The Asymmetric Nature of Time: Accounting for the Open Future and the Fixed Past

ISBN-13: 9783031097621 / Angielski / Twarda / 2022

Vincent Grandjean

Opis

This open access monograph offers a detailed study and a systematic defense of a key intuition we typically have, as human beings, with respect to the nature of time: the intuition that the future is open, whereas the past is fixed. For example, whereas it seems unsettled whether there will be a fourth world war, it is settled that there was a first world war.
The book contributes, in particular, three major and original insights. First, it provides a coherent, non-metaphorical, and metaphysically illuminating elucidation of the intuition. Second, it determines which model of the temporal structure of the world is most appropriate to accommodate the intuition, and settles on a specific version of the Growing Block Theory of time (GBT). Third, it puts forward a naturalistic foundation for GBT, by exploiting recent results of our best physics (viz. General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and Quantum Gravity).Three main challenges are addressed: the dismissal of temporal asymmetries as non-fundamental phenomena only (e.g., thermodynamic or causal phenomena), the epistemic objection against GBT, and the apparent tension between GBT and relativistic physics. It is argued that the asymmetry between the open future and the fixed past must be grounded in the temporal structure of the world, and that this is neither precluded by our epistemic device, nor by the latest approaches to Quantum Gravity (​e.g., the Causal Set Theory).Aiming at reconciling time as we find it in ordinary experience and time as physics describes it, this ​innovative book ​will raise the interest of both academic researchers and ​graduate students working on the philosophy of time. More generally, it ​presents contents of interest for all metaphysicians and non-dogmatic philosophers of physics.
This is an open access book.

Spis treści

1. Introduction

1.1. Metaphysics of Time: The Science of Reconciliation

1.2. A Temporal Asymmetry: The Open Future and the Fixed Past

1.3. Three main Desiderata

2. How is the Asymmetry between the Open Future and the Fixed Past to be characterized?

2.1. Introduction

2.2. The Failure of Bivalence

2.3. A Reflection of our Ignorance

2.4. The Anthropocentric Attempt

2.5. Physical Indeterminism

2.6. Counterfactual Dependence

2.7. Metaphysical Indeterminacy

2.8. The Branching Future

2.9. No Future!

2.10. Conclusion

3. A Model for the Asymmetry

3.1. Introduction

3.2. The McTaggartian Picture

3.3. Complaining about the McTaggartian Picture

3.4. The McTaggartian Picture revisited

3.5. The Growing Block Theory of Time (GBT)

3.6. A Skeptical Challenge for GBT

3.7. Three Unsatisfactory Attempts to meet the Skeptical Challenge

3.8. An Anti-Essentialist Picture of Kinds

3.9. Bare Particulars to the Rescue of GBT

3.10. The Virtues of Bareness

3.11. Conclusion

4. Reconciling the Asymmetry with Contemporary Physics

4.1. Introduction

4.2. (Neo-)Newtonian Basics

4.3. The Relativity Revolution

4.4. Relativity as a Threat to GBT

4.5. Beyond Special Relativity

4.6. Quantum Gravity and the Revival of Temporal Becoming

4.7. Reconciling GBT with Science-Fiction: The Case of Time-Travel

4.8. Conclusion

5. Conclusion

5.1. An attempt at Reconciliation

5.2. The Summary of the Results

5.3. Future Directions

Bibliography

O autorze

Vincent ​Grandjean is a postdoc researcher at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Oxford, with a SNSF Postdoc.Mobility Fellowship. He also works as a lecturer at the Institute of Philosophy of the University of Neuchâtel, where he has taught on a variety of topics (e.g., logic, philosophy of time, paradoxes, personal identity, ethics).

Vincent Grandjean received his BA in philosophy and history (Excellence Award), and his MA in philosophy and comparative history (Werner Günter Award) from the University of Neuchâtel. As a student of the École Normale Supérieure of Paris (international selection), he also obtained the diploma of the ENS and a second MA in contemporary philosophy from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. In April 2021, he received his PhD in philosophy (High honours, with unanimous jury congratulations) from the University of Geneva for his dissertation ‘The Asymmetric Nature of Time’.

Vincent Grandjean has published articles in various peer-reviewed journals (e.g., Philosophia (2022), Synthese (2012a, 2021b), and Minds and Machines (2021c).

Blurb

This open access monograph offers a detailed study and a systematic defense of a key intuition we typically have, as human beings, with respect to the nature of time: the intuition that the future is open, whereas the past is fixed. For example, whereas it seems unsettled whether there will be a fourth world war, it is settled that there was a first world war.

The book contributes, in particular, three major and original insights. First, it provides a coherent, non-metaphorical, and metaphysically illuminating elucidation of the intuition. Second, it determines which model of the temporal structure of the world is most appropriate to accommodate the intuition, and settles on a specific version of the Growing Block Theory of time (GBT). Third, it puts forward a naturalistic foundation for GBT, by exploiting recent results of our best physics (viz. General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and Quantum Gravity).

Three main challenges are addressed: the dismissal of temporal asymmetries as non-fundamental phenomena only (e.g., thermodynamic or causal phenomena), the epistemic objection against GBT, and the apparent tension between GBT and relativistic physics. It is argued that the asymmetry between the open future and the fixed past must be grounded in the temporal structure of the world, and that this is neither precluded by our epistemic device, nor by the latest approaches to Quantum Gravity (​e.g., the Causal Set Theory).

Aiming at reconciling time as we find it in ordinary experience and time as physics describes it, this ​innovative book ​will raise the interest of both academic researchers and ​graduate students working on the philosophy of time. More generally, it ​presents contents of interest for all metaphysicians and non-dogmatic philosophers of physics.