Universe Colloquium: Presence in Philosophy and Physics

by Martin Faessler (LMU)

Wednesday 27 Jan 2016, 16:30 → 17:30 Europe/Berlin

seminar room (Excellence Cluster Universe, Boltzmannstrasse 2, Garching)

Time is one of the 7 basic physics quantities. However, a dispute is ongoing in contemporary philosophy, with physicists involved on both sides, whether the notions “past, presence, future” are objective notions and make sense in considerations of physics (or more generally speaking of natural science) or whether they are purely subjective notions of human consciousness. The perspective of the past, presence and future plays an essential role for human activities (and is intimately connected with the free will, another central notion for practical philosophy). As a matter of fact, these notions do not appear in any physics law. However, physics laws are meant to describe reality. So the question is whether past, present and future play a role in objective descriptions of real processes. Particular attention is paid to real reference systems for space and time which are needed to objectively describe real processes. The Universe Colloquium is followed by a social gathering with wine and cheese.