Abstract
The temporally asymmetric character of the entropy statistics of branch systems has a number of important consequences which were not dealt with in Chapter Eight and to which we must now turn our attention. In particular, our conclusions regarding the entropy statistics of branch systems can now be used to elucidate (1) the conditions under which retrodiction of the past is feasible while prediction of the future is not,1 (2) the relation of psychological time to physical time, (3) the consequence which the feasibility of retrodictability without corresponding predictability has for the compossibility of explainability of the past and the corresponding predictability of the future, and (4) the merits of the controversy between philosophical mechanism and teleology.
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Notes
H. Reichenbach: “Die Kausalstruktur der Welt und der Unterschied von Vergangenheit und Zukunft,” Berichte der Bayerischen Akademie München, Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Abteilung (1925), p. 157, and “Les Fondements Logiques de la Mécanique des Quanta,” op. cit., p. 146. Cf. also C. F. von Weizsäcker: “Der Zweite Hauptsatz und der Unterschied von Vergangenheit und Zukunft,” op. cit. By noting in his later publications (especially in DT, op. cit., pp. 157–67) that the temporal asymmetry involved here has an entropie basis, Reichenbach abandoned his earlier view that it provides an independent criterion for the anisotropy of time. Thus, he has essentially admitted the validity of H. Bergmann–s telling criticisms (Der Kampf um das Kausalgesetz in der jüngsten Physik, op. cit., pp. 19–24) of his earlier view.
N. R. Hanson: “On the Symmetry Between Explanation and Prediction,” The Philosophical Review, Vol. LXVIII (1959), p. 349.
I. Scheffler: “Explanation, Prediction and Abstraction,” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Vol. VII (1957), p. 293.
N. Rescher: “On Prediction and explanation,”British Journal for the Philosophy of Sciences, Vol. VIII (1958), p. 281
M. Scriven: “Comments on Professor Grünbaum’s Remarks at The Wesleyan Meeting,” Philosophy of Science, Vol. XXIX (1962), pp. 173–74. For Scriven–s most recent criticism of my views, see his “The Temporal Asymmetry of Explanations and Predictions,” in: B. Baumrin (ed.) Philosophy of Science ( New York: John Wiley and Sons; 1963 ), Vol. I, pp. 97–105.
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© 1973 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
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Grünbaum, A. (1973). The Asymmetry of Retrodictability and Predictability, the Compossibility of Explanation of the Past and Prediction of the Future, and Mechanism vs. Teleology. In: Philosophical Problems of Space and Time. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 12. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2622-2_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2622-2_9
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