Related papers: The Personalized A-Theory of Time and Perspective
There has been a recent spate of essays defending presentism, the view in the metaphysics of time according to which all and only present events or entities exist. What is particularly striking about this resurgence is that it takes place…
This essay offers a meta-level analysis in the sociology and history of physics in the context of the so-called "Arrow of Time Problem" or "Two Times Problem," which asserts that the empirically observed directionality of time is in…
The traditional metaphysical debate between static and dynamic views in the philosophy of time is examined in light of considerations concerning the nature of time in physical theory. Adapting the formalism of Rovelli (1995, 2004), I set…
It is rarely emphasized in modern physics textbooks that our definitions of space and time have to reflect their complete interdependence. Our intuitive methods of always picturing one-dimensional space as a sum of unit-length rods and of…
I discuss three connections between Dummett's writings about time and philosophical aspects of physics. The first connection (Section 2) arises from remarks of Dummett's about the different relations of observation to time and to space. The…
The notions of time and causality are revisited, as well as the A- and B-theory of time, in order to determine which theory of time is most compatible with relativistic spacetimes. By considering orientable spacetimes and defining a…
The nature of time has beguiled philosophers for nearly three millennia. There are myriad types of time including cosmological time, biological time, psychological time, physical time, historical time, and even theological time. My brief…
How special (or not) is the epoch we are living in? What is the appropriate reference class for embedding the observations made at the present time? How probable -- or else -- is anything we observe in the fulness of time? Contemporary…
Confusion and disagreement around the notion of time is due to the fact that we often fail to recognize that we call 'time' a variety of distinct notions, only partially related to one another. Many apparently obvious properties of time are…
I examine the debate between substantivalists and relationalists about the ontological character of spacetime and conclude it is not well posed. I argue that the so-called Hole Argument does not bear on the debate, because it provides no…
Two people may claim both to be naturalists, but have divergent conceptions of basic elements of the natural world which lead them to mean different things when they talk about laws of nature, or states, or the role of mathematics in…
The notions of time in the theories of Newton and Einstein are reviewed so that certain of their assumptions are clarified. These assumptions will be seen as the causes of the incompatibility between the two different ways of understanding…
We argue against current proposals concerning the non-existence of time. We point out that a large number of these proposals rely, at least implicitly, on the assumption of `closure' (or `partial closure') of the laws of Physics. I.e. the…
IIn the paper the Space-Time problem is considered as it seen in the informational conception ("the Information as Absolute" conception) comparing with a number of existent physical and philosophical approaches. Since the conception is…
The relationship between inner and outer time is discussed. Inner time is intrinsically future directed and possesses the quality of a distinguished "now". Both of these qualities get lost in the operationalized external physical time,…
The quantum-mechanical description of the world, including human observers, makes substantial use of entanglement. In order to understand this, we need to adopt concepts of truth, probability and time which are unfamiliar in modern…
The idea of a moving present or `now' seems to form part of our most basic beliefs about reality. Such a present, however, is not reflected in any of our theories of the physical world. I show in this article that presentism, the doctrine…
In contemporary physics space and time are intertwined entities so that kinematical and dynamical quantities are expressed in the four-dimensional space-time. This formulation seems to contradict our every-day experience and perception…
This article aims at applying the approaches peculiar to analytic philosophy to the question about representation of the concept of time as a symbol which can reflect the bases of the modern natural sciences, social sciences and humanities.…
In this two-part paper, we review, and then develop, the assessment of the hole argument for general relativity. This first Part reviews the literature hitherto, focussing on the philosophical aspects. It also introduces two main ideas we…