What about other fields in physics and <!g>cosmology: do
they favor a flowing view of time? Cosmology would seem to favor
the flowing view over the <!g>block universe, since we regularly talk
about an expanding universe - clearly a temporal concept. Again,
though, the underlying theory - <!g>general relativity - is constructed
on the bedrock of <!g>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, <!g>quantum mechanics can be given a timeless or a <!g>flowing
time interpretation. The clearest exception to this problem of
competing interpretations is probably <!g>non-linear, <!g>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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