Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-swr86 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-16T11:40:25.934Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Can Conditioning on the “Past Hypothesis” Militate Against the Reversibility Objections?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Abstract

In his recent book, Time and Chance, David Albert claims that by positing that there is a uniform probability distribution defined, on the standard measure, over the space of microscopic states that are compatible with both the current macrocondition of the world, and with what he calls the “past hypothesis”, we can explain the time asymmetry of all of the thermodynamic behavior in the world. The principal purpose of this paper is to dispute this claim. I argue that Albert's proposal fails in his stated goal—to show how to use the time-reversible dynamics of Newtonian physics to “underwrite the actual content of our thermodynamic experience” (Albert 2000, 159). Albert's proposal can satisfactorily explain why the overall entropy of the universe as a whole is increasing, but it does not and cannot explain the increasing entropy of relatively small, relatively short-lived systems in energetic isolation without making use of a principle that leads to reversibility objections.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I thank Mathias Frisch, Paul Teller, David Albert and three anonymous reviewers for helpful discussions, comments, and criticisms. Special thanks to Bailey Quillen of the Pinellas County Center for the Arts at Gibbs High School, Florida, for help with the illustrations.

References

Albert, David Z. (2000), Time and Chance. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Callender, Craig (2001), “Taking Thermodynamics too Seriously”, Taking Thermodynamics too Seriously 32:539553.Google Scholar
Davies, Paul C. W. (1977), The Physics of Time Asymmetry. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Feynman, Richard (1967), The Character of Physical Law. Boston: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Lebowitz, J. L. (1999), “Statistical Mechanics: A Selective Review of Two Central Issues”, Statistical Mechanics: A Selective Review of Two Central Issues 71:S34657Google Scholar
Reichenbach, Hans (1956), The Direction of Time. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sklar, Lawrence (1995), Physics and Chance: Philosophical Issues in the Foundations of Statistical Mechanichs. London: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Winsberg, Eric (forthcoming), “Laws and Statistical Mechanics”, Philosophy of Science.Google Scholar