Download or read book The New Theory of Time written by Professor L Nathan Oaklander and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1994-01-01 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The most important debate among twentieth-century philosophers of time has been whether events that have happened, are happening, or will happen are equally real (the tenseless theory of time) or whether there is a fundamental distinction between past, present, and future, with only present events possessing full existence (the tensed theory). In the 1980s a new version of the tenseless theory of time emerged. While advocates still posit that all events are equally real, they depart from the old tenseless theory by conceding that tensed expressions cannot be translated into tenseless ones, and support their view of time using other arguments." "This anthology offers the latest turns in the debate over the new theory of time, with essays written by many of the most prominent contemporary thinkers in the philosophy of time. There are discussions on the role - or nonrole - of language in determining which theory is true; McTaggart's paradox and the logical difficulties that defenders of the tenseless theory say are inherent in tensed theory; and the nature of our experience of time, which proponents of both theories claim can now be explained. The Preface and the General Introduction to the book set the debate within the wider philosophical context and show why the subject of temporal becoming is a perennial concern of science, religion, language, logic, and the philosophy of mind."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Download or read book Nothing To Come written by Fabrice Correia and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-05-03 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This monograph is a detailed study, and systematic defence, of the Growing Block Theory of time (GBT), first conceived by C.D. Broad. The book offers a coherent, logically perspicuous and ideologically lean formulation of GBT, defends it against the most notorious objections to be found in the extant philosophical literature, and shows how it can be derived from a more general theory, consistent with relativistic spacetime, on the pre-relativistic assumption of an absolute and total temporal order. The authors devise axiomatizations of GBT and its competitors which, against the backdrop of a shared quantified tense logic, significantly improves the prospects of their comparative assessment. Importantly, neither of these axiomatizations involves commitment to properties of presentness, pastness or futurity. The authors proceed to address, and defuse, a number of objections that have been marshaled against GBT, including the so-called epistemic objection according to which the theory invites skepticism about our temporal location. The challenge posed by relativistic physics is met head-on, by replacing claims about temporal variation by claims about variation across spacetime. The book aims to achieve the greatest possible rigor. The background logic is set out in detail, as are the principles governing the notions of precedence and temporal location. The authors likewise devise a novel spacetime logic suited for the articulation, and comparative assessment, of relativistic theories of time. The book comes with three technical appendices which include soundness and completeness proofs for the systems corresponding to GBT and its competitors, in both their pre-relativistic and relativistic forms. The book is primarily directed at researchers and graduate students working on the philosophy of time or temporal logic, but is of interest to metaphysicians and philosophical logicians more generally.

Download or read book The Tensed Theory of Time written by W.L. Craig and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-04-18 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: he present book and its companion volume The Tenseless Theory of Time: a T Critical Examination are an attempt to adjudicate what one recent discussant has called "the most fundamental question in the philosophy of time," namely, "whether a static or a dynamic conception of the world is correct. "! I had originally intended to treat this question in the space of a single volume; but the study swelled into two. I found that an adequate appraisal of these two of time requires a wide-ranging discussion of issues in competing theories metaphysics, philosophy of language, phenomenology, philosophy of science, philosophy of space and time, and even philosophy of religion, and that this simply could not be done in one volume. If these volumes succeed in making a contribution to the debate, it will be precisely because of the synoptic nature of the discussion therein. Too often the question of the nature of time has been prematurely answered by some philosopher or physicist simply because he is largely ignorant of relevant discussions outside his chosen field of expertise. In these two complementary but independent volumes I have attempted to appraise what I take to be the most important arguments drawn from a variety of fields for and against each theory of time.

Download or read book The Janus Point written by Julian Barbour and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2020-12-01 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a universe filled by chaos and disorder, one physicist makes the radical argument that the growth of order drives the passage of time -- and shapes the destiny of the universe. Time is among the universe's greatest mysteries. Why, when most laws of physics allow for it to flow forward and backward, does it only go forward? Physicists have long appealed to the second law of thermodynamics, held to predict the increase of disorder in the universe, to explain this. In The Janus Point, physicist Julian Barbour argues that the second law has been misapplied and that the growth of order determines how we experience time. In his view, the big bang becomes the "Janus point," a moment of minimal order from which time could flow, and order increase, in two directions. The Janus Point has remarkable implications: while most physicists predict that the universe will become mired in disorder, Barbour sees the possibility that order -- the stuff of life -- can grow without bound. A major new work of physics, The Janus Point will transform our understanding of the nature of existence.

Download or read book A Time Traveler s Theory of Relativity written by Nicole Valentine and published by Carolrhoda Books ®. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He believes in science, but only magic can help his mom. Twelve-year-old Finn is used to people in his family disappearing. His twin sister, Faith, drowned when they were three years old. A few months ago, his mom abandoned him and his dad with no explanation. Finn clings to the concrete facts in his physics books—and to his best friend, Gabi—to ward off his sadness. But then his grandmother tells him a secret: the women in their family are Travelers, able to move back and forth in time. Finn's mom is trapped somewhere in the timeline, and she's left Finn a portal to find her. But to succeed, he'll have to put his trust in something bigger than logic. "This is an incredible book, no matter which time universe you're in. I couldn't put it down. One of my favorite debut novels of the year."—Erin Entrada Kelly, New York Times bestselling author and 2018 Newbery Medal winner

Download or read book The Tenseless Theory of Time written by W.L. Craig and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2000-11-30 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The central question in the philosophy of time is whether time is tensed or tenseless, viz., whether the moments of time are objectively past, present or future, or whether they are ordered merely by the tenseless temporal relations earlier than, simultaneous with, and later than. In this book and the companion volume The Tensed Theory of Time: A Critical Examination, Craig undertakes the first thorough appraisal of the arguments for and against the tensed and tenseless theories of time. The discussions range widely over issues in the philosophy of language, phenomenology, relativity theory, philosophy of space and time, metaphysics, and philosophy of religion. The Tenseless Theory of Time sets out to discover whether the ineliminability of tense from language and our experience of tense warrants a belief in its objective ontological status, or whether the defeaters raised by McTaggart's paradox and the Myth of Passage serve to undermine any warrant that the tensed theory of time may be supposed to enjoy.

Download or read book The Emergence of Spacetime in String Theory written by Tiziana Vistarini and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-06-12 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The nature of space and time is one of the most fascinating and fundamental philosophical issues which presently engages at the deepest level with physics. During the last thirty years this notion has been object of an intense critical review in the light of new scientific theories which try to combine the principles of both general relativity and quantum theory—called theories of quantum gravity. This book considers the way string theory shapes its own account of spacetime disappearance from the fundamental level.

Download or read book Relativity written by Albert Einstein and published by Red & Black Pub. This book was released on 2009-01 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The theory of relativity, explained by the greatest mind of the 20th century. Albert Einstein discusses the special and general theories of relativity, and the core concepts of modern cosmology, including time dilation, the spacetime continuum, and the energy-mass relationship, in simple non-mathematical terms.

Download or read book An Experiment with Time written by John William Dunne and published by . This book was released on 1927 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Objective Becoming written by Bradford Skow and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bradford Skow presents an original defense of the 'block universe' theory of time, often said to be a theory according to which time does not pass. Along the way, he provides in-depth discussions of alternative theories of time, including those in which there is 'robust passage' of time or 'objective becoming': presentism, the moving spotlight theory of time, the growing block theory of time, and the 'branching time' theory of time. Skow explains why the moving spotlight theory is the best of these arguments, and rebuts several popular arguments against the thesis that time passes. He surveys the problems that the special theory of relativity has been thought to raise for objective becoming, and suggests ways in which fans of objective becoming may reconcile their view with relativistic physics. The last third of the book aims to clarify and evaluate the argument that we should believe that time passes because, somehow, the passage of time is given to us in experience. He isolates three separate arguments this idea suggests, and explains why they fail.

Download or read book The Moving Spotlight written by Ross P. Cameron and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ross P. Cameron argues that the flow of time is a genuine feature of reality. He suggests that the best version of the A-Theory is a version of the Moving Spotlight view, according to which past and future beings are real, but there is nonetheless an objectively privileged present. Cameron argues that the Moving Spotlight theory should be viewed as having more in common with Presentism (the view that reality is limited to the present) than with the B-Theory (the view that time is just another dimension like space through which things are spread out). The Moving Spotlight view, on this picture, agrees with Presentism that everything is the way it is now, it simply thinks that non-present beings are amongst the things that are now some way. Cameron argues that the Moving Spotlight theory provides the best account of truthmakers for claims about what was or will be the case, and he defends the view against a number of objections, including McTaggart's argument that the A-Theory is inconsistent, and the charge that if the A-Theory is true but presentism false then we could not know that we are present. The Moving Spotlight defends an account of the open future--that what will happen is, as yet, undetermined--and argues that this is a better account than that available to the Growing Block theory.

Download or read book From Eternity to Here written by Sean Carroll and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2010-10-26 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An accessible and engaging exploration of the mysteries of time." -Brian Greene, author of The Elegant Universe Twenty years ago, Stephen Hawking tried to explain time by understanding the Big Bang. Now, Sean Carroll says we need to be more ambitious. One of the leading theoretical physicists of his generation, Carroll delivers a dazzling and paradigm-shifting theory of time's arrow that embraces subjects from entropy to quantum mechanics to time travel to information theory and the meaning of life. From Eternity to Here is no less than the next step toward understanding how we came to exist, and a fantastically approachable read that will appeal to a broad audience of armchair physicists, and anyone who ponders the nature of our world.

Download or read book Time Towards a Consistent Theory written by C.K. Raju and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-03-14 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is time, even locally, like the real line? Multiple structures of time, implicit in physics, create a consistency problem. A tilt in the arrow of time is suggested as the most conservative hypothesis which provides approximate consistency within physics and with topology of mundane time. Mathematically, the assumed constancy of the velocity of light (needed to measure time) implies functional differential equations of motion, that have both retarded and advanced deviating arguments with the hypothesis of a tilt. The novel features of such equations lead to a nontrivial structure of time and quantum-mechanical behaviour. The entire argument is embedded in a pedagogical exposition which amplifies, corrects, and questions the conventionally accepted approach. The exposition includes historical details and explains, for instance, why the entropy law is inadequate for time asymmetry, and why notions such as time asymmetry (hence causality) may be conceptually inadequate. The first three parts of the book are especially suited as supplementary reading material for undergraduate and graduate students and teachers of physics. The new ideas are addressed to researchers in physics and philosophy of science concerned with relativity and the interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Download or read book Change the Arrow of Time and Divine Eternity in Light of Relativity Theory written by Daniel Saudek and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-03-19 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book has two aims; first, to provide a new account of time's arrow in light of relativity theory; second, to explain how God, being eternal, relates to our world, marked as it is by change and time. In part one, Saudek argues that time is not the expansive universal 'wave' that is appears to be, but nor are we living in an unchanging block. Rather, time is real but local: there are infinitely many arrows of time in the universe, each with their own fixed past and open future. This model is based on the ontology of substances which can exist in different states, marked by different properties. On this basis, a derivation of temporal precedence and of the asymmetry between the fixed past and the open future is provided. Time's arrow is thus 'attached' to substances, and is therefore a local rather than global phenomenon, though by no means an illusory or merely subjective one. In part two, this model is then applied to the perennial questions concerning the relationship between divine eternity and the temporal world: How can my future choices be free if God already knows what I will do? Can God act if He is not in time? Through the lens of relativity theory, such questions are shown to appear in a completely new light. The book combines insights from theoretical physics with ancient and contemporary philosophy into a unique synthesis, broaching a wealth of key issues including the arrow of time, the evolution of the cosmos, and a physics-based defence of eternalism in philosophical theology.

Download or read book Duality of Time written by Mohamed Haj Yousef and published by Mohamed Haj Yousef. This book was released on 2018-01-01 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Duality of Time Theory is the result of more than two decades of ceaseless investigation and searching through ancient manuscripts of concealed philosophies and mystical traditions, comparing all that with the fundamental results of modern physics and cosmology, until all the contradicting jigsaw pieces were put together into this brilliant portrait. Without the overwhelming proofs and strong confirmations that accumulated over time, it would have been impossible to pursue this long research path, as it was extremely challenging to appreciate the unfathomable secret of time and the consequences of the ongoing perpetual creation of space, that result from the Single Monad Model of the Cosmos. The complex-time geometry of the Duality of Time Theory explains how the physical dimensions of space are sequentially being re-created in the inner levels of time, which makes the outward time genuinely imaginary with respect to the inner real levels. This is easily expressed in terms of the hyperbolic split-complex numbers, that characterize the Relativistic Lorentzian Symmetry. This will have deep implications because space-time has become naturally quantized in a way that explains and unites all the three principles of Relativity, leading to full Quantum Field Theory of Gravity, as well as explaining all the other fundamental interactions in terms of the new granular space-time geometry. This ultimate unification will solve many persisting problems in physics and cosmology. The homogeneity problem, for example, will instantly cease, since the Universe, no matter how large it could be, is re-created sequentially in the inner time, so all the states are updated and synchronized before they appear in the outer level that we encounter. Furthermore, the Duality of Time does not only unify all the fundamental interactions in terms of its genuinely-complex time-time geometry, but it unifies this whole physical world with the two other even more fundamental domains of the psychical and spiritual worlds. All these three conclusive and complementary realms are constructed on the same concept of space-time geometry that together form one single absolute and perfectly symmetrical space. This particular subject is treated at length in the Third Volume of this book series - the Ultimate Symmetry, which explores how the apparent physical and metaphysical multiplicity is emerging from the absolute Oneness of Divine Presence, descending through four fundamental levels of symmetry: ultimate, hyper, super and normal. Among many other astonishing consequences, this astounding conclusion means that the psychical world is composed of atoms and molecules that are identical with the physical world except that they are evolving in orthogonal time direction. It may appear initially impossible to believe how the incorporeal worlds may have the same atomic structure as the physical world, but it is more appropriate to say that physical structures are eventually incorporeal, because they become various wave phenomena and energy interactions as soon as we dive into their microscopic level, as it is now confirmed by Quantum Field Theories. In the Duality of Time Theory, since rigid space is created sequentially in the inner time, energy may become negative, imaginary and even multidimensional, which simply means that all things in creation are various kinds of energy moments that are spreading on different intersecting dimensions of time; so not only mass and energy are equivalent, but also charge and all other physical and metaphysical entities are interconvertible types of energy, including consciousness and information.

Download or read book The Theory of Space Time and Gravitation written by V. Fock and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2015-08-11 with total page 461 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Theory of Space, Time, and Gravitation, 2nd Revised Edition focuses on Relativity Theory and Einstein's Theory of Gravitation and correction of the misinterpretation of the Einsteinian Gravitation Theory. The book first offers information on the theory of relativity and the theory of relativity in tensor form. Discussions focus on comparison of distances and lengths in moving reference frames; comparison of time differences in moving reference frames; position of a body in space at a given instant in a fixed reference frame; and proof of the linearity of the transformation linking two inertial frames. The text then ponders on general tensor analysis, including permissible transformations for space and time coordinates, parallel transport of a vector, covariant differentiation, and basic properties of the curvature tensor. The publication examines the formulation of relativity theory in arbitrary coordinates and principles of the theory of gravitation. Topics include equations of mathematical physics in arbitrary coordinates; integral form of the conservation laws in arbitrary coordinates; variational principle and the energy tensor; and comparison with the statement of the problem in Newtonian theory. The manuscript is a dependable reference for readers interested in the theory of space, time, and gravitation.

Download or read book The Unreality of Time written by John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart and published by Good Press. This book was released on 2020-12-08 with total page 29 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Unreality of Time is a philosophical work by the idealist J. M. E. McTaggart. This work is a phenomenological study of the appearance of time and it's effects in scientific thinking.