Images of time : mind, science, reality / George Jaroszkiewicz.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jaroszkiewicz, George, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Time--Mathematical models.

Time.

Metaphysics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (323 p.)

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2016.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This book reviews a great range of Images of Time, that is, theories of time, from a diversity of perspectives: historical, religious, biological, mathematical and scientific. It trains the reader to develop a critical ability to distinguish those Images of Time that are metaphysical and those that could in principle be put to empirical test.

Contents:

Cover; Preface; Contents; 1 Introduction; Plan of this book; What is time?; Paradigms; Events in time; Temporal ordering and time labels; The contextuality of temporal ordering; Arrows of time; Arrows versus cycles; 2 Observers and time; Introduction; Metaphysics, physics, and validation; Observers and the physical universe; The contextuality of scientific truth; Contextual completeness; Time and contextuality; The contextuality of the existential quantifier; Primary observers; Experiments; Heisenberg cuts; Generalized propositions; 3 Subjective images of time; The Greeks; The dogmatists

The scepticsThe Age of Reason; The classical mechanists; The metaphysicists; The mathematical physicists; 4 Cultural images of time; Cosmogony and theogony; Stone Age calendars; The Mesopotamians; The Middle East; The Europeans; Eastern philosophies; Australian Aboriginal concepts of time; The Central Americans; The Far East; 5 Literary images of time; Introduction; Literary varieties; 6 Objective images of time; Introduction; Optics; Other factors; Time in the laboratory; Laboratory frames and observer choruses; Chorus protocol; Superobservers; 7 Mathematical images of time; Introduction

Some reasonable requirementsSets; Temporal ordering and ordered sets; Functions and the mathematical arrow of time; Cardinality; The natural numbers; Linear continua; Further concepts; 8 Illusionary images of time; The Block Universe; Persistence and transtemporal identity; The problem of time in cosmology; 9 Causal images of time; Introduction; Causality; Blame and responsibility; Determinism and known unknowns; Teleology; Chaos; 10 Physics and time; Physics and persistence; Scales of time; 11 Biological time; Introduction; The solar model; Lifetimes of organisms; Chronobiology

Biological time travel12 The dimensions of time; Introduction; Partial differential equations and the flow of information; The signature of spacetime; Empirical studies; 13 The architecture of time; What is temporal architecture?; Examples of temporal architectures; Architectural levels of observation; 14 Absolute time; Introduction; Clocks; The reparametrization of time; Absolute space; Aristotelian space-time versus Galilean-Newtonian space-time; Particle worldlines; The Newtonian mechanical paradigm; The Euler-Lagrange mechanical paradigm; Phase space; Canonical transformation theory

Infinitesimal transformations15 The reparametrization of time; Introduction; Temporal parametrization; Temporal reparametrization; Action integrals; Temporal reparametrization in detail; Reparametrization form invariance; The extended equations of motion; Transformation to phase space; Reparametrized primary identity; 16 Origins of relativity; Inertial frames; The speed of light and Galilean transformations; The Michelson-Morley experiment; FitzGerald length contraction; Derivation of FitzGerald length contraction; FitzGerald time dilation; Lorentz transformations; 17 Special relativity

Lorentz transformations

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

0-19-102792-8

0-19-178755-8

OCLC:

953455830