Do Brains Have an Arrow of Time?

Philosophy of Science 81 (2):265-275 (2014)
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Abstract

There is a persisting tension that exists between the block universe conception of time in modern physics and philosophy and the conception of time that stems naturally from experience, and entropic asymmetries have been proposed to explain this tension. This article argues that as biochemical processes in the brain depend upon spontaneous entropy increases in the forward-time direction, this should provide an entropic basis for the unidirectionality of psychological processes. As this view does not depend on considerations of abstract information processing or a past hypothesis, it provides advantages over previous entropy-based proposals attempting to explain asymmetries in temporal experience.

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Ryan Smith
Montana State University-Bozeman

References found in this work

The unreality of time.John Ellis McTaggart - 1908 - Mind 17 (68):457-474.
The “Past Hypothesis”: Not even false.John Earman - 2006 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 37 (3):399-430.
Does a Computer Have an Arrow of Time?Owen J. E. Maroney - 2010 - Foundations of Physics 40 (2):205-238.

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