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New Difficulties for the Past Hypothesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Sean Gryb
Sean Gryb*
Affiliation:
To contact the author, please write to: Faculty of Philosophy, University of Groningen and Van Swinderen Institute for Particle Physics and Gravity, University of Groningen; e-mail: sean.gryb@gmail.com.
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Abstract

I argue that explanations for time asymmetry in terms of a ‘Past Hypothesis’ face serious new difficulties. First I strengthen grounds for existing criticism by outlining three categories of criticism that put into question essential requirements of the proposal. Then I provide a new argument showing that any time-independent measure on the space of models of the universe must break a gauge symmetry. The Past Hypothesis then faces a new dilemma: reject a gauge symmetry and introduce a distinction without difference or reject the time independence of the measure and lose explanatory power.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 88 , Issue 3 , July 2021 , pp. 511 - 532
Copyright
Copyright 2021 by the Philosophy of Science Association. All rights reserved.

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Footnotes

†

I would like to thank Karim Thébault for an enormous amount of encouragement, feedback, and helpful discussions. My thinking about the arrow of time has been heavily influenced by conservations with David Sloan, Tim Koslowski, Flavio Mercati, and Julian Barbour. I am also grateful to Roman Frigg, Fred Muller, Guido Bacciagaluppi, and audiences in Utrecht and Groningen for many useful discussions and feedback. Finally, I would like to thank Erik Curiel for valuable comments on an early draft, as well as Jan-Willem Romeijn and Simon Friederich for guidance, suggestions, and mentorship. My work is supported by a Young Academy Groningen Scholarship.

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