Three Concepts of Time - Brossura

Denbigh, Kenneth G.

Brossura

ISBN 10: 3540107576 ISBN 13: 9783540107576

Casa editrice: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 1981

Riassunto

The existence of so many strangely puzzling, even contradictory, aspects of 'time' is due, I think, to the fact that we obtain our ideas about temporal succession from more than one source - from inner experience, on the one side, and from the physical world on the other. 'Time' is thus a composite notion and as soon as we distinguish clearly between the ideas deriving from the different sources it becomes apparent that there is not just one time-concept but several. Perhaps they should be called variants, but in any case they need to be seen as distinct. In this book I shall aim at characteri­ sing what I believe to be the three most basic of them. These form a sort of hierarchy of increasing richness, but diminishing symmetry. Any adequate inquiry into 'time' is necessarily partly scientific and partly philosophical. This creates a difficulty since what may be elementary reading to scientists may not be so to philosophers, and vice versa. For this reason I have sought to present the book at a level which is less 'advanced' than that of a specialist monograph. Due to my own background there is an inevitable bias towards the scientific aspects oftime. Certainly the issues I have taken up are very diffe­ rent from those discussed in several recent books on the subject by philoso­ phers.

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Contenuti

I. Time as a Many-Tiered Construct.- 1. The Problem Situation.- § 1. Introduction.- § 2. Constancy and Change.- § 3. Natural Processes.- 2. The Objectivity1 of Time.- § 1. Introduction.- § 2. A Minimum Vocabulary of Temporal Words.- § 3. Temporal Experience.- § 4. The Temporal Order.- §5. The Measurement of Time.- 3. The Objectivity2 of Time.- § 1. Introduction.- §2. Instants.- § 3. The Causal Theory and ‘Betweenness’.- § 4. The Objective2 Temporal Order as Based on ‘Later than’.- § 5. Is the Criterion of § 4 Adequate?.- § 6. Objective2 Time and Relativity.- § 7. Conclusion.- 4. The Problem of ‘The Present’.- § 1. The Awareness of the Present.- § 2. The A- and B-theories.- § 3. A Dialogue.- § 4. Can Quantum Theory be of any Assistance?.- § 5. The Coordinatization of Time.- § 6. A Naturalistic Viewpoint.- II. Temporal Processes.- 5. The Interplay of Chance and Causality.- § 1. Introduction.- §2. ‘Causes’.- § 3. Predictive Determinism.- § 4. Ontological Determinism.- § 5. The Time Factor.- § 6. ‘Chance’.- §7. The Amplification of Micro-Events.- 6. Thermodynamics and the Temporal Asymmetries.- § 1. Introduction.- § 2. T-Invariant Theories.- § 3. Does Entropy Change Demonstrate Temporal Anisotropy?.- § 4. Outwards Flow and Causality.- §5. Cosmological Theories.- §6. Other Asymmetries.- § 7. Conclusion.- 7. Temporal Ongoings in Biology.- § 1. Introduction.- §2. Reconciliation with Reductionism.- §3. Chance and the Organism.- § 4. What is Meant by ‘Organized’.- § 5. A Speculation About Life’s Ongoings.- 8. Time and Consciousness.- § 1. Introduction.- § 2. The Unity of Consciousness.- § 3. The Irreversibility of Mental Processes.- § 4. The Significance of Chance Events in Mental Activity.- §5. Levels of Description.- § 6. End-piece.- References.

Dettagli dell'edizione

• Editore: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
• Data di pubblicazione: 1981
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 3540107576
• ISBN 13: 9783540107576
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero edizione: 1
• Numero di pagine: 192
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
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