The arrow of time

Scientists often talk about ‘The arrow of time’. That time moves in one direction only. This is nonsense and shows how narrow the twenty-first century view on science has become.

Time is a dimension, in the same way as length, height and width are dimensions. If you climb up a hill and look down you can see the land laid out before you. You can view the dimensions of width and length. Similarly, if you could go into the fifth dimension, you would be able to see the four space-time dimensions laid out before you. It would be like opening book and seeing any event and then moving to see it’s outcome.

The idea of the arrow of time is because scientists have certain assumptions that they need to accept without question. One of them is the concept of cause and effect. An action produces consequences. Science is the process of relating a cause to the effects. If the there is no arrow of time, then causality in this sense becomes indeterminate. Science, then, is based on assumptions of how the world works.

There’s nothing wrong with this so long as science works within these assumptions, but frequently it gives rise to circular arguments. Someone at a table knocks a glass over and it drops and breaks. The physicists tells us that it hit the floor with a certain force. The chemist tells us that the glass can withstand a certain impact before it breaks. But why did the person drop the glass? Was he clumsy or nervous? A car crashes on a road and kills the driver. Again, the scientists can tell us after the event what the forces were but why did the driver get into that accident at that time?

Science tells us how, not why.

Religion is also based on assumptions. Often these assumptions are clearly stated, however scientists rarely know what their assumptions are and even change them when it suites them. Any study of the philosophy of science will illustrate this.