Webermann, Michael
(2013)
About a Causal Theory of Time.
[Preprint]
Abstract
In this article I try to once again endorse absolute time into the Philosophy of Physics. The way I endorse absolute time is quite natural and as far as I know is new in debate (c.f. 1CThe fate of presentism in modern Physics 1D Wuthrich 2011 [33]). If a manifold is stable causal one could provide it with a global time function f(p) by intergating the entropy production over the chronological past of the event p. Time, thus defined, is coordinate independent and does not depend on the status of motion of any observer. This idea is based on a theorem and its proof given by Hawking and Ellis in 1973 [16]. However, I am not a presentist, but I do think that we know something about the world of 1Cnoumena 1D from physics (mainly from quantum mechanics and quantum field theory), even if I do not know exactly what. In this article I start with a discussion of special relativity giving emphasis to its constraints towards coordinate systems which are dropped in general relativity. In GR the space-time is a manifold of events, but without the notion of absolute time. After presenting this point of view I repeat Kant 19s theory about how our mind structures the manifold of events. I believe that one could match Kantian metaphysics more or less as well with non-equilibrium thermodynamics as with mechanics, like he
did himself. However, unlike Kant, I match causality with the flow of entropy and not with the flow of impulse. I consider this to be a new idea around causality.
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