On the Conception of Fundamentality of Time-Asymmetries in Physics MCMP – Philosophy of Science

Daniel Wohlfarth (Bonn) gives a talk at the MCMP Colloquium (30 January, 2013) titled "On the Conception of Fundamentality of Time-Asymmetries in Physics". Abstract: The goal of my talk is to argue for two connected proposals: Firstly: I shall show that a new conceptual understanding of the term ‘fundamentality’ - in the context of time-asymmetries - is applicable to cosmology and in fact shows that classical and semi-classical cosmology should be understood as time-asymmetric theories. Secondly: I will show that the proposed conceptual understanding of ‘fundamentality’, applied to cosmological models with a hyperbolical curved spacetime structure, provides a new understanding of the origin of the (quantum) thermodynamic time-asymmetry. In the proposed understanding a ‘quantum version’ of the second law can be formulated. This version is explicitly time-asymmetric (decreasing entropy with decreasing time coordinates and visa versa). Moreover, the physical effectiveness of the time-asymmetry will be based on the crucial Einstein equations and additional calculations in QFT. Therefore, the physical effectiveness of the time-asymmetry will be independent of an ontic interpretation of ‘entropy’ itself. The whole account is located in the set of semi classical quantum cosmology (without an attempt to quantize gravity) and depends on the definability of any cosmic time coordinates.