What makes time special? / Craig Callender.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Callender, Craig, 1968- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Time--Philosophy.

Time.

Physical Description:

xvii, 343 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2017.

Summary:

As we navigate through life we instinctively model time as having a flowing present that divides a fixed past from open future. This model develops in childhood and is deeply saturated within our language, thought and behavior, affecting our conceptions of the universe, freedom and the self. Yet as central as it is to our lives, physics seems to have no room for this flowing present. This book demonstrates this claim in detail and then turns to two novel positive tasks. First, by looking at the world in the spatial directions it shows that physics is not 'spatializing time' as is commonly alleged. Second, if the flowing present is an illusion, it is a deep one worthy of explanation. The author develops a picture whereby the temporal flow arises as an interaction effect between an observer and the physics of the world. Using insights from philosophy, cognitive science, biology, psychology and physics, the theory claims that the flowing present model of time is the natural reaction to the perceptual and evolutionary challenges thrown at us. Modeling time as flowing makes sense even if it misrepresents it.

Contents:

1 The Problem of Time 1

1.1 Manifest Time 4

1.1.1 Now 7

1.1.2 Flow 10

1.1.3 Past/Future asymmetry 12

1.1.4 Is manifest time universal? 14

1.2 Physical Time 19

1.2.1 No manitest time 20

1.2.2 What makes time special? 22

1.3 The "Two Times" Problem 23

1.4 From There to Here 26

2 Lost Time: Relativity Theory 31

2.1 Classical Physics 31

2.1.1 Recovering space and time 34

2.1.2 Classical ideal clocks and manifest time 37

2.1.3 Trautman-Cartan theory 40

2.2 Relativity 42

2.3 Where's Time? 49

2.4 Minkowski Spacetime 52

2.5 Lorentzian Time 57

2.6 Outside Minkowski: Domes, Donuts, and Diamonds 59

2.7 Conclusion 66

3 Tearing Spacetime Asunder 67

3.1 Cauchy Time 67

3.2 "Unique" Time Functions 72

3.3 Time, Stuff, and Laws 76

3.4 Conclusion 80

4 Quantum Becoming? 81

4.1 Quantum Mechanics 82

4.2 Popper's Experiments Crucis 84

4.2.1 Quantum preferred frames and time 89

4.2.2 Caveats and alternatives 89

4.2.3 The coordination problem 90

4.3 Quantum Becoming via Collapses? 94

4.4 Conclusion 96

5 Intimations of Quantum Gravitational Time 98

5.1 The Best of Times: "Asynchronous Becoming" in Causal Sets 99

5.1.1 The basic kinematics of CST 100

5.1.2 Taking growth seriously 103

5.2 The Worst of Times: Disappearing Time in Canonical Quantum Gravity 110

5.2.1 Semiclassical time 112

5.2.2 Justifying the approximations 116

5.3 Conclusion 118

6 The Differences Between Time and Space 119

6.1 The Project Reconceived 120

6.2 Time in Physics 122

6.2.1 The metric 122

6.2.2 Dimensionality 126

6.2.3 Mobility asymmetry 130

6.2.4 Direction of time 132

6.2.5 Natural kind asymmetry 133

6.3 The Fragmentation of Time 135

6.4 Conclusion 137

7 Laws, Systems, and Time 138

7.1 System Laws and Time 140

7.2 Time is the Great Informer 142

7.3 Binding Time 144

7.3.1 One-dimensionality 144

7.3.2 Closed timelike curves 145

7.3.3 The direction of time 148

7.3.4 Natural kind asymmetry 148

7.4 Metaphysical Variations 149

7.5 Questions and Connections 153

7.6 Conclusion 156

8 Looking at the World Sideways 157

8.1 Strength and Well-posed Cauchy Problem 158

8.2 The Worlds 164

8.3 Proposal 166

8.4 The Argument 167

8.5 Illustration 170

8.6 Is It Time? 171

8.7 Turning Pages in Non-temporal Direction 173

8.7.1 Pages of light 174

8.7.2 Pages of time 177

8.8 Conclusion 179

9 Do We Experience the Present? 180

9.1 Metaphysics of Time 181

9.2 The Problem of the Presence of Experience 182

9.3 The Temporal Knowledge Argument 185

9.4 From Metaphysics to Psychology: Perceived Synchrony 189

9.4.1 Temporal ventriloquism 193

9.4.2 Temporal recalibration 194

9.4.3 Comments 196

9.5 Interlude: Measuring Subjective Simultaneity 197

9.6 Exploding the Now 201

9.7 Does Synchrony Pop Out? 203

9.8 Conclusion 205

10 Stuck in the Common Now 206

10.1 Disagreement and the Case of PH 210

10.2 Manufacturing the Now: Signals, Speed, and Stamps 213

10.2.1 Time stamps not needed 213

10.2.2 The common now 217

10.3 Wiggling in Time vs Wiggling in Space 221

10.4 Conclusion 223

11 The Flow of Time: Stitching the World Together 226

11.1 Sharpening Focus 228

11.2 Meet IGUS 231

11.3 Getting IGUS Stuck in Time 234

11.4 Outfitting IGUS 237

11.4.1 Sensing motion and change 238

11.4.2 Specious present 240

11.4.3 Felt duration 242

11.5 Memories and Flow 243

11.6 The Enduring Witness 247

11.7 From Flowing Selves to Animated Time 252

11.8 Temporal Decentering and the Self 255

11.9 The Acting Self 259

11.10 The Explanation of Passage 261

11.11 Conclusion 262

12 Explaining the Temporal Value Asymmetry 264

12.1 "Thank Goodness That's Over" 266

12.2 The Proximal/Distant Asymmetry 270

12.3 The Humean Solution 272

12.4 The Knowledge Asymmetry 274

12.5 The Affect Asymmetry 275

12.6 Explaining the PF Asymmetry 279

12.7 Other Temporal Biases 282

12.8 Explaining Other Time Biases 285

12.9 Conclusion 288

13 Moving Past the ABCs of Time 290

13.1 Analytic Philosophy of Time: A Potted and Biased History 290

13.2 The Explanatory Challenge 294

13.2 The ABCs of Physics 300

13.4 Eliminating Tense? 302

13.5 Conclusion 303

14 Putting It All Together 304

14.1 Common Structure 305

14.2 A Unified Flowing Now 306

14.3 Animals 309

14.4 An Illusion? 310

14.5 Conclusion 311.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version : Callender, Craig. What makes time special?.

ISBN:

0198797303

9780198797302

OCLC:

964379370