Ever since Isaac Newton, we have relied on the notion that the universe works like a computer. It’s time to question this assumption
Pprogess in physics often comes about by discarding the bias that humans are at the centre of everything, the most obvious example being the repositioning of our planet from the centre of the universe. But might there still be such anthropocentrism lurking in our best models of reality? Experience and instinct make it natural to have such biases; the difficulty is recognising them and finding a more objective vantage point from which to evaluate them. And there is one particular bias that has resisted this evaluation for far too long.
We have grown accustomed to the idea that there is no centre of the universe. The space to our left is no different from the space to our right. But our instincts balk when this comparison shifts from space to time. Our immediate future seems somehow different to our immediate past. We can fight these instincts with careful logic, realising there is nothing special about "now", because every time we have ever experienced seemed like "now" at the time.
The importance of putting the past and future on an equal footing is particularly clear in Einstein's general theory of relativity. But these arguments still seem instinctively wrong. After all, we don't know the future, and we can't act to change the past. Our human condition has given rise to an anthropocentric bias when it comes to time.
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