This chapter contains sections titled: The Key: Losing Oneself Windsurfing Performance, Psychology, and Embedded Cognition Windsurfing and Flow.

This collection of essays explores the metaphysical thesis that the living world is not made up of substantial particles or things, as has often been assumed, but is rather constituted by processes. The biological domain is organised as an interdependent hierarchy of processes, which are stabilised and actively maintained at different timescales. Even entities that intuitively appear to be paradigms of things, such as organisms, are actually better understood as processes. Unlike previous attempts to articulate processual views of biology, which (...) have tended to use Alfred North Whitehead’s panpsychist metaphysics as a foundation, this book takes a naturalistic approach to metaphysics. It submits that the main motivations for replacing an ontology of substances with one of processes are to be found in the empirical findings of science. Biology provides compelling reasons for thinking that the living realm is fundamentally dynamic, and that the existence of things is always conditional on the existence of processes. The phenomenon of life cries out for theories that prioritise processes over things, and it suggests that the central explanandum of biology is not change but rather stability, or more precisely, stability attained through constant change. This edited volume brings together philosophers of science and metaphysicians interested in exploring the consequences of a processual philosophy of biology. The contributors draw on an extremely wide range of biological case studies, and employ a process perspective to cast new light on a number of traditional philosophical problems, such as identity, persistence, and individuality. (shrink)

In recent work, Peter Railton, Julia Annas, and David Velleman aim to reconcile the phenomenon of “flow”—broadly understood as describing the “unreflective” aspect of skilled action—with one or another familiar conception of agency. While there are important differences between their arguments, Railton, Annas, and Velleman all make, or are committed to, at least one similar pivotal claim. Each argues, directly or indirectly, that agents who perform skilled unreflective actions can, in principle, accurately answer “Anscombean” questions—”what” and “why” questions— about (...) what they do. I argue against this claim and explore the ramifications for theories of skilled action and agency. (shrink)

This history of Russian thought was first published in Polish in 1973 and subsequently appeared 2005 in a revised and expanded publication. The current volume begins with Enlightenment thought and Westernization in Russia in the 17<SUP>th century and moves to the religious-philosophical renaissance of first decade of the 20<SUP>th century. This book provides readers with an exhaustive account of relationships between various Russian thinkers with an examination of how those thinkers relate to a number of figures and trends in Western (...) philosophy and in the broader history of ideas. (shrink)

In this chapter I analyse group flow: a state in which performers report intense interpersonal absorption with the music and each other. I compare group flow to individual flow, and argue that the same essential structure can be discerned. I argue that group flow does not justify an anti-representationalist enactivist interpretation. However, I claim that the cognitive task in which the music is produced is irreducibly collective.

One of the most pleasurable aspects of video games is their ability to induce immersive experiences. However, there appears to be a tentative conceptualization of what an immersive experience is. In this short review, we specifically focus on the terms of flow and immersion, as they are the most widely used and applied definitions in the video game literature, whilst their differences remain disputable. We critically review the concepts separately and proceed with a comparison on their proposed differences. We (...) conclude that immersion and flow do not substantially differ in current studies and that more evidence is needed to justify their separation. (shrink)

The flow construct has been influential within positive psychology, sport psychology, the science of consciousness, the philosophy of agency, and popular culture. In spite of its longstanding influence, it remains unclear [a] how the constituents of the flow state ‘hang together’—how they relate to each other causally and functionally—[b] in what sense flow is an ‘optimal experience,’ and [c] how best to describe the unique phenomenology of the flow state. As a result, difficulties persist for a (...) clear understanding of the flow state’s structure and function. After explicating the standard view of the flow construct, I articulate several basic questions regarding its nature and functional roles, and I argue that these questions are best answered by integrating flow within broader streams of research on the dynamics of thought, on cognitive control resource allocation, and on creative thought. (shrink)

In this paper, we articulate a version of non-standard A-theory—which we call Flow Fragmentalism—in relation to its take on the issue of supervenience of truth on being. According to the Truth Supervenes on Being (TSB) Principle, the truth of past- and future-tensed propositions supervenes, respectively, on past and future facts. Since the standard presentist denies the existence of past and future entities and facts concerning them that do not obtain in the present, she seems to lack the resources to (...) accept both past and future-tensed truths and the TSB Principle. Contrariwise, positions in philosophy of time that accept an eternalist ontology (e.g., B-theory, moving spotlight, and Fine’s and Lipman’s versions of fragmentalism) allow for a “direct” supervenience base for past- and future-tensed truths. We argue that Flow Fragmentalism constitutes a middle ground, which retains most of the advantages of both views, and allows us to articulate a novel account of the passage of time. (shrink)

The main purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between flow experience and goal orientation theory, as well as, the differences in flow experience based on the orthogonal model of goal orientation theory. Two hundred and seventy eight athletes completed the Task and Ego Orientation Sport Questionnaire based on how they usually feel. The Flow State Scale was completed thirty minutes after an important competition, along with the challenge-skill ratings, based on how athletes felt during (...) the particular competition. The results indicated that the athletes’ task orientation may be the critical factor for attaining flow in competitive sport, feeling more skillful and estimating the upcoming competition as challenging, while ego orientated athletes lack these elements, which are important for them to get into flow. Additionally, the balance between athletes’ goal orientation preferences seems important for the formation of flow experience. (shrink)

Pipe flow has been a challenge that gave rise to investigations on turbulence—long before turbulence was discerned as a research problem in its own right. The discharge of water from elevated reservoirs through long conduits such as for the fountains at Versailles suggested investigations about the resistance in relation to the different diameters and lengths of the pipes as well as the speed of flow. Despite numerous measurements of hydraulic engineers, the data could not be reproduced by a (...) commonly accepted formula, not to mention a theoretical derivation. The resistance of air flow in long pipes for the supply of blast furnaces or mine air appeared even more inaccessible to rational elaboration. In the nineteenth century, it became gradually clear that there were two modes of pipe flow, laminar and turbulent. While the former could be accommodated under the roof of hydrodynamic theory, the latter proved elusive. When the wealth of turbulent pipe flow data in smooth tubes was displayed as a function of the Reynolds number, the empirically observed friction factor served as a guide for the search of a fundamental law about turbulent skin friction. By 1930, a logarithmic “wall law” seemed to resolve this quest. Yet pipe flow has not been exhausted as a research subject. It still ranks high on the agenda of turbulence research—both the transition from laminar to turbulent flow and fully developed turbulence at very large Reynolds numbers. (shrink)

In Anti-Oedipus, Deleuze and Guattari claim that a general theory of society must be a generalised theory of flows. This is hardly a straightforward claim, and this paper attempts to examine the grounds for it. Why should socio-political theory be based on a theory of flows rather than, say, a theory of the social contract, or a theory of the State, or the questions of legitimation or revolution, or numerous other possible candidates? The concept of flow (and the related (...) notions of code and stock), I argue, is derived from contemporary economic theory, and most notably John Maynard Keynes. Deleuze and Guattari remained Marxists, not only because they held that contemporary political philosophy must inevitably be centred on the analysis of capitalism, but also because they held, following Marx himself, that the Marxist analysis of capital must constantly be transformed and adapted to new conditions. Thus, while certain aspects of Marx's analysis disappear from Capitalism and Schizophrenia, they are supplemented by the addition of new concepts adequate to the contemporary state of capitalism. The paper concludes, then, with an analysis of the role played by the concepts of flow, code and stock in Deleuze and Guattari's political philosophy. (shrink)

I distinguish three views, a defence of any one of which would go some way towards vindicating the view that there is something objective about the passage of time: the view that the present moment is objectively distinguished; the view that time has an objective direction – that it is an objective matter which of two non-simultaneous events is the earlier and which the later; the view that there is something objectively dynamic, flux-like, or "flow-like" about time. I argue (...) that each of these views is not so much false as doubtfully coherent. In each case, it turns out to be hard to make sense of what the view could be, at least if it is to be non-trivial, and of use to a friend of objective passage. I conclude with some remarks about avenues that seem worth exploring in the philosophy of time, when we are done with trying to make sense of passage. (shrink)

Presents a mathematically rigorous, philosophically sound foundation for a science of information.

Both the quantity of information and the informational content of a signal are defined in the context of signaling games. Informational content is a generalization of standard philosophical notions of propositional content. It is shown how signals that initially carry no information may spontaneously acquire informational content by evolutionary or learning dynamics. It is shown how information can flow through signaling chains or signaling networks.

Situation theory, and channel theory in particular, have been used to provide motivational accounts of the ternary relation semantics of relevant, substructural, and various non-classical logics. Among the constraints imposed by channel-theory, we must posit a certain existence criterion for situations which result from the composites of multiple channels (this is used in modeling information flow). In associative non-classical logics, it is relatively easy to show that a certain such condition is met, but the problem is trickier in non-associative (...) logics. Following Tedder (2017), where it was shown that the conjunction-conditional fragment of the logic B admits the existence of composite channels, I present a generalised ver- sion of the previous argument, appropriate to logics with disjunction, in the neighbourhood ternary relation semantic framework. I close by suggesting that the logic BB+(^I), which falls between Lavers' system BB+ and B+ , satisfies the conditions for the general argument to go through (and prove that it satisfies all but one of those conditions). (shrink)

We present a conceptual framework on the experience of time and provide a coherent basis on which to base further inquiries into qualitative approaches concerning time experience. We propose two Time-Layers and two Time-Formats forming four Time-Domains. Micro-Flow and Micro-Structure represent the implicit phenomenal basis, from which the explicit experiences of Macro-Flow and Macro-Structure emerge. Complementary to this theoretical proposal, we present empirical results from qualitative content analysis obtained from 25 healthy participants. The data essentially corroborate the theoretical (...) proposal. With respect to Flow, the phenomenally accessible time experience appeared as a continuous passage reaching from the past through the present into the future. With respect to Structure, the individual present was embedded in the individual biography, emerging from past experiences and comprising individual plans and goals. New or changing plans and goals were being integrated into the existing present, thus forming a new present. The future appeared as changeable within the present, by means from the past, and therefore as a space of potential opportunities. Exemplarily, we discuss these results in relation to previous empirical findings on deviant experiences of time in Autism Spectrum Disorder that is presumably characterized by a breakdown of Flow and concomitant compensatory repetition resulting in an overly structured time. Finally, we speculate about possible implications of these findings both for psychopathological and neuroscientific research. (shrink)

In this brief overview paper, we analyse information flow in the brain. Although Shannon’s information concept, in its pure algebraic form, has made a number of valuable contributions to neuroscience, information dynamics within the brain is not fully captured by its classical description. These additional dynamics consist of self-organisation, interplay of stability/instability, timing of sequential processing, coordination of multiple sequential streams, circular causality between bottom-up and top-down operations, and information creation. Importantly, all of these processes are dynamic, hierarchically nested (...) and correspond to continuous brain state change, even if the external environment remains constant. This is where metastable coordination comes into play. In a metastable regime of brain functioning, as a result of the simultaneous co-existence of tendencies for independence and cooperation, information is continuously created, preserved for some time and then dissipated through the formation of dynamical and nested spatio-temporal coalitions among simple neuronal assemblies and larger coupled conglomerates of them—so-called delocalised operational modules. (shrink)

This chapter reviews a number of related problems in the epistemology of testimony, and suggests some dilemmas for any theory of knowledge that tries to solve them. Here a common theme emerges: It can seem that any theory must make testimonial knowledge either too hard or too easy, and that therefore no adequate account of testimonial knowledge is possible. The chapter then puts forward a proposal for making progress. Specifically, an important function of the concept of knowledge is to govern (...) the acquisition and distribution of quality information within an epistemic community. Testimonial exchanges paradigmatically serve in the distribution role, but sometimes serve in the acquisition role. The resulting position, it is argued, explains why testimonial knowledge is sometimes easy to get, and sometimes much harder. (shrink)

We present a conceptual framework on the experience of time and provide a coherent basis on which to base further inquiries into qualitative approaches concerning time experience. We propose two Time-Layers and two Time-Formats forming four Time-Domains. Micro-Flow and Micro-Structure represent the implicit phenomenal basis, from which the explicit experiences of Macro-Flow and Macro-Structure emerge. Complementary to this theoretical proposal, we present empirical results from qualitative content analysis obtained from 25 healthy participants. The data essentially corroborate the theoretical (...) proposal. With respect to Flow, the phenomenally accessible time experience appeared as a continuous passage reaching from the past through the present into the future. With respect to Structure, the individual present was embedded in the individual biography, emerging from past experiences and comprising individual plans and goals. New or changing plans and goals were being integrated into the existing present, thus forming a new present. The future appeared as changeable within the present, by means from the past, and therefore as a space of potential opportunities. Exemplarily, we discuss these results in relation to previous empirical findings on deviant experiences of time in Autism Spectrum Disorder that is presumably characterized by a breakdown of Flow and concomitant compensatory repetition resulting in an overly structured time. Finally, we speculate about possible implications of these findings both for psychopathological and neuroscientific research. (shrink)

Humans are complex systems, ‘macro-entities’, whose existence, behaviour and consciousness stem out of the configurations of physical entities on the micro-level of the physical world. But an explanation of what humans do and think cannot be found through ‘tracking us back’, so to speak, to micro-particles. So, in explaining human behaviour, including linguistic behaviour on which this paper focuses, emergentism opens up a powerful opportunity to explain what it is exactly that emerged on that level, bearing in mind the end (...) product in the form of the intra- and inter-cultural diversity. Currently there is a gap in emergentism research. On one hand, there are discussions in philosophy of the emergent human reality; on the other, there are discussions of social, cultural, or individual variation of these emergent aspects of humanity in the fields of anthropology, sociology, linguistics or psychology. What I do in this paper is look for a way to ‘trace’ some such diversified emergents from what is universal about their ‘coming to being’, all the way through to their diversification. My chosen emergent is human time, my domain of inquiry is natural-language discourse, and the drive behind this project is to understand the link between ‘real’ time of spacetime on the micro-level from which we emerged and the human time devised by us, paying close attention to the overwhelming diversity in which temporal reference is expressed in human languages. The main question is, where does this diversity fit in? Does understanding of this diversity, as well as of what lurks under the surface of this diversity, aid the emergentism story? My contribution to this volume on ‘the nature of structure and the structure of nature’ thus takes the following take on the title. The structure of human communication is at the same time uniform, universal, and relative to culture, in that it is emergent as a human characteristic, and as such compatible with the micro-level correlates in some essential ways, but also free to fly in different directions that are specific to societies and cultures. I explore here the grey area between the micro-level and the linguistic reflections of time—the middle ground that is emergent itself but that tends to be by-passed by those who approach the question of human flowing time from either end: metaphysics and the philosophy of time on the one hand, and contrastive linguistics, anthropological linguistics and language documentation on the other. I illustrate the debate with examples from tensed and tenseless languages from different language families, entertaining the possibility of a conceptual universal pertaining to time as degrees of epistemic modality. Needless to say, putting the question in this way also sets out my (not unassailable) methodology. (shrink)

In this essay I want to focus on a quality inherent in that range of feelings we associate with an experience described as ‘flow’. Csíkszentmihályi describes it as a state that arises in people involved in some skilled activity who become fully immersed in it; they reach a state of ‘intrinsic motivation’ and loss of self-awareness; their actions seem to occur spontaneously so that they seem to become simultaneously a passive witness to their own highly skilled agency. There are (...) skilled movements and manoeuvres in sailing in which the equipment becomes, as we say, “an extension of oneself”. Under these conditions the sailor has usually reached such a level of proficiency that the state of flow just described may obtain. Moments of flow are relatively rare, and are highly prized by those who know what to look for. Losing oneself in the activity in this way is one of its highpoints, a point which makes it thereby significant and meaningful. Excellence in sailing confers a kind of fulfilment we rarely attain. It is, for this reason, an ideal worth striving for. (shrink)

Does a temporal dual process theory explain the illusive flow of time? I point out one shortcoming of such a theory and propose an alternative that does not require either dual cognitive processes or demand such a stark asymmetry between space and time in the brain.

Objective: Pulmonary complications could badly affect the recovery of neurological function and neurological prognosis of neurological critically ill patients. This study evaluated the effect of high-flow nasal cannula therapy on decreasing pulmonary complications in neurologically critically ill patients.Patients and Methods: The patients admitted to the intensive care unit with serious neurological disease and receiving oxygen therapy were retrospectively reviewed. Patients were divided into the HFNC group and the conventional oxygen therapy group. We analyzed the data within these two groups, (...) including patients’ baseline data, short-term outcomes of respiratory complications, general outcomes including hospital stay, ICU stay and mortality, and neurological functions. To analyze the relevant factors, we performed multivariable logistic regression analysis.Results: A total of 283 patients met the criteria, including 164 cases in the HFNC group and 119 cases in the COT group. The HFNC group had remarkably less mechanical ventilation requirement with lower phlegm viscosity. Even more, ICU stay and total hospital stay were significantly shortened in the HNFC group.Conclusion: HFNC decreased pulmonary complications in neurologically critically ill patients and improved recovery of neurological function and neurological prognosis. (shrink)

In thirteenth-century philosophical psychology, it is commonly held that the powers of the soul, responsible for a living being’s various operations, “flow” from the soul’s essence. The phrase is used systematically by Albert the Great, who imports it from Avicenna. It suggests that the soul, considered as a separate substance, is ontologically distinct from its powers. This is how Albert understands Avicenna, and how modern interpreters understand both Avicenna and Albert. The aim of this paper is to call into (...) question such an understanding, as a reading of Avicenna and as a philosophical doctrine. It argues that an ontological distinction between the soul and its powers isn’t intended in Avicenna, and isn’t successfully established in Albert. It further argues that psychological emanation yields such a distinction only in Aquinas, where the soul is no longer considered a separate substance, but a material form. (shrink)

This book presents an attempt to develop a theory of knowledge and a philosophy of mind using ideas derived from the mathematical theory of communication developed by Claude Shannon. Information is seen as an objective commodity defined by the dependency relations between distinct events. Knowledge is then analyzed as information caused belief. Perception is the delivery of information in analog form for conceptual utilization by cognitive mechanisms. The final chapters attempt to develop a theory of meaning by viewing meaning as (...) a certain kind of information-carrying role. (shrink)

According to Dreyfus and Dreyfus, skilled coping in sport occurs when an athlete reaches an expert level and can execute a sport skill on ‘automatic-pilot’, in a state of ‘flow’. In this paper we reframe phenomenological accounts of sport that try to depict flow-states as part of an athlete’s competency framework. We do so from the point of view of post-structural and post-phenomenological scholars such as Jacques Derrida’s deconstructive work on sovereignty and Jean-Luc Nancy’s ontological vantage of ‘being-with’. (...) This lens pushes us to challenge phenomenological accounts of sport such as skilled coping and flow that, we argue, portray zombie-like performances as optimal. We suggest that such a phenomenological account of sport is not only impoverished as Breivik has argued, but also misses the very promising aspects of sport that can generate the possibility for creative and relational experiences. In making this claim we aim to reorient sport philosophy’s uptake of phenomenology towards a relat... (shrink)

A theory of temporal passage is put forward which is "objective" in the sense that time flow characterizes the universe independently of the existence of conscious beings. The theory differs from Grunbaum's "mind-dependence" theory, and is designed to avoid Grunbaum's criticisms of an earlier theory of Reichenbach's. The representation of temporal becoming is accomplished by the introduction of indeterministic universe-models; each model representing the universe at a time. The models depict the past as a single four-dimensional manifold, and the (...) future as a branched structure of such manifolds. Time flow is relativistic in that it manifests itself in a frame-dependent (but not observer-dependent) way. The indeterministic character of the universe-models is mirrored in a "temporal" theory of truth which rejects the principle of bivalence, and suitable semantics are provided for this theory. Finally, an account of physical law is given which defines it in terms of physical possibility, rather than vice versa. (shrink)

In recent years there has been an expansion of scientific work on consciousness. However, there is an increasing necessity to integrate evolutionary and interdisciplinary perspectives and to bring affective feelings more centrally into the overall discussion. Pursuant especially to the theorizing of Endel Tulving , Panksepp and Vandekerckhove we will look at the phenomena starting with primary-process consciousness, namely the rudimentary state of autonomic awareness or unknowing consciousness, with a fundamental form of first-person ‘self-experience’ which relies on affective experiential states (...) and raw sensory and perceptual mental existences, to higher forms of knowing and self-aware consciousness. Since current scientific approaches are most concerned with the understanding of higher declarative states of consciousness, we will focus on these vastly underestimated primary forms of consciousness which may be foundational for all forms of higher ‘knowing consciousness’. (shrink)

In 1958, Francis Crick distinguished the flow of information from the flow of matter and the flow of energy in the mechanism of protein synthesis. Crick’s claims about information flow and coding in molecular biology are viewed from the perspective of a new characterization of mechanisms and from the perspective of information as holding a key to distinguishing work in molecular biology from that of biochemistry in the 1950s–1970s . Flow of matter from beginning to (...) end does not occur in the protein synthesis mechanism; flow of information does. The flow of information and coding in molecular biological mechanisms are distinguished, on the one hand, from formal information theory, and, on the other, from information as used in cognitive neuroscience, where information and representation are often coupled. (shrink)

First the Branching Space-time and Branching Continuations mod-els are briefly presented. We compare their properties with the traditional definition of a Flow of Time from physics and we point out the difficulties of it in relativistic time. A solution of a Flow of Time in the given models is then proposed.

This study examined Flow with Nature treatment, which is an integrative intervention based on eco and environmental psychology, psychotherapeutic theories and professional psychological practice. FWN is intended for depression rehabilitation with the help of social support, nature environments and FWN exercises. Exercises encourage sensing the environment, mindful awareness, psychological processing and focusing on the future. The FWN treatment proceeds in separate stages, which emphasise nature, group and FWN exercises differently. This study focused on the experiences of the participants in (...) the FWN treatment. Finnish adults who had been diagnosed with clinical depression took part in the FWN treatment and answered feedback questions. Answers were analysed using theory-based content analysis. Data were collected between spring 2019 and spring 2020. The majority of the participants were women and on average 44 years old. Content analysis revealed that the participant feedback answers were in agreement with the central theoretical themes of FWN. The participants emphasised the significance of nature, social support and exercises differently. Moreover, the significance of these ingredients differed according to the stages of treatment: in the horizon stage restorative and comprehensive nature experiences, in the growth stage social support and in the path stage environmental self-regulation were emphasised. These results are in accordance with the objectives of the stages and seem to support the phase-based rationale. The participants’ experiences of the key elements of the intervention, social support and nature environment were experienced mainly positively, which supports their inclusion in future intervention versions. In the future, FWN exercises should be developed to better enable participants’ possibilities for concentration and being present in the moment. Exercises should also be simplified to match the target group’s cognitive abilities. (shrink)

The Flow of Influence: From Newton to Locke - and Back- In this essay, the affinity between Locke’s empiricism and Newton’s natural philosophy is scrutinized. Parallels are distinguished from influences. I argue, pace G.A.J. Rogers, that Newton’s doctrine of absolute space and time influenced Locke’s Essay concerning Human Understanding from the second edition onwards. I also show that Newton used Lockean terminology in his criticism of Cartesianism. It is further argued that Locke’s endorsement of corpuscularianism is merely methodological, i.e. (...) he accepts it as a scientifically useful and psychologically intelligible paradigm, but not as a realist explanation of rerum natura. Like Newton, Locke was reluctant to accept the corpuscular theory of light. However, his reasons for doing so were different from those of Newton. This essay is divided into three parts: in the first, the stage is set by looking at the fundamentals of Locke’s epistemology; in the second, several correspondences between Locke’s and Newton’s thought are explored and two cases of influence are argued for; and in the third, several arguments are provided for interpreting Locke’s corpuscularianism as methodological. (shrink)

The so-called no-rate argument argues that time cannot flow or pass in the literal sense of that term, because its motion can be assigned no meaningful rate. This paper examines a yet unexplored objection to the no-rate argument, which consists in showing that the argument itself is based on an extended conception of motion, according to which it is meaningful and consistent to say that time flows at no well-defined rate.

I distinguish between empiricist and rationalist approaches to the idea of the flow of time. The former trace back the idea of the flow of time to the deliverances of our sensory or introspective capacities. According to the latter, the idea of the flow of time is integral to what it is to have a conscious point of view in the first place. I discuss some aspects of what I take to be Ismael’s version of a rationalist (...) approach, which focuses on the point of view of an agent. In particular, I raise some questions as to whether Ismael’s account does succeed in reconstructing the common-sense idea of the flow of time in the sense of Becoming, and where her account leaves us with respect to the ‘two times’ problem regarding the relationship between everyday thought about time and the scientific view of time. (shrink)

Time flows. This oft-lamented fact of human existence seems plain enough, but is remarkably difficult to explain scientifically. Physical theory follows a greater goal—symmetry—and the directional nature of time is left adrift. The phenomenon must nevertheless be explained.Scientists since Isaac Newton have searched classical mechanics for answers, but precious little progress has been made on his mystical ideas. The discoveries of thermodynamics, though clearly relevant, have posed more problems than they have solved.Now a new solution presents itself through quantum mechanics. (...) The intimate relation between thermodynamics and time is not in doubt, but now quantum theory is explaining how the laws of entropy arise from a stranger reality. The theory of decoherence begins to explain time as a holistic quantum concept. (shrink)

A far-reaching and influential view in evolutionary biology claims that species are cohesive units held together by gene flow. Biologists have recognized empirical problems facing this view; after sharpening the expression of the view, we present novel conceptual problems for it. At the heart of these problems is a distinction between two importantly different concepts of cohesion, what we call integrative and response cohesion. Acknowledging the distinction problematizes both the explanandum of species cohesion and the explanans of gene (...) class='Hi'>flow that are central to the view we discuss. We conclude by tracing four broader implications for the study and conceptualization of species. (shrink)

The experience of temporal flow is, for many, the central—if not the only—reason for believing an A-theory of time. Recently, however, B-theorists have argued that experience does not, in fact, favor the A-theory. Call such an argument: a debunking argument. The goal of the present paper is to defend the A-theory against two prominent versions of the debunking argument.

Time flows. This oft-lamented fact of human existence seems plain enough, but is remarkably difficult to explain scientifically. Physical theory follows a greater goal—symmetry—and the directional nature of time is left adrift. The phenomenon must nevertheless be explained.Scientists since Isaac Newton have searched classical mechanics for answers, but precious little progress has been made on his mystical ideas. The discoveries of thermodynamics, though clearly relevant, have posed more problems than they have solved.Now a new solution presents itself through quantum mechanics. (...) The intimate relation between thermodynamics and time is not in doubt, but now quantum theory is explaining how the laws of entropy arise from a stranger reality. The theory of decoherence begins to explain time as a holistic quantum concept. (shrink)