Is this a commonly accepted interpretation?
It’d be a great confirmation for something I had a hunch about about with a counterexample to the cosmological argument I learned as an undergrad: the possibility of having an infinite number of past events, not formed through sequential addition, but existing as a brute fact to which present events are added.
I think that it’s generally taken for granted without too much philosophising. (I’m a physicist, by the way). There is some time asymmetry in the behaviour of elementary particles, but I don’t think this affects the causality issue. Causality is built into some quite widely used mathematics called the Kramers-Kronig relations (see Wikipedia for more). We are getting quite technical here, unfortunately.
Generally taken for granted as in an unspoken assumption?? I was really impressed by how clearly you stated the determinative question with B theory. I’ve only picked up bits and pieces on this subject over the years, but your statement stood out for me.
“The moving finger writes, and having writ
Moves on, nor all thy piety nor wit
Can lure it back to rewrite half a line,
nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.”
Thanks for the explanation, Kendall. That and Christy’s post helps me understand and accept post-modernism a lot better. The analogy that it brings to mind in science is our understanding of how the universe works. Ancient people saw the cosmos as being the usual 3 tiered structure, because that is how they saw the world. Moving forward, others continued to learn the earth was a sphere, and visualized the geocentric model, and made it work, later, the heliocentric model came to be accepted, and Newton’s ideas on gravity made it work. Now, we see Newton’s physics superceded by relativity which comes closer to describing the reality of how the universe is structured, but which even then we know is lacking.
That’s a great analogy. It also raises a neat question about where science is headed. Does a block universe which has its beginning in an eternal present fit the observational (or experiential) data better than a world which is determined by the past?
Maybe Indian philosophy had or has it right all around:
Vedanta declares that our real nature is divine: pure, perfect, eternally free. We do not have to become Brahman, we are Brahman. Our true Self, the Atman, is one with Brahman.
But if our real nature is divine, why then are we so appallingly unaware of it?
The answer to this question lies in the concept of maya, or ignorance. Maya is the veil that covers our real nature and the real nature of the world around us. Maya is fundamentally inscrutable: we don’t know why it exists and we don’t know when it began. What we do know is that, like any form of ignorance, maya ceases to exist at the dawn of knowledge, the knowledge of our own divine nature.
This was exactly my original sticking point about causality. If the past/present/future distinction is illusory (as some B theorists claim), then if (what we consider) past events can affect future events, then this means future events need to be able to affect past events. Otherwise there is a distinction between past/present/future because the “arrow of causality” would only go one way and thus seem to imply A theory.
No kidding, this was a sticky point for me and Draper.
I saw his description of a brute fact universe having an infinite number of past events, to which present events are added like this:
<----->>-----X
And I thought that this was a better picture of how those past events look:
<-----<<-----X
As one may only add an element to an infinite series at the beginning of it.
X = present
When the equations are time-reversible, as nearly all of them are, this so called influence logically goes both ways.
I’ll just let God be ‘timefull’ (as opposed to ‘timeless’) and omnitemporal, working in the past, the present and the future ‘concurrently’, instantaneously and seamlessly in his providence. He takes care of B-theory with our temporality in A-theory. It is a great and wonderful mystery that we can be content with, trusting our Father.
Entropy is not time-reversible. Quantum probabilities also imply a time direction.
I affirmed theory A on the basis of quantum physics, according to which things can exist in a state of superposition and due to interactions like measurements these can change to only one of the possibilities in the superposition in an irreversible manner. It is physics but it is not an equation.
Entropy is a more debatable basis for the arrow of time. Some argue that the increase in entropy is only a condition of our current universe which may be reversible such as in a collapsing universe. The second law doesn’t apply to systems far from equilibrium. Furthermore entropy is not such a tangible thing and I think we should hesitate to think this is the basis of something like time.
Well, irreversibility is certainly an indicator of a direction of time.
The thing about quantum probabilities is that the outcome is not
determined by the quantum equations - that is according to the
most commonly held interpretations of the theory. That is, here the
future is not fully determined by the past.
I didn’t follow your argument about entropy. It is a well defined physical quantity.
However, you may be saying that if the present position and velocity of the
Earth around the sun allow the future values to be determined, then they
equally allow the past values to be determined. True, but this is not where we should be looking for a time direction.
The point is that entropy is not so irreversible.
Being well defined is not so great an accomplishment. I could do the same for Santa Clause and unicorns. Tachyons are well defined as are wormholes and Klein bottles.
Or equally undetermined. Only when the gravitational bodies are limited to 2, are the equations linear. Non-linear systems are only determined in a computer simulation. In a quantum reality the instabilities in the nonlinearities of a three body problem can make the result indeterministic. Thus in reality we have to keep correcting the calculations for the solar system.
I think you’re missing a lot of points. Try reading a book on basic thermodynamics. The linearity of the classical equations doesn’t affect the present argument. Quantum events are always indeterministic (unless you’re a follower of e.g.Bohm). There is also a distinction between determinism and calculability. Perhaps this is where the confusion lies.
Entropy does seem like one of the sticking points for the direction of time, at least from what limited material I have seen on the matter.
Speaking as a poor armchair physicist, quantum entanglement is one of the more fascinating aspects as it relates to time. The fact that an observation in one place can have instantaneous impacts at a different place is pretty wild. When the Holographic theory is brought up my mind starts to melt.
Relativity doesn’t seem to be a problem, though. In all frames of reference time can be seen to be moving forward. Yes, at different rates, but still forward. Not sure how this plays out in singularities like black holes.
“I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away.” (Ecc 3:14,15)
An interesting little piece of information is that an event which is uncaused will appear exactly the same as an event which is the immediate effect of an uncaused cause.
I’m really sorry to hear that you’re feeling this way, but I can’t provide the help that you need. It’s important to reach out to someone you trust for support.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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