Dialectics of Entropy: Notes on the Topology of Time

« The ontological roots of temporality », “What is time ? Einstein and Bergson 100 years later,” Università degli studi dell'Aquila, April 4-6, 2019, published in A. Campo, S. Gozzano (eds.). Einstein vs. Bergson: an Enduring Quarrel of Time, Berlin, De Gruyter, 2021, pp. 229-248. In order to revisit the question of the nature of time in the context of the present volume, it is advisable to probe successively the following issues. 1. What is time, respectively for philosophy, science, and technoscience? 2. How have its foundations been shaken by Einstein's relativities, Bergson's duration and Whitehead's creative advance? 3. What are the available data? 4. What method should one use to make sense out of them? 5. What is the outcome of their processualization? In conclusion, we highlight the threefold root of temporality disclosed in Whiteheadian organicism

Philosophy Today, 2022

Much has been made of the so-called “empirical turn” of “speculative materialism” with thinkers like Quentin Meillassoux championing the material sciences as a new route to absolute reality. According to Meillassoux, the material sciences “provide philosophers access once again to the great outdoors, the absolute outside,” of reality in-itself. One might expect from such encomia the attempt to engage with the products of contemporary science in order to develop a new metaphysics; but, Meillassoux spends almost no time in this way, focusing instead on the form and methods of the material sciences over their actual accomplishments. As a result, his praise rings hollow and his metaphysics remains undeveloped. This paper examines what would happen if we were to take seriously his claims that a new metaphysics be developed from a scientific accounting of material reality by surveying the conclusions of contemporary physics. The paper ends by contrasting such a new speculative and materialistic metaphysics with the speculative nihilism of Ray Brassier.

Qeios, 2024

In this paper I expose an ontological-existential interpretation of time via its unveiling and analysis in an example of scienti c measurement in a chemical transformation. I begin with the search for time in the transformation, and little by little I explain its characteristics and structures. I nally interpret the time involved in the measurement and the usual concept of linear time by means of the Heidegger's concept of temporality (originary time). The paper is an attempt to explain Heidegger's existential ontology to non-specialist thinkers interested in understanding the subject of time from approaches di erent from those of their eld, as may be the case of many contemporary scientists. For this reason, it develops the ideas step by step and in an expository way, but gradually entering the precise and rigorous Heideggerian terminology necessary for the temporal analysis. Finally, it should be noted that this work contains novel interpretations of several of the ideas and expressions of Heidegger's thought.

2003

The paper puts forward a conceptual framework in which the phenomenon of time can be presented and discussed in a proper way. We argue that change is ontologically and epistemologically a more basic phenomenon than time. Time is an abstract entity created by the human mind on the basis of the experience of change. Physical reality is a process of ceaseless becoming and vanishing; time is not a part of that process. Time is the abstract bank in relation to which we measure the intensity and amount of the flow (change) of physical reality. We must differentiate physical reality from abstract entities (language) by means of which we speak about this reality. It is necessary to differentiate a formal description (formulas) from its interpretation: a correct formal description can be interpreted in a logically inconsistent and factually wrong way. We argue that the discourse about the relativity of time joins (mixes) physical reality and language, and gives an inconsistent interpretation of correct formulas. Regarding the future of time, it has been said that physicists are divided between two options: (1) to pin down a "master time", as a measure of change of physical reality, and (2) to proclaim time "out of existence". We argue that both options must be adopted, because time is (1) a measure of change, created by the human mind, (2) and time is an abstract entity that does not exist in physical reality.

2006

The Language and Reality of Time (LRT) is a brilliant book���one of the best essays in metaphysics since Ted Sider's Four-dimensionalism. Sattig tackles a difficult question: that of how ordinary temporal facts are grounded in facts about physical spacetime. Sattig's answer proceeds in three steps. First he argues that ordinary temporal facts supervene on facts about spacetime. He then offers an analysis of predicational claims of the form 'a is F at t'.

In this short paper we consider a new perspective on entropy and derive an interesting relationship between entropy and time. In light of this relationship, we show that The Second Law of Thermodynamics acquires a new meaning as stating that every physical process requires a lapse of time. In simple language, the Second Law says that 'everything takes time to happen'. Nothing happens at an instant. This defines 'the arrow of time'. Furthermore, we show that Planck's Law and Boltzmann's Entropy Equation are mathematically equivalent, that each can be derived from the other. We also obtain an equation for the number of microstates of a system, which relates to the energy of the system. The Fundamental Thermodynamic Relation likewise acquires a new and intuitive interpretation and provides further evidence for the existence of 'accumulation of energy before manifestation of energy'.

in Time and Reality I, Special Issue of Manuscrito (Boccardi, E. eds.), 39(4), 5-34, 2016

This essay is an introduction to Time and Reality I, the first part of a special issue dedicated to the philosophy of time. Here I outline a number of new trends in philosophical theorizing about time, detailing how the various contributions fit into the picture. I argue that there has been a potentially misleading tendency to separate the debate over the passage of time from the debate over the reality of tense. This has obscured a number of interesting philosophical questions. One of the aims of this volume is to bring these two issues together, where they belong. I argue that many contributions to it go in the right direction. The contributions to this volume also establish uncharted philosophical junctures between Metaphysics, Aesthetics, Morality, and the Philosophy of Mind.

Time has an impact on every single person but it has been poorly studied by western intellectuals; especially philosophers and scientists. As Newton knew (and Einstein eventually realized): physics, as the study of material reality, is about Time, so this connection is reviewed here (without mathematics). Major attention is focused on the role of philosophy and even more on the bad uses of language (developed by the Great Greeks) that fails to expose the poor assumptions about Time and its critical role in relationships, especially between humans. Again, bad language (which concentrates on timeless nouns instead of time-oriented verbs, produced the illusion that Time could be understood via objective thinking (using static concepts) when our broad understanding is constructed on experiential intuition. SUMMARY This essay explores the vast range of human thinking about the difficult subject of Time. It begins with attempts to put this concept on a scientific or objective basis but concludes with human psychology, in particular, the critical facility of human memory. The overall framework is to adopt a philosophical view, as this is how most thinkers have approached the problem of the nature of Time. There is also a discussion of the history of ideas of Time across several civilizations and includes a critical analysis of how modern physics views Time, which is not as comprehensive as many think. The conclusion is that Time is NOT an illusion; it is all about Activity and that's the secret of living: doing, the quality actions in life, especially building relationships; substituting numerical views of life (or Time) is a complete waste of time. We show how metaphors are so important in abstract thinking.

Entropy

The idea that entropy is associated with the “arrow of time” has its roots in Clausius’s statement on the Second Law: “Entropy of the Universe always increases.” However, the explicit association of the entropy with time’s arrow arises from Eddington. In this article, we start with a brief review of the idea that the “increase in entropy” is somehow associated with the direction in which time increases. Then, we examine three different, but equivalent definitions of entropy. We find that none of these definitions indicate any hint of a relationship between entropy and time. We can, therefore, conclude that entropy is a timeless quantity. We also discuss the reasons as to why some scientists went astray in associating entropy with time’s arrow. Finally, we shall discuss Boltzmann’s H-Theorem, which is viewed by many as a proof of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.