From: utzoo!utcsrgv!bobr Newsgroups: net.misc Title: Determinism and the Arrow of Time Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.498 Posted: Wed Aug 4 21:20:56 1982 Received: Wed Aug 4 21:31:00 1982 ".....sequences are just an order imposed on random events by human counsciousness...." (recent submission by Bob Warren (nscs!rew)) I'm tempted to say "yes indeed", although I do not REALLY understand the consequences of the above statement. Anyway, in the same vein : Suppose the world were absolutely deterministic, i.e. we would be able to forecast in the future - and not just in principle but in practice. Would we still have a concept like the "flow of time which always flows in one direction"? I'l argue both sides briefly: YES, we would: irreversible (phenomenological) Thermodynamics is the prime example here. NO, we would not: ... since in our present world the distinction between past and future is based on the difference between "knowing" and "not knowing" - a difference which would not exist anymore in our above thought experiment. My gut feeling decides for the "NO" side. Cheers, Christoph Bobrowski utzoo!utcsrgv!bobr