What about other fields in physics and cosmology: do
they favor a flowing view of time? Cosmology would seem to favor
the flowing view over the block universe, since we regularly talk
about an expanding universe - clearly a temporal concept. Again,
though, the underlying theory - general relativity - is constructed
on the bedrock of special relativity, and so it too can be given
a timeless interpretation, and the model of an expanding universe
can be seen as a mathematical abstraction.
Similarly, quantum mechanics can be given a timeless or a flowing
time interpretation. The clearest exception to this problem of
competing interpretations is probably non-linear, non-equilibrium
thermodynamics, which strongly favors a temporal interpretation.
The problem here is that most scientists do not take it as a fundamental
theory, but a derivative of other more fundamental ones. So the
debate continues.
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