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Rating: 
Summary: This book is tough
Review: 10-Point Rating: (9.25)
Does more successuully for time what Genz's Nothingness attempted to do for space. Hopefully this extremely enjoyable book will stimulate more serious-minded philosophers to become engaged in a long needed exchange of ideas with theoretical physicists. Thought provoking, challenging, and well written (although a few words such as asymmetrical may be overused), this book has to be the most balanced approach to time within the Western traditions currently in print. My only complaint about this book is that it doesn't suitably analyze the concept of time from a more metaphysical angle, given the author's intended philosophical approach.
Rating: 
Summary: Ready to Have Your Mind Blown?
Review: An absolutely revolutionary vision of the physics of time. I believe that what Huw Price has to say here will ultimately come to be the predominant paradigm in understanding the concept of time. The last great revolution in physics occured with Einstein, and ever since physics has bordered on the mystical in its theories and implications. Since our perspective of time and space is relative, it also makes sense that in whatever frame we occupy, we are not seeing the whole picture. We understand the relativity and therefore the limitations of our individual perspectives, but as the author says, it is extremely difficult to separate ourselves from our everyday notions of time and space (to gain the Archimedean perspective, in other words). I believe that the vision Mr. Price achieves in this book is the closest we have come so far to a truly objective understanding of time and our place in it. An undeniably difficult, yet profoundly rewarding read.
Rating:
Summary: OK but not the best..
Review: In this book, Huw Price uses his advantage as a philosopher to show physicists where they're going all wrong on the big "what is time?" issue. I'm teasing, but while making some excellent points, Price does sound a little condescending sometimes. I wondered, while I read, if a physicist would find it merely amusing, or would be growling a bit. This book requires concentration just because he lays out intricate step-by-step explanations and arguments. Because the arguments are built logically, you can't afford to nap. He does indicate several times the chapters that could be skipped without losing his general points. The gist of his argument is this: We exist inside the system (that is, within the space-time continuum),we are deceived by that position into wrong conclusions. The solution he advocates is "Archimedes'point," that is, we should hypothesize a position outside the system,the "view from nowhere," and from there will come up with more accurate explanations of what's going on, in his opinion, that time really is non-directional. He makes some excellent points along the way, and certainly just the exercise of working through his arguments is good for the ol' brain, but some of his arguments and conclusions are invalid. The chief problem I see is; this time-space system has produced directional time perceiving agents like us. (It has produced really cumbersome directional arguments like his!) While our perspective is limited, I don't believe that it can be dismissed. It is a very big deal that beings like us exist in this universe. We can't pretend that the universe exists merely of little bits of matter knocking around. Theoretical physics does drift near the edge of the religious question, and I would have expected a philosopher to at least acknowledge that, while the "God question" is not subject to analysis, physics does at times seem to be working overtime simply to avoid a "prime mover."
Rating: 
Summary: thought provoking
Review: Mr Price's book is a positive contribution to the physics of time. His Archimedean point of view is the ideal point of view for a physics researcher.However, there is an imbalance between what one could view as two parts of the book. The first which studies thermodynamics and the time asymmetry of radiation is well argued and very satisfactory in its conclusions. the weakness of the statistical argument is clearly seen and a reduction of the asymmetry to the initial condition of the universe is exactly in the spirit of Penroses discussion on the same manner (or the other way around!). The second part I enjoyed not so much. the author in his effort to detach quantum mechanics from an awkward metaphysical burden of nonlocality and stochasticity ( based on a kind of monomania and illusion about the existence of 'good' or 'bad' metaphysics ( a disastreous mode of thinking about physical problems)), replaces them with the metaphysics of advanced action! My personal opinion is that certainly quantum mechanics is not the final word but a correction is not so 'simple'. I did not like the complete luck of mathematics from the book, as well as, the artificial separation of thinkers to 'philosophers' and 'physicists'. Many physicists like thinking philosophically as opposed to pragmatically. Overall, take the good points, and keep in mind the disputed one. Nothing here is of no value!
Rating:
Summary: On Price's "Time's Arrow and the Archimededs' Point"
Review: On page 13 of "Time's Arrow and the Archimededs' Point", Huw Price writes: ".... If time flowed - then as with any flow - it would only make sense to assign that flow a direction with respect to a CHOICE (my emphasis) as to what is to count as the positive direction of time. .... The problem is that until we have such an objective basis we don't have an objective sense in which time is flowing one way rather than the other. In other words, not only does it not seem to make sense to speak of an objective rate of flow of time; it also doesn't make sense to speak of an objective rate of time; it also doesn't make sense to speak of an objective direction of time." There are a number of ways that the world we inhabit seems asymmetric in time. Price believes that these perceptions of asymmetry are due to way we see reality, and less how reality actually is. He reminds the reader of how humanity has struggled before with anthropocentrism. Seeing the second law of thermodynamics as an EXPLANATION of time's arrow is just another anthropocentrism. On page 17, Price writes: ".... The leading candidate for the position (the master arrow) has been the so-called arrow of thermodynamics. This is the asymmetry embodied in the second law of thermodynamics, which says roughly that the entropy of an isolated physical system never decreases.... There is nothing to stop us taking the positive axis to lie in the opposite direction, however, in which case the second law would need to be started as the principle that entropy of an isolated system never increases.... It is not an objective matter whether the gradients really go up or down, for this simply depends on an arbitrary choice of temporal orientation." On page 20, Price writes: "... We unwittingly project onto the world some of the idiosyncrasies of our own makeup, seeing the world in the colors of the in-built glass through which we view it. But the distinction between these sources is not always a sharp one, because our constitution is adapted to the peculiarities of our region.... It challenges the image physics holds of itself as an objective enterprise, an enterprise concerned with not with how things seem but with how they actually are. It is always painful for an academic enterprise to have to acknowledge that it might not have been living up to its own professed standards!" On page 39, Price writes: "... It seems to me that the problem of explaining why entropy increases has been vastly overrated. The statistical considerations suggest that a future in which entropy reaches its maximum is not in need of explanation; and yet that future, taken together with the low-entropy past, accounts for the general gradient... The puzzle is not about how the universe reaches a state of high entropy, but about how it comes to be starting from a low one. It is not about what appears in our time sense to be the destination of the greater journey on which matter is engaged, but about the point from which - again in our time sense - that journey seems to start." What Price is describing above is what has been referred to as the ready-state paradox (see Chapter 6 of David Albert's book "Time and Chance"). And Price is right in pointing out that many of our "explanations" seems to fall to our anthropocentrism, given that we start out by assuming what it is that we seek to prove by introducing a time asymmetric ASSUMPTION. Our low entropy birth at the big bang is a boundary condition, and one does not use statistics and determinism to explain such a boundary condition. Boundary conditions are more generally brute force realizations that are beyond explanation. So if you think that the second law of thermodynamics can explain cosmic evolution, and perhaps even the evolution of life, then think again. Or you may go on a meaningless journey to find the first ready-state. It is quite plausibly that the early boundary conditions are determined by the present, given that time flowing backward is as plausible as time flowing forward. This brings up the possibility of backward causation, something that Price writes much on. But boundary conditions relate to collective properties, something going against the trend of reductionism. And so backward causation may better apply from the whole to its parts, which mirrors reductionism as forward causation generally goes from parts to whole. Price writes much on Gold's big bang and big crunch model of the universe, and he writes on alternative views too. Having navigated safely from the time-flow anthropocentrism, Price seems to have gotten himself snagged on a second anthropocentrism that we are isolated from everything else. It is true we may see ourselves as all knowing creatures that are competing for our survival in a lifeless pool of chaos we call our universe. But there is no objective basis for this belief (see Thomas Nagel's
"The View from Nowhere"). It is just a possible that we are the forgetful universe reflecting hopelessly into the many egocentric bodies that are said to be all knowing. Are we the inside system or the outside system? The question is symmetrical, and cannot be answered. Then why do we answer it by projecting a Gold's universe onto reality by demanding a separate big crunch future that is just as likely as our big bang past? A two aspect view of reality does not carry this unwanted anthropocentrism. It is that reality has an all knowing aspect that is perceived to be following the thermodynamic arrow, and the SAME reality holds a sublime shadow aspect where time is reversed from the present. In the sublime aspect the many celebrate as one, whereas in the forward aspect the one fragments into many. The zone where the two aspects connect is the inexpressible core, where symmetries are broken and manifestation unfolds. It is the core where choices are made, and where creative tensions are released. I believe this two aspect model of the universe provides that best model that answers Price's concerns, and yet it does not demand that the future is locked into a big crunch as the evidence now suggests. This two-aspect capacity to one reality is consistent with panpsychism, but Price does not mention this.
Rating:
Summary: On Price's "Time's Arrow and the Archimededs' Point"
Review: On page 13 of "Time's Arrow and the Archimededs' Point", Huw Price writes: ".... If time flowed - then as with any flow - it would only make sense to assign that flow a direction with respect to a CHOICE (my emphasis) as to what is to count as the positive direction of time. .... The problem is that until we have such an objective basis we don't have an objective sense in which time is flowing one way rather than the other. In other words, not only does it not seem to make sense to speak of an objective rate of flow of time; it also doesn't make sense to speak of an objective rate of time; it also doesn't make sense to speak of an objective direction of time." There are a number of ways that the world we inhabit seems asymmetric in time. Price believes that these perceptions of asymmetry are due to way we see reality, and less how reality actually is. He reminds the reader of how humanity has struggled before with anthropocentrism. Seeing the second law of thermodynamics as an EXPLANATION of time's arrow is just another anthropocentrism. On page 17, Price writes: ".... The leading candidate for the position (the master arrow) has been the so-called arrow of thermodynamics. This is the asymmetry embodied in the second law of thermodynamics, which says roughly that the entropy of an isolated physical system never decreases.... There is nothing to stop us taking the positive axis to lie in the opposite direction, however, in which case the second law would need to be started as the principle that entropy of an isolated system never increases.... It is not an objective matter whether the gradients really go up or down, for this simply depends on an arbitrary choice of temporal orientation." On page 20, Price writes: "... We unwittingly project onto the world some of the idiosyncrasies of our own makeup, seeing the world in the colors of the in-built glass through which we view it. But the distinction between these sources is not always a sharp one, because our constitution is adapted to the peculiarities of our region.... It challenges the image physics holds of itself as an objective enterprise, an enterprise concerned with not with how things seem but with how they actually are. It is always painful for an academic enterprise to have to acknowledge that it might not have been living up to its own professed standards!" On page 39, Price writes: "... It seems to me that the problem of explaining why entropy increases has been vastly overrated. The statistical considerations suggest that a future in which entropy reaches its maximum is not in need of explanation; and yet that future, taken together with the low-entropy past, accounts for the general gradient... The puzzle is not about how the universe reaches a state of high entropy, but about how it comes to be starting from a low one. It is not about what appears in our time sense to be the destination of the greater journey on which matter is engaged, but about the point from which - again in our time sense - that journey seems to start." What Price is describing above is what has been referred to as the ready-state paradox (see Chapter 6 of David Albert's book "Time and Chance"). And Price is right in pointing out that many of our "explanations" seems to fall to our anthropocentrism, given that we start out by assuming what it is that we seek to prove by introducing a time asymmetric ASSUMPTION. Our low entropy birth at the big bang is a boundary condition, and one does not use statistics and determinism to explain such a boundary condition. Boundary conditions are more generally brute force realizations that are beyond explanation. So if you think that the second law of thermodynamics can explain cosmic evolution, and perhaps even the evolution of life, then think again. Or you may go on a meaningless journey to find the first ready-state. It is quite plausibly that the early boundary conditions are determined by the present, given that time flowing backward is as plausible as time flowing forward. This brings up the possibility of backward causation, something that Price writes much on. But boundary conditions relate to collective properties, something going against the trend of reductionism. And so backward causation may better apply from the whole to its parts, which mirrors reductionism as forward causation generally goes from parts to whole. Price writes much on Gold's big bang and big crunch model of the universe, and he writes on alternative views too. Having navigated safely from the time-flow anthropocentrism, Price seems to have gotten himself snagged on a second anthropocentrism that we are isolated from everything else. It is true we may see ourselves as all knowing creatures that are competing for our survival in a lifeless pool of chaos we call our universe. But there is no objective basis for this belief (see Thomas Nagel's
"The View from Nowhere"). It is just a possible that we are the forgetful universe reflecting hopelessly into the many egocentric bodies that are said to be all knowing. Are we the inside system or the outside system? The question is symmetrical, and cannot be answered. Then why do we answer it by projecting a Gold's universe onto reality by demanding a separate big crunch future that is just as likely as our big bang past? A two aspect view of reality does not carry this unwanted anthropocentrism. It is that reality has an all knowing aspect that is perceived to be following the thermodynamic arrow, and the SAME reality holds a sublime shadow aspect where time is reversed from the present. In the sublime aspect the many celebrate as one, whereas in the forward aspect the one fragments into many. The zone where the two aspects connect is the inexpressible core, where symmetries are broken and manifestation unfolds. It is the core where choices are made, and where creative tensions are released. I believe this two aspect model of the universe provides that best model that answers Price's concerns, and yet it does not demand that the future is locked into a big crunch as the evidence now suggests. This two-aspect capacity to one reality is consistent with panpsychism, but Price does not mention this.
Rating:
Summary: One of the most thought-provoking books in recent years.
Review: The question "What is time?" is one of the most fascinating philosophical inquiries precisely because it cannot be dismissed as metaphysical. Mr. Price has a most active mind, ready to question all of our basic assumptions about the way the world goes. Why don't we see events happening backwards? Well, maybe we do see them! Why is the world the way it is today? Because it evolved from a single particle that exploded in the "big bang"? How improbable, says Mr. Price. It is far more probable that the world was created a month ago, with everyone having false memories of a nonexistent past. If you are the type of person who needs definitive answers to things, then this may not be the book for you. But if you like questions--the kinds of questions that open up new ways of thinking about things--then you can hardly do better. I hope Huw Price favors us soon with another book.
Rating:
Summary: Time For A Drink
Review: This is heady stuff-Perhaps if you're a theoretical physics professor at CalTech it might make for light postprandial enjoyment.-But for the rest of us...Beware!...Part of the problem is terminology(micro) or (mu) innocence for example....Oddly, I read this book for the same reason I read Proust-I'm fascinated with Time!-But be forewarned that, though this book has far less than Proust's 3,000 pages, unless you are the aforementioned professor, you have an extremely tougher row to hoe in reading this book, even though the author goes out of his way to make things understandable to the lay reader. -The basic idea isn't that hard to understand: we are captives of our position in time and that captivity affects our observations of physical (particle, wavicle, whatever) behavior. What the author eventually advances (after ploughing through many other concepts and alternative explanations) is something called "advanced action theory." This theory entails, as far as I can make out, very simply, that there is a "common future" as well a "common past" that influences what we call the present but that we are unable to perceive this common future because our nature as AGENTS (he uses this term over and over)precludes us from perceiving this common future.-I kept on thinking of a spatial analogy of a person tied to the back of the caboose of a train facing backward. He can see where the train has gone, but not the vista ahead, which is certainly just as real. But if he has been in this position his entire life, he would have no idea what you meant by saying "See that mountain up ahead!" How could you know? It's as if one of us were to state, "See that assassination attempt tomorrow!"- Archimedes' Point for Mr. Price would entail an observer standing by as the train passes observing both where it's been and where it's going.-This is the simplest way I know to explain what this book is about, though it may just make more of a muddle of things for all I know....But the physicists Mr. Price describes seem to have done a pretty good job of that already.-Anyhow, that's enough explanation for a review like this one. If you are intrigued, go ahead and buy it.-But be prepared for hard, hard work.-Unless, of course, you've already figured all this out.-In the former case, a pint down at your local pub is the fit epilogue to this mindbending work!
Rating:
Summary: It's about time
Review: This is one of the hardest books I've ever read. It was rewarding, though. Price wrote the book explicitly for philosophers and physicists. Frankly, it was nice to see a book written thus with all the condescending attitudes that these two (?) spheres of knowledge have had towards each other in this day and age. This book belongs in the same prestigious realm as the books on physics & philosophy that were written by Werner Heisenberg and Sir James Jeans earlier this century. I would like to see more books of this type in the future. As you might have guessed, the book deals with the nature of time. It is HIGHLY recommended that anyone attempting grapple with this intellectual Godzilla have a general understanding of quantum mechanics (if, that is, anyone really DOES understand QM) and some background in thermodynamics and relativity would not hurt, either. This book is not for those who think of books by Danielle Steele as intellectually stimulating. The book deals with the entropy "problem" of how it is that matter ever got to its low entropy state after the big bang, since (apparently) high entropy (heat death) is its natural state. Price tours some potential (although sometimes far fetched) answers to this query. For me, the most fascinating facet of the book was its discussion of the idea of advanced action as a solution to the nonlocality "problem" in QM. It's amazing for me to think that two entangled photons could already KNOW that the other's spin is going to change at such-and-such a time due to their travelling at the speed of light. Although Price did not invent this concept, he supports it (compellingly) and also objects to the normal criticism that either we can have relativity or free will, but not both. A truly fascinating concept for physicists and philosophers alike. So, if you want a wild and engrossing intellectual ride, this book is for you.
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