the invariant (four-dimensional) formulation of the theory -- that makes no reference to magnetic fields at all. It is my hope that it will be of interest in its own right, Albert aside. It has the advantage that it allows for arbitrary curvature in the background spacetime structure, and is therefore suitable for the framework of general relativity. (The only assumption one needs is temporal orientability.). (shrink)

Over the last decade, a plethora of international policies and guidelines on research integrity have been produced, and many countries have developed national codes of conduct. Recently, as a way of implementing these codes, institutions have begun offering mandatory training in research integrity for PhD fellows. This paper is based on a case study of a mandatory course in research integrity for PhD fellows at a faculty of medicine in Denmark. The study comprised a small survey, participatory fieldwork, and interviews (...) with six course participants, the course leader and a teacher. Based on this study, the paper shows that the PhD fellows perceived the integrity course as if it, to some extent, contributed to normalising the questionable research practice and grey zone behaviour that the course was conceived to prevent. The interviews, however, also show that this latent normalisation must be seen in the context of the PhD fellows’ position within a strongly competitive culture, which sometimes rewards questionable behaviour. For this reason, creating a culture of research integrity cannot be accomplished by integrity training alone, it demands a wider structural change in the incentives for career advancement that sustain the current asymmetries of power. (shrink)

A challenge for theories of incomplete descriptions is to capture the consistency of ‘Sobel sequences’ and to account for an asymmetry in the acceptability of utterances of Sobel sequences and ‘reverse Sobel sequences’. David Lewis’s theory of incomplete descriptions answers, unlike many other theories, the challenge from Sobel sequences, but it does not answer the challenge from reverse Sobel sequences. This article presents another asymmetry in the availability of anaphoric readings of Sobel sequences and reverse (...) Sobel sequences, and proposes an explanation of the original asymmetry on its grounds. This provides an answer to the challenge for Lewis’s theory. (shrink)

What grounds the standard claim that classical mechanics is time-reversal invariant? Hutchison (1993, 1995) challenges the conventional reasoning underlying the belief that classical mechanics is time reversal invariant and argues that it is not in any well-defined sense. I find a defensible criterion that will exclude his cases, thereby rescuing a sense in which we can say that classical mechanics is time reversal invariant.

Participants of low and high hypnotic susceptibility were tested on a temporal order judgement task, both with and without hypnosis. Judgements were made of the order of presentation of light flashes appearing in first one hemi-field then the other. There were differences in the inter-stimulus intervals required accurately to report the order, depending upon which hemi-field led. This asymmetry was most marked in hypnotically susceptible participants and reversed when they were hypnotised. This implies not only that brain activity changes (...) in hypnosis, but also that there is a difference in brain function between people of low and high hypnotic susceptibility. The latter exhibited a faster-acting left hemisphere in the waking state, but faster right when hypnotised. (shrink)

In this study, we examine the empirical association between corporate social responsibility and information asymmetry by investigating their simultaneous and endogenous effects. Employing an extensive U.S. sample, we find an inverse association between CSR engagement and the proxies of information asymmetry after controlling for various firm characteristics. The results hold using 2SLS considering the reverse side of information asymmetry influencing CSR activities. The results also hold after mitigating endogeneity based on the dynamic panel system generalized method (...) of moment. Furthermore, the CSR–information asymmetry relation is amplified in high-risk firms due to managers’ efforts to build a good reputation. Last, we find that CSR engagement is inversely associated with reputational risk measure and lower predicted value of reputational risk is positively associated with lower information asymmetry measures. We interpret these results as supporting the stakeholder theory-based, reputation-building explanation that considers CSR engagement as a vehicle to build and maintain firm reputation thereby enhancing the information environment. (shrink)

This paper is about Sobel sequences, which are sequences of counterfactuals that supposedly display two interesting properties: first, they are consistent, as accounted for by the famous Lewis-Stalnaker analysis; but second, they are not consistent in the reverse order, which is not accounted for by Lewis-Stalnaker. I argue that there has been an empirical oversight in the literature on these sequences: there are consistent sequences, and there are irreversible sequences, but no sequence is both. The Lewis-Stalnaker theory neatly captures (...) Sobel sequences, and also captures the inconsistency of Lewis sequences. But there is still a dynamic asymmetry at work with Lewis sequences, which I account for by appeal to the pragmatic phenomenon of imprecision. Lewis sequences seem consistent because they do not belie factual disagreements, but rather metalinguistic disagreements about how precise to be. This also accounts for their irreversibility—such metalinguistic disagreements about the standard of precision are only possible in one direction, as famously observed by Lewis, who observed them in discourses not containing counterfactuals. (shrink)

History of science and philosophy of science are not perfectly complementary disciplines. Several important asymmetries govern their relationship. These asymmetries, concerning levels of analysis, evidence, theories, writing, and training show that to be a decent philosopher of science is more difficult than being a decent historian. But to be a good historian-well, the degree of difficulty is reversed.

A model of metaphor processing is suggested based on the application of pragmatic principles to the type of semantic information easy to access. It is argued that, with metaphor, higher-order categorical knowledge is given processing preference over instance-specific knowledge in an attempt to recover likely intended meaning. Instance-specific information is used more often when the higher-order knowledge is taken to violate conversational postulates. One such violation occurs when the categories implicated by metaphor topic and vehicle are similar, and thus unlikely (...) to provide new or relevant information. It is argued further that these differences could, in part, explain at least one condition that produces the asymmetry observed in metaphor when topic and vehicle are reversed. Predictions supportive of the model were obtained in three studies, employing different methodologies: feature listing, recognition memory and a vehicle choice task. (shrink)

Since the nineteenth century, the problem of the arrow of time has been traditionally analyzed in terms of entropy by relating the direction past-to-future to the gradient of the entropy function of the universe. In this paper, we reject this traditional perspective and argue for a global and non-entropic approach to the problem, according to which the arrow of time can be defined in terms of the geometrical properties of spacetime. In particular, we show how the global non-entropic arrow can (...) be transferred to the local level, where it takes the form of a non-spacelike local energy flow that provides the criterion for breaking the symmetry resulting from time-reversal invariant local laws. (shrink)

Every process studied in any science other than physics defines an arrow of time – to say nothing for the directedness of the processes of causation, inference, memory, control, and counterfactual dependence that occur in everyday life. The discussion in this chapter is confined to the arrow of time as it occurs in physics. The chapter briefly discusses those features of microscopic physics, which seem to conflict with time asymmetry. It explains just how this conflict plays out in the (...) important context of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. The chapter then reviews the main strategies available for resolving the conflict between reversible microdynamics and irreversible macrodynamics, working within the context of the quantitative, time‐irreversible evolution laws that seem to apply to large‐scale phenomena. Finally, it offers a broad the discussion covering other arrows of time within physics. (shrink)

This book is an attempt to get to the bottom of an acute and perennial tension between our best scientific pictures of the fundamental physical structure of the world and our everyday empirical experience of it. The trouble is about the direction of time. The situation (very briefly) is that it is a consequence of almost every one of those fundamental scientific pictures--and that it is at the same time radically at odds with our common sense--that whatever can happen can (...) just as naturally happen backwards. Albert provides an unprecedentedly clear, lively, and systematic new account--in the context of a Newtonian-Mechanical picture of the world--of the ultimate origins of the statistical regularities we see around us, of the temporal irreversibility of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, of the asymmetries in our epistemic access to the past and the future, and of our conviction that by acting now we can affect the future but not the past. Then, in the final section of the book, he generalizes the Newtonian picture to the quantum-mechanical case and (most interestingly) suggests a very deep potential connection between the problem of the direction of time and the quantum-mechanical measurement problem. The book aims to be both an original contribution to the present scientific and philosophical understanding of these matters at the most advanced level, and something in the nature of an elementary textbook on the subject accessible to interested high-school students. Table of Contents: Preface 1. Time-Reversal Invariance 2. Thermodynamics 3. Statistical Mechanics 4. The Reversibility Objections and the Past-Hypothesis 5. The Scope of Thermodynamics 6. The Asymmetries of Knowledge and Intervention 7. Quantum Mechanics Appendix: Gedankenexperiments with Heat Engines Index Reviews of this book: The foundations of statistical mechanisms are often presented in physics textbooks in a rather obscure and confused way. By challenging common ways of thinking about this subject, Time and Chance can do quite a lot to improve this situation. --Jean Bricmont, Science Albert is perfecting a style of foundational analysis that is uniquely his own...It has a surgical precision...and it is ruthless with pretensions. The foundations of thermodynamics is a topic that has accumulated a good deal of dead wood; this is a fire that will burn and burn. --Simon W. Saunders, Oxford University As usual with Albert's work, the exposition is brisk and to the point, and exceptionally clear...The book will be an extremely valuable contribution to the literature on the subject of philosophical issues in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, a literature which has been thin on the ground but is now growing as it deserves to. --Lawrence Sklar, University of Michigan. (shrink)

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 (...) Fine-Tuned? [Sean M. Carroll] 5. The Meta-Reversibility Objection [Christopher J. G. Meacham] 6. Typicality versus Humean Probabilities as the Foundation of Statistical Mechanics [Dustin Lazarovici] 7. The Past Hypothesis and the Nature of Physical Laws [Eddy Keming Chen] 8. On the Albertian Demon [Tim Maudlin] III. Underwriting the Asymmetries of Knowledge and Intervention 9. Reading the Past in the Present [Nick Huggett] 10. Causes, Randomness, and the Past Hypothesis [Mathias Frisch] 11. Time, Flies, and Why We Can’t Control the Past [Alison Fernandes] 12. The Concept of Intervention in Time and Chance [Sidney Felder] Conclusion [David Albert]. (shrink)

The 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.

Bertrand Russell famously argued that causation is not part of the fundamental physical description of the world, describing the notion of cause as “a relic of a bygone age”. This paper assesses one of Russell’s arguments for this conclusion: the ‘Directionality Argument’, which holds that the time symmetry of fundamental physics is inconsistent with the time asymmetry of causation. We claim that the coherence and success of the Directionality Argument crucially depends on the proper interpretation of the ‘ time (...) symmetry’ of fundamental physics as it appears in the argument, and offer two alternative interpretations. We argue that: if ‘ time symmetry’ is understood as the time -reversal invariance of physical theories, then the crucial premise of the Directionality Argument should be rejected; and if ‘ time symmetry’ is understood as the temporally bidirectional nomic dependence relations of physical laws, then the crucial premise of the Directionality Argument is far more plausible. We defend the second reading as continuous with Russell’s writings, and consider the consequences of the bidirectionality of nomic dependence relations in physics for the metaphysics of causation. (shrink)

These 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 (...) re-presenting the basic analysis of time reversal symmetry in the context of probabilistic or non-deterministic processes, removing the first critical error in the conventional account. The second chapter argues for a law-like explanation of physical time asymmetry and irreversibility, and shows how the ‘reversibility paradoxes’ are explained. (shrink)

Microphysical laws are time reversible, but macrophysics, chemistry and biology are not. This paper explores how this asymmetry arises due to the cosmological context, where a non-local Direction of Time is imposed by the expansion of the universe. This situation is best represented by an Evolving Block Universe, where local arrows of time emerge in concordance with the Direction of Time because a global Past Condition results in the Second Law of Thermodynamics pointing to the future. At the quantum (...) level, the indefinite future changes to the definite past due to quantum wave function collapse events. (shrink)

Many studies have observed modulation of the amplitude of the neural index mismatch negativity (MMN) related to which member of a phoneme contrast [phoneme A, phoneme B] serves as the frequent (standard) and which serves as the infrequent (deviant) stimulus (i.e., AAAB vs. BBBA) in an oddball paradigm. Explanations for this amplitude modulation range from acoustic to linguistic factors. We tested whether exchanging the role of the mid vowel /ε/ vs. high vowel /ɪ/ of English modulated MMN amplitude and whether (...) the pattern of modulation was compatible with an underspecification account, in which the underspecified height values are [−high] and [−low]. MMN was larger for /ε/ as the deviant, but only when compared across conditions to itself as the standard. For the within-condition comparison, MMN was larger to /ɪ/ deviant minus /ε/ standard than to the reverse. A condition order effect was also observed. MMN amplitude was smaller to the deviant stimulus if it had previously served as the standard. In addition, the amplitudes of late discriminative negativity (LDN) showed similar asymmetry. LDN was larger for deviant /ε/ than deviant /ɪ/ when compared to themselves as the standard. These findings were compatible with an underspecification account, but also with other accounts, such as the Natural Referent Vowel model and a prototype model; we also suggest that non-linguistic factors need to be carefully considered as additional sources of speech processing asymmetries. (shrink)

An interesting asymmetry in syntactic change is that OV base order is commonly replaced by VO, whereas the reverse development is quite rare in languages.1 A shift to VO has taken place in several branches of the Indo-European family, as well as in Finno-Ugric. The Germanic languages conform to this trend in that the original OV order seen in its older representatives, and (in more rigid form) in modern German, Dutch, and Frisian, has given way to a consistently (...) head-initial syntax in English, Scandinavian, and Yiddish. (shrink)

James Henry Collin recently developed a new symmetry breaker favouring the ontological argument’s possibility premiss over that of the reverse ontological argument. The symmetry breaker amounts to an undercutting defeater for the reverse possibility premiss based on Kripkean cases of a posteriori necessity. I argue, however, that symmetry re-arises in two forms. First, I challenge the purported asymmetry in epistemic entitlements to the original and reverse possibility premisses. Second, relevantly similar Kripkean cases equally undercut the original (...) possibility premiss. (shrink)

This article discusses some philosophical theories of causation and their application to several areas of science. Topics addressed include regularity, counterfactual, and causal process theories of causation; the causal interpretation of structural equation models and directed graphs; independence assumptions in causal reasoning; and the role of causal concepts in physics. In connection with this last topic, this article focuses on the relationship between causal asymmetries, the time-reversal invariance of most fundamental physical laws, and the significance of differences among varieties of (...) differential equations in causal interpretation. It concludes with some remarks about “grounding” special science causal generalizations in physics. (shrink)

Necessity, but not possibility, is typically thought to be rare and suspicion-worthy. This manifests in an asymmetry in the burden of proof incurred by modal claims. In general, claims to the effect that some proposition is impossible/necessary require significant argumentative support and, in general, claims to the effect that some proposition is possible/contingent are thought to be justified freely or by default. Call this the possibility bias. In this paper, I argue that the possibility bias is not epistemically justified. (...) We should regard possibility with at least as much suspicion, that is to say as incurring at least as much of an explanatory demand, as necessity. In fact, I suggest that we might even be justified in reversing the burden of proof asymmetry and adopting a necessity bias. This has quite radical implications for philosophical methodology and hence for many first-order philosophical concerns. (shrink)

Inequalities in expectations to receive care permeate social structures, reinforcing racialized and gendered hierarchies. Harming the people who are overburdened and disadvantaged as caregivers, these inequalities also shape the subjectivities and corporeal habits of the class of people who expect to receive care from others. With three examples, I illustrate a series of justificatory asymmetries across gender and racial lines that illustrate asymmetries in deference and attendance to the needs of others as well as assertions of the rightful occupation of (...) space. These justificatory asymmetries are cogent reasons to evaluate the justice of caregiving arrangements in a way that tracks data about who cares for whom, which can be understood by the concept of the arrow of care map. I suggest, therefore, that the arrow of care map is a necessary component of any critical care theory. In addition, employing a method called living counterfactually, I show that when women of color assert full claimant status, we are reversing arrows of care, which then elicits resistance and violence from varied actors in the real world. These considerations together contribute to further defense of the theory of liberal dependency care’s constructivism, which combines hypothetical acceptability with autonomy skills in the real world. Each level, in turn, relies on the transparency of care practices in the real world as enabled by the arrow of care map. (shrink)

The 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 (...) future. To understand how this can be so we observe that while the truth of some counterfactuals is guaranteed by the laws of logic or the laws of nature, some are not. It is among the latter contingent, counterfactuals that we find temporal asymmetry. It is this asymmetry that gives causation a temporal direction. The temporal asymmetry of these counterfactuals is explained by the fact that the dynamical laws of nature are logically irreversible functions from partial states of the world onto other partial states. (Logical reversibility is not to be confused, though it too often is, with time-reversal invariance). Though these irreversible laws are locally indeterministic, they can sum to give a globally deterministic description of the world. This combination of global determinism and local indeterminism gives rise to contingent counterfactual dependence and gives that dependence a direction. That direction is independent of the direction of entropy. The direction of contingent counterfactual dependence is time's arrow. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that men should take primary responsibility for protecting against pregnancy. Male long-acting reversible contraceptives are currently in development, and, once approved, should be used as the standard method for avoiding pregnancy. Since women assume the risk of pregnancy when they engage in penis-in-vagina sex, men should do their utmost to ensure that their ejaculations are responsible, otherwise women shoulder a double burden of pregnancy risk plus contraceptive responsibility. Changing the expectations regarding responsibility for contraception would (...) render penis-in-vagina sex more equitable, and could lead to a shift in the discourse around abortion access. I describe the sex asymmetries of contraceptive responsibility and of pregnancy-related risk, and offer arguments in favour of men taking primary responsibility for contraception. My arguments centre on: analogies between contraception and vaccination, and unwanted pregnancy and disease; a veil-of-ignorance approach, in which I contend that if a person were not told their sex, they would find a society in which men were expected to acquire and use effective contraceptives the fairest arrangement for everyone. (shrink)

Irony is acknowledged to be usually critical: the ironic speaker tends to exhibit an apparent positive attitude in order to communicate a negative valuation. The reverse is considered to be also possible though: the ironic speaker can praise by apparent blaming, although it seldom happens. This unbalance between the two sorts of ironic examples is the so-called asymmetry issue of irony. Here I shall deny the possibility of being ironic without criticizing — hence the asymmetry issue is (...) an illusion. By claiming that irony is always critical I suggest an even stronger claim: criticism is what distinguishes irony from the similar phenomenon of metaphor. (shrink)

An increasing number of experiments at the Belle, BNL, CERN, DAΦNE and SLAC accelerators are confirming the violation of time reversal invariance (T). The violation signifies a fundamental asymmetry between the past and future and calls for a major shift in the way we think about time. Here we show that processes which violate T symmetry induce destructive interference between different paths that the universe can take through time. The interference eliminates all paths except for two that represent continuously (...) forwards and continuously backwards time evolution. Evidence from the accelerator experiments indicates which path the universe is effectively following. This work may provide fresh insight into the long-standing problem of modeling the dynamics of T violation processes. It suggests that T violation has previously unknown, large-scale physical effects and that these effects underlie the origin of the unidirectionality of time. It may have implications for the Wheeler-DeWitt equation of canonical quantum gravity. Finally it provides a view of the quantum nature of time itself. (shrink)

To the familiar idea of an undetectable spectrum inversion some have added the idea of inverted earth. This new combination of ideas is even harder to make coherent, particularly as it applies to a supposed inversion of black and white counteracted by an environmental switch of these. Black and white exhibit asymmetries in their connections with illumination, shadow and visibility, which rule out their being reversed. And since the most saturated yellow is light and the most saturated blue dark, yellow (...) and blue could not be reversed unless light and dark could be. The difficulties suggest some more general morals for how to think of the role of 'qualia' in colour perception. (shrink)

The article reviews some analyses of temporal language in logical approaches to natural language semantics. It considers some asymmetries between past and future, manifested in language, which motivate the “standard view” of the non-reversibility of time and the persistence of the past. It concludes with a puzzle about the changing past which challenges the standard view.

While Simone de Beauvoir’s theory of alterity has been the topic of much discussion within Beauvoir scholarship, feminist theory, and social and political philosophy, it has not commonly been a reference point for those working within ethics. However, Beauvoir develops a novel view that those concerned with the ethical import of respect for others should consider seriously, especially those working within the Levinasian tradition. I claim that Beauvoir distinguishes between two forms of otherness: namely, existential alterity and sociopolitical alterity. While (...) sociopolitical alterity is a contingent and surmountable form of otherness that results from oppression of individuals and groups, existential alterity is a necessary feature of the human condition that discloses the foreignness of the other as a freedom. Out of this view of existential alterity, I argue, Beauvoir develops an ethic of asymmetrical reciprocity. In contrast with Levinas, who dismisses reciprocity as a symmetrical or reversible model of relation that minimizes difference, Beauvoir promulgates a view of reciprocity that does not fall into the problems that Levinas diagnoses. Moreover, asymmetrical reciprocity more successfully figures the ethical relation to the other than the absolute asymmetry one finds in Levinas, which becomes evident through revisiting Levinas’s account of eros and contrasting it with that of Beauvoir. (shrink)