Synopsis
In this book, an alternative to the timeless view of time is presented, based on ideas of process, organism, and a constructed reality in which temporal becoming provides the foundation of all experience and events. The classical arguments are analyzed from the worldview perspective and found to be lacking. Ideas of process proposed by Bergson, Whitehead, Arthur, Trofimova, and Sulis are presented, suggesting a new, processist worldview. This book will show that a time based on local becoming is entirely compatible with physics, especially quantum mechanics, through a model based on process algebra. Some general features of the temporal ordering associated with local becoming are also presented. Recent popularizations of physics have fallen prey to sensationalism, emphasizing the conceptual challenges of understanding quantum phenomena while fostering a sense of inscrutability. Instead of challenging our fundamental conceptions of reality, the popular literature has been challenging the existence of reality itself. This book runs counter to this trend and attempts to put reality and time back into physics, avoiding quasi-mysticism when thinking about the nature of quantum phenomena. It aims to show that arguments in philosophy and physics purporting to prove the non-existence of time are flawed, describing the nature of models and theories of time, but not time itself.
About the Author
Dr William Sulis is a Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neuroscience, and Director of the Collective Intelligence Laboratory, McMaster University. He holds Fellowships in Psychiatry and Geriatric Psychiatry and PhD degrees in Mathematics (Western University) and Theoretical Physics (University of Waterloo). He has written over 70 papers on complex systems theory, quantum foundations, and process, and has co-edited 3 books. He is a past president of the Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology and Life Sciences and is on the editorial board of Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology, and Life Sciences. He is on the review boards of Frontiers in Psychiatry and Entropy.
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