Three's a Crowd: On Causes, Entropy, and Physical Eschatology

Abstract

Recent discussions of the origins of the thermodynamical asymmetry ("the arrow of time") by Huw Price and others are critically assessed. This serves as a motivation for consideration of relationship between thermodynamical and cosmological causes. Although the project of clarification of the thermodynamical explanandum is certainly welcome, Price excludes another interesting option, at least as viable as the sort of Acausal-Particular approach he favors, and arguably more in the spirit of Boltzmann himself. Thus, the competition of explanatory projects includes three horses, not two. In addition, it is the Acausal-Particular approach that could benefit enormously from dissociation from fanciful ideas of low-entropy future boundary conditions entertained by Price. Novel revolutionary developments in observational cosmology, as well as in the nascent astrophysical discipline of physical eschatology, have obliterated such hypotheses. Also, the Acausal-Anthropic approach we propose, offers another clear instance of disteleological nature of the anthropic principle.