How to Explain the Direction of Time
Citation:
Alison Fernandes, How to Explain the Direction of Time, Synthese, 200, 5, 2022, 1 - 30Abstract:
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 is to appeal instead to a particular low-entropy initial state—Albert’s ‘Past Hypothesis’. I’ll argue that this neglect of Reichenbach’s approach is unwarranted. A Reichenbachian account has important advantages over Albert’s: it correctly identifies the minimal temporally asymmetric posit needed to derive key temporally asymmetries and it offers a more adequate account of the record asymmetry. While a Reichenbachian account needs to be supplemented, it
provides the right foundations for explaining temporally asymmetric phenomena and what we might ultimately mean by ‘the direction of time’.
Author's Homepage:
http://people.tcd.ie/asfernanDescription:
PUBLISHED
Author: Fernandes, Alison
Type of material:
Journal ArticleCollections
Series/Report no:
Synthese200
5
Availability:
Full text availableKeywords:
Reichenbach, Temporal Asymmetry, Record Asymmetry, Statistical Mechanics, Second Law of Thermodynamics, Entropy, Albert, Direction of TimeDOI:
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03818-4Metadata
Show full item recordLicences: