more on this theme     |     more from this thinker

Single Idea 23010

[filed under theme 27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / g. Time's arrow ]

Full Idea

An option for accounting for the direction of time would be to appeal to the direction of causation …to the future is the direction towards which there are effects, and the past is the direction towards which there are causes.

Gist of Idea

We could explain time's direction by causation: past is the direction of causes, future of effects

Source

Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 5.6.2)

Book Ref

Baron,S/Miller,K: 'Introduction to the Philosophy of Time' [Polity 2019], p.142

A Reaction

The obvious problem is that we can no longer pick out a cause by saying it 'precedes' its effect. It is not obvious what other criterion can be used to distinguish them (esp. given Hume's regularity account).

The 36 ideas from 'Intro to the Philosophy of Time'

22986 The C-series rejects A and B, and just sees times as order by betweenness, without direction [Baron/Miller]
22987 The past (unlike the future) is fixed, along with truths about it, by the existence of past objects [Baron/Miller]
22989 Static time theory presents change as one property at t1, and a different property at t2 [Baron/Miller]
22988 The block universe theory says entities of all times exist, and time is the B-series [Baron/Miller]
22990 The moving spotlight says entities can have properties of being present, past or future [Baron/Miller]
22991 How can we know this is the present moment, if other times are real? [Baron/Miller]
22992 If we are actually in the past then we shouldn't experience time passing [Baron/Miller]
22994 Erzatz Presentism allows the existence of other times, with only the present 'actualised' [Baron/Miller]
22993 For abstractionists past times might still exist, althought their objects don't [Baron/Miller]
22995 Most of the sciences depend on the concept of time [Baron/Miller]
22996 The A-series has to treat being past, present or future as properties [Baron/Miller]
22997 The present moment is a matter of existence, not of acquiring a property [Baron/Miller]
22998 How do presentists explain relations between things existing at different times? [Baron/Miller]
22999 It is meaningless to measure the rate of time using time itself, and without a rate there is no flow [Baron/Miller]
23000 Vicious regresses force you to another level; non-vicious imply another level [Baron/Miller]
23001 The error theory of time's passage says it is either a misdescription or a false inference [Baron/Miller]
23002 In relativity space and time depend on one's motion, but spacetime gives an invariant metric [Baron/Miller]
23003 Static theories cannot account for time's obvious asymmetry, so time must be dynamic [Baron/Miller]
23004 The direction of time is either primitive, or reducible to something else [Baron/Miller]
23005 The kaon does not seem to be time-reversal invariant, unlike the rest of nature [Baron/Miller]
23006 Maybe the past is just the direction of decreasing entropy [Baron/Miller]
23007 The B-series can have a direction, as long as it does not arise from temporal flow [Baron/Miller]
23008 Grounding is intended as a relation that fits dependences between things [Baron/Miller]
23009 There is no second 'law' of thermodynamics; it just reflects probabilities of certain microstates [Baron/Miller]
23010 We could explain time's direction by causation: past is the direction of causes, future of effects [Baron/Miller]
23011 Modern accounts of causation involve either processes or counterfactuals [Baron/Miller]
23013 The main process theory of causation says it is transference of mass, energy, momentum or charge [Baron/Miller]
23014 If causes are processes, what is causation by omission? (Distinguish legal from scientific causes?) [Baron/Miller]
23015 The counterfactual theory of causation handles the problem no matter what causes actually are [Baron/Miller]
23016 Counterfactual theories struggle with pre-emption by a causal back-up system [Baron/Miller]
23017 Presentism needs endurantism, because other theories imply most of the object doesn't exist [Baron/Miller]
23018 How does a changing object retain identity or have incompatible properties over time? [Baron/Miller]
23020 If a time traveller kills his youthful grandfather, he both exists and fails to exist [Baron/Miller]
23022 Presentism means there no existing past for a time traveller to visit [Baron/Miller]
23023 How can presentists move to the next future moment, if that doesn't exist? [Baron/Miller]
23024 A traveller takes a copy of a picture into the past, gives it the artist, who then creates the original! [Baron/Miller]