Q&A: On Laws and Entities
On Laws and Entities
Question
Michi, hello
First of all, what you wrote in memory of Shir was moving.
I’ve been wrestling with the distinction between laws and entities (which, as I understand it, you also subscribe to). According to this distinction, laws are supposed to exist on the logical and epistemic level, whereas entities are part of an ontology that is separate from the human being.
However, it seems to me that there are cases where the distinction is not justified.
For example, the arrow of time. On the one hand, one can see the arrow of time as an epistemic characterization made by human beings (a law-like regularity). In light of that, we would say, for example, that the precise description of our world is one in which effects generally follow their causes.
At the same time, if we hold that time is also an entity independent of human beings, then its directionality from past to future is a property independent of the description we give. For example, even if all human beings were wiped out, the pattern of time’s flow would still remain as it is (causes would generally precede their effects).
What do you think?
Answer
I think you’re not being precise. There is an ancient debate about time: whether it is ontic or epistemic, that is, whether it exists or whether it is merely a way we view the world (a category by which we organize events. That, for example, is how Kant understood space and time). But in any case, time is not a law. True, there are laws that make use of time.
I don’t have a position of my own regarding the essence of time, whether it is ontic or epistemic. I tend to think that it has a basis in reality itself, and with us this is reflected as the time familiar to us (just as the color yellow is a cognitive reflection of a property in reality itself). In any case, there is no practical difference, since we can use time even with respect to a reality in which there are no human beings. For example, there is nothing preventing us from speaking about the time when the Big Bang occurred or when the first protein chain was formed, even though of course there were not yet any human beings then.
I discussed the subject of time at length in the fourth book in our Talmudic Logic series.