Berlin 2015 – scientific programme

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AGPhil: Arbeitsgruppe Philosophie der Physik

AGPhil 10: The role of the present in spacetime theories

AGPhil 10.2: Talk

Friday, March 20, 2015, 11:45–12:15, A 060

Physics and The End of Time — •yuval dolev — Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel

Contrary to the received view, I will argue that, not only can relativity theory, both special and general, accommodate a global present, it in fact must do so. I will present this claim in the context of a broader assessment of the manners in which relativity has revolutionized our understanding of time and the degree to which is has done so. I will distinguish between "technological" and "philosophical" lessons we learn from the theory, and argue that while the former are momentous, the later have been exaggerated. Specifically, tense and passage, supposedly ousted by the theory, remain crucial and irremovable in our conception of reality itself, and not merely as aspects of how we apprehend it. I will discuss recent attempts to make this claim from within physics, focusing on Smolin's Time Reborn, and evaluate their merits, weaknesses, and effectiveness. My conclusion will be a reconfirmation of Einstein's own view that there's no room for a Now in physics, and hence no way to retrieve tense from within physics. But rather than deducing, like Einstein, the illusoriness of tense and passage, I will suggest that a real Now is compatible with physics, and actually plays a vital role in the experience of physicists, a role without which physics itself would be unimaginable.