The Branch System Hypothesis: A Critique

S. C. Schwarze

A chapter in The Study of Time IV, 1981, pp 213-222 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract The relation of entropy to temporal direction and temporal anisotropy has been a persistent, nagging problem to both scientists and philosophers. Since the advent of statistical mechanics, which revealed the temporal symmetry of the microphenomena thought to underlie the temporally asymmetric macrophenomena of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, there have been a number of puzzles, including whether or not entropy, increasing or decreasing, 1 tells us anything at all about time. Adolf Grünbaum has been one of the foremost proponents of a connection between entropy and time, claiming that his branch system hypothesis describes a temporally asymmetric entropy increase which confers anisotropy on (at least) the present temporal epoch. 2

Keywords: Randomness Condition; Entropy State; Thermodynamic System; Temporal Direction; Temporal Anisotropy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1981
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-1-4612-5947-3_17

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DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4612-5947-3_17

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