Way OT : time and tao

[Mark Wieder]

Jonathan-

Wednesday, March 23, 2005, 1:38:55 PM, you wrote:

LJ> When you ask the question "what caused the state of affairs as shown in
LJ> column 2" the answer would be "the state of affairs in column 1"

I think your analogy is starting to fall apart here. I don't think you
can infer causality from the existence of two states. You're implying
a relationship between the two states based on causality, and then
attempting to prove causality based on the implied relationship.

Hawking's "arrows of time" infer the flow of time from perceived
causality i.e., the "entropic arrow", the "cosmological arrow", but
without a flow of time these causalities wouldn't exist. It is equally
true to say that entropy increases in the direction of the flow of
time and to say that time flows in the direction of increasing
entropy. If there is no entropy then there is no time flow, and there
is no causality. Causality vs a-causality is irrelevant here.

...and this discussion is getting *really* off-track now. I'd better
duck out before the listmom gets upset... it's been fun.

-- 
-Mark Wieder
 mwieder at ahsoftware.net