The Asymmetry of Retrodictability and Predictability, the Compossibility of Explanation of the Past and Prediction of the Future, and Mechanism vs. Teleology

DEATH

Think ◽

10.1017/s1477175613000237 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 12 (35) ◽

pp. 101-108

Author(s):

Clement Dore

Keyword(s):

Derek Parfit ◽

Thomas Nagel ◽

Rational Person ◽

The Past ◽

The Future ◽

The Asymmetry ◽

The Way

In the final chapter of his book, The View from Nowhere, the American philosopher, Thomas Nagel, writes as follows about death:We do not regard the period before we were born in the same way we regard the prospect of death, yet most of the things that can be said about death are equally true of the former. Lucretius thought this showed that it was a mistake to regard death as an evil. But I believe it is an example of a more general future-past asymmetry... [Derek] Parfit has explored the asymmetry in connection with other values such as... pain. The fact that a pain (of ours) is in prospect rather than in the past has a very great effect on our attitude toward it, and this effect cannot be regarded as irrational... [the former asymmetry] can't be accounted for in terms of some other difference between past and future nonexistence, any more than the asymmetry in the case of pain can be accounted for in terms of some other differences between past and future pains, which makes the latter worse than the former.Nagel is maintaining in this quote that it is rational for a person to view pains which he is apt to experience in the future in a manner different from the way in which he views pains which he has experienced in the past. Nagel is saying that it is rational for a person to think of his future pains as more undesirable than his past ones. And Nagel claims that there is a similar asymmetry between a rational person's attitude towards a past in which he did not exist and a time in the future when he will not exist. In Nagel's view, just as a rational person will think of pains which he will experience as more undesirable than pains which he had in the past, he will think of his not existing in the future as much more undesirable than his not having existed in the past.

Download Full-text

The arrow of time in operational formulations of quantum theory

Quantum ◽

10.22331/q-2021-08-09-520 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 5 ◽

pp. 520

Author(s):

Andrea Di Biagio ◽

Pietro Donà ◽

Carlo Rovelli

Keyword(s):

Quantum Theory ◽

Time Orientation ◽

Implicit Assumption ◽

Arrow Of Time ◽

Mathematical Objects ◽

The Past ◽

The Future ◽

The Asymmetry ◽

The Difference

The operational formulations of quantum theory are drastically time oriented. However, to the best of our knowledge, microscopic physics is time-symmetric. We address this tension by showing that the asymmetry of the operational formulations does not reflect a fundamental time-orientation of physics. Instead, it stems from built-in assumptions about the users of the theory. In particular, these formalisms are designed for predicting the future based on information about the past, and the main mathematical objects contain implicit assumption about the past, but not about the future. The main asymmetry in quantum theory is the difference between knowns and unknowns.

Download Full-text

ASIMMETRY AND SIMMETRY OF TIME AND THEIR VALUE IN PSYCHOTERAPHY

Main Issues Of Pedagogy And Psychology ◽

10.24234/miopap.v14i2.60 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 14 (2) ◽

pp. 56-69

Author(s):

L. Dorfman

Keyword(s):

Psychological Disorders ◽

Temporal Distance ◽

Relative Time ◽

The Past ◽

Different Types ◽

The Future ◽

Flow Of Time ◽

The Asymmetry ◽

Temporal Symmetry

Asymmetry and symmetry of time are examined as related to three issues. First is the flow of time. Second is its reversibility and third- the temporal distance between the present and the past, the present and the future. The theory of presentism which rejects the flow of time in past and future is questioned. Of particular importance in respect to the asymmetry and symmetry of time is the notion of reversibility. Very likely, one should think a relative time can be reversed and possess a temporal symmetry. Psychotherapeutic case shows that different types ofviolations ofreversibility ofpsychological time are the cause of different types of psychological disorders.

Download Full-text

Ukrainian ‘Working through the Past’ in the Context of the Polish–Ukrainian Dialogue on Volhynia-43. Asymmetry of Memory

European Review ◽

10.1017/s1062798720000538 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-13

Author(s):

Julia Rysicz-Szafraniec

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

Historical Memory ◽

Political Leaders ◽

Nationalist Party ◽

Political Discourses ◽

The Past ◽

Working Through ◽

The Future ◽

The Asymmetry ◽

Main Component

The modern Polish–Ukrainian dialogue is the second interstate dialogue of the twentieth century, in the development of which the historical and political discourses have played an important role. The so-called Volhynia discourse poses the most serious challenge in this dialogue, while at the same time being its main component. The article claims the Volhynia discourse plays a major role in bringing about the asymmetry of historical memory between the two states. The events of Volhynia-43 have remained in Polish historical memory as an act of genocide perpetrated in 1941–1943 by Ukrainian nationalists, mainly from the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), on over 100,000 Poles and citizens of the Polish state inhabiting Galicia and Eastern Małopolska, including Volhynia. These territories, considered by the Ukrainian nationalist party OUN as indigenously Ukrainian, were to be included in the future independent Ukrainian state. The Ukrainian historiography, apart from sparse exceptions, avoids the term ‘massacre’ and ‘genocide’ in reference to the events in Volhynia, defining them as a conflict or a Polish–Ukrainian war with a comparable number of casualties on both sides. The article, analysing speeches and announcements by political leaders of Poland and Ukraine, focuses on explaining the causes and effects of this shift in accentuation in the Ukrainian discourse on Volhynia, and, broadly, in Ukraine working through its past.

Download Full-text

On the asymmetry of the past and the future of the ergodic ℤ-action

Mathematical Notes ◽

10.1134/s0001434614030158 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 95 (3-4) ◽

pp. 438-440

Author(s):

I. S. Yaroslavtsev

Keyword(s):

The Past ◽

The Future ◽

The Asymmetry

Download Full-text

Entropy and the Direction of Time

Entropy ◽

10.3390/e23040388 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 23 (4) ◽

pp. 388

Author(s):

Jerzy Gołosz

Keyword(s):

Physical Theory ◽

Scientific Research ◽

Open Future ◽

The Past ◽

The Future ◽

Research Programmes ◽

Future Events ◽

Alternative Approaches ◽

The Open Future ◽

The Asymmetry

The paper tries to demonstrate that the process of the increase of entropy does not explain the asymmetry of time itself because it is unable to account for its fundamental asymmetries, that is, the asymmetry of traces (we have traces of the past and no traces of the future), the asymmetry of causation (we have an impact on future events with no possibility of having an impact on the past), and the asymmetry between the fixed past and the open future, To this end, the approaches of Boltzmann, Reichenbach (and his followers), and Albert are analysed. It is argued that we should look for alternative approaches instead of this, namely we should consider a temporally asymmetrical physical theory or seek a source of the asymmetry of time in metaphysics. This second approach may even turn out to be complementary if only we accept that metaphysics can complement scientific research programmes.

Download Full-text