[net.misc] On the genesis of the time concept

gjphw (08/06/82)

        There seems to be continual debate about the nature of time, the
   possibility of time travel, and the issue of personal determinism.  I
   would like to advance some observations about our concept of time.

        The present, common conception of time derives from the success of
   classical mechanics (e.g. dynamics, falling rocks, projectile motion,
   celestial mechanics, and special relativity).  For all of these, time
   appears as a simple parameter which can be reversed at will.  This is
   not the absolute time concept of Newton, but still a simple concept.
   Quantum mechanics treats time in the same way as classical mechanics.
   Since classical mechanics (or dynamics) is so successful at describing
   and predicting phenomena, its philosophical assumptions are also
   accepted.  Metaphysics is implied by the physics.  Time can then be
   viewed as merely another dimension (or more exactly a coordinate "ict"),
   similar to any of the spatial dimensions, in which we will one day
   realize the freedom of motion.  Travel through time is, in principle,
   possible and, since all future is calculable, we are predestined to
   follow this predictable path.

        This view of time as reversible conflicts with other experiences.
   People, and rocks, only age.  What if time, as it appears in
   thermodynamics, is treated as the paradigm?  (Statistical mechanics
   attempts to bridge the gap between dynamics and thermodynamics, with
   more emphasis on the dynamics side of the subject.)   I. Prigogine, in
   "From Being to Becoming", argues essentially for this.  Experience with
   very complicated systems requires that time be a one-way parameter
   (irreversible).  In addition, the predictability of a phenomenon is
   limited (entropy).  A particular phenomenon cannot be predicted with
   arbitrary precision as time proceeds from some initial conditions (this
   situation is called weak time correlation).  So, not only is time travel
   into the past not possible, the future is not very calculable (or
   predictable).

        Having thought about this issue of time and determinism, the
   concept of time derived from thermodynamics appears to be more
   reasonable.  While time irreversibility makes me uncomfortable with
   science fiction stories about time travel into the past, I am consoled
   by the idea that I am not predestined to follow a predictable path
   through the future.  How any of this relates to free will is open to
   discussion.

   Pat Wyant
   ihuxn!gjphw

G:wing (08/10/82)

One other thought on time (This might also be a response to Paradox, but I
haven't read that article yet).  Our past could already be formed by the
future.  Case in point:  The Star Trek episode with Gary Seven shows the
Enterprise traveling back in time to Earth.  Because of what Gary Seven and
the Enterprise do, the American nuclear warhead satillite blows up a bit over
a hundred miles above Earth.  Although Gary Seven at first thinks that they
have changed history, William Shatner remarks that they have records of the
specific event they caused to occur in their history database (no flames,
please!) of that satillite blowing up just as they saw it.  Paradoxes cannot
occur.

					The One And Only,

					Philip L. Wing
					U.C. at Berkeley
					decvax!ucbvax!g:wing