Peterson, Daniel (2017) Do Time-Asymmetric Laws call for Time-Asymmetric Spacetime Structure? [Preprint]

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Abstract

Many philosophers of physics take the failure of the laws of physics to be invariant under the time reversal transformation to give us good reason to think that spacetime is temporally anisotropic, yet the details of this inference are rarely made explicit. I discuss two reasonable ways of filling in the details of this inference, the first of which utilizes a symmetry principle proposed by John Earman and the second of which utilizes Harvey Brown’s account of spacetime. I contend that neither of the resulting arguments is sound.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Peterson, Daniel dan.james.peterson@gmail.com
Keywords:	Philosophy of physics, spacetime metaphysics, direction of time, symmetries, laws of nature
Subjects:	General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory Specific Sciences > Physics > Symmetries/Invariances
Depositing User:	Daniel Peterson
Date Deposited:	15 Jul 2017 14:25
Last Modified:	15 Jul 2017 14:25
Item ID:	13204
Official URL:	http://www.disputatio.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/...
Subjects:	General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory Specific Sciences > Physics > Symmetries/Invariances
Date:	2017
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/13204

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