Time's arrow & Archimedes' point: new directions for the physics of time

Title ......Page 3
Copyright ......Page 4
Dedication ......Page 5
Preface ......Page 7
Contents ......Page 11
1 The View from Nowhen ......Page 17
Outline of the book ......Page 19
Remarks on style ......Page 25
The stock philosophical debates about time ......Page 26
The arrows of time ......Page 30
The puzzle of origins ......Page 31
2 \"More Apt to Be Lost than Got\": The Lessons of the Second Law ......Page 36
Irreversibility discovered: Newton to Boltzmann ......Page 37
The reversibility objection I ......Page 41
Entropy as probability ......Page 43
The reversibility objection II ......Page 45
Boltzmann\'s symmetric view ......Page 46
Do we need to explain why entropy increases? ......Page 51
The role of the H-theorem ......Page 54
Does chaos theory make a difference? ......Page 57
Branch systems ......Page 58
Could entropy eventually decrease? ......Page 60
Summary ......Page 61
3 New Light on the Arrow of Radiation ......Page 63
The circular wave argument ......Page 68
Radiation and banking ......Page 72
Radiation and nonfrictionless banking ......Page 74
What would time-symmetric radiation look like? ......Page 75
The Wheeler-Feynman theory in brief ......Page 79
Why doesn\'t the argument work in reverse? ......Page 81
Are the components distinct? ......Page 83
The new interpretation ......Page 84
Why the apparent asymmetry? ......Page 85
Related issues in physics ......Page 87
Summary ......Page 90
4 Arrows and Errors in Contemporary Cosmology ......Page 92
The need for smoothness ......Page 93
Gold universes and the basic dilemma ......Page 95
Smoothness: how surprising is it? ......Page 96
The appeal to inflation ......Page 99
Hawking and the big crunch ......Page 100
The basic dilemma and some ways to avoid it ......Page 107
What\'s wrong with a Gold universe? ......Page 113
A telescope to look into the future? ......Page 119
Conclusion ......Page 125
5 Innocence and Symmetry in Microphysics ......Page 128
Conflicting intuitions in contemporary physics ......Page 130
Preinteractive \"innocence\": the intuitive asymmetry ......Page 132
Two kinds of innocence in physics ......Page 134
Is MuInnocence observable? ......Page 135
Symmetry or innocence? ......Page 137
MuInnocence and quantum mechanics ......Page 138
MuInnocence and backward causation ......Page 141
The next step ......Page 143
6 In Search of the Third Arrow ......Page 146
Causal asymmetry: the nature of the problem ......Page 150
The fork asymmetry ......Page 152
Too few forks ......Page 154
Two ways to misuse a fork ......Page 156
A fourth arrow? ......Page 160
The symmetry of micro-forks ......Page 161
Two extreme proposals ......Page 166
The perspectival view ......Page 169
Escaping a circle, projecting an arrow ......Page 173
Summary ......Page 175
7 Convention Objectified and the Past Unlocked ......Page 176
Asymmetry conventionalized ......Page 177
Convention objectified ......Page 180
The asymmetry of agency ......Page 182
The role of counterfactuals ......Page 183
Could the past depend on the future? ......Page 184
Escaping the paradoxes of backward causation ......Page 185
The past unlocked ......Page 188
Advanced action: its objective core ......Page 191
Counterfactuals: what should we fix? ......Page 192
Advanced action and MuInnocence ......Page 193
Is MuInnocence merely conventional? ......Page 195
Why can\'t a photon be more like a billiard ball? ......Page 197
Symmetry and advanced action I ......Page 199
Symmetry and advanced action II ......Page 201
Taxonomy and T-symmetry ......Page 203
Backward causation: not forward causation backwards ......Page 204
Inverted forks and distant effects ......Page 205
Summary: saving the baby ......Page 206
8 Einstein\'s Issue: The Puzzle of Contemporary Quantum Theory ......Page 209
The quantum view: basic elements ......Page 211
A TOM SPLIT IN THOUGHT EXPERIMENT! ......Page 212
The EPR argument ......Page 215
EPR and special relativity: the cost of nonlocality ......Page 218
The temporal asymmetry objection ......Page 220
The consequences of superposition ......Page 223
Bell\'s Theorem ......Page 226
EPR for triplets: the GHZ argument ......Page 231
What if there is no collapse? ......Page 233
Many minds? ......Page 236
The decoherence approach ......Page 239
Summary: Einstein\'s live issue ......Page 242
9 The Case for Advanced Action ......Page 245
Outline of the chapter ......Page 247
Locality, independence, and the pro-liberty Bell ......Page 249
Locality saved in the past ......Page 250
Locality saved in the future ......Page 252
Was Bell told? ......Page 255
The benefits of backward forks ......Page 256
Advanced action in quantum mechanics ......Page 260
Einstein reissued? ......Page 262
Advanced action and the GHZ argument ......Page 265
Advanced action and superposition ......Page 266
The atemporal view ......Page 271
10 Overview ......Page 275
Main conclusions of the book ......Page 276
Why it matters ......Page 280
NOTES ......Page 283
BIBLIOGRAPHY ......Page 299
A ......Page 307
B ......Page 308
C ......Page 309
D ......Page 310
F ......Page 311
H ......Page 312
M ......Page 313
P ......Page 314
Q ......Page 316
R ......Page 317
T ......Page 318
W ......Page 319
Z ......Page 320