Journal of Consciousness Studies
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Why Now?

The Arrow of Time

Huw Price, School of Philosophy, University of Sydney

In a recent posting, Stuart Hameroff recommends "The Arrow of Time" by Peter Coveney and Roger Highfield. I'd like to add a note of caution: it is a lively and accessible book, but in my view it is misleading about some of the crucial issues. For example, it confuses the issue of determinism/indeterminism with that of time asymmetry. (Its Brussels School approach to the problem of time-asymmetry is partly to blame, I think.) I explained my misgivings in my review of the book for Nature (348, 1990, p. 356).

Hameroff also mentions Penrose's view of the issue as to whether time's arrow would reverse in a recollapsing universe. I have some reservations about this, too. I don't think Penrose quite manages to avoid a fallacy which often characterises discussion about time-asymmetry in physics: roughly, that of applying statistical reasoning in one direction of time but not the other, without justifying the double standard. For details, see my 'Cosmology, time's arrow and that old double standard', in Savitt, S. (ed.), "Time's Arrows Today", CUP, 1995, pp. 66-94, or chapter 4 of my "Time's Arrow and Archimedes' Point: New Directions for the Physics of Time", OUP, NY, 1996 (jacket blurb, table of contents and chapter 1 available at above link). My book also offers a very different perspective from that of Hameroff and Penrose on the relationship between time-asymmetry and the interpretation of QM, which may be of interest to some readers of this list.


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