Studies on the structure of time

Abstract

We all know about the intriguing discrepancy between our subjective experience of time and how time itself is described in Physics. We know, in particular, about the existence in our perception of a privileged direction of time in which we may consciously assume the control of the present, the only moment of which we have a direct perception. We also know that time in modem physics does not agree with our experience: the laws of physics are generally time reversible not distinguishing between past and future and ignoring the concept of the present itself, circumstance that relegates all human common experience about perception of time to a simple phenomenological datum not worth of scientific discussion. It is also ignored, in physics, the important difference shown by past and future in our mind, i.e. that the former, being considered as fixed and definite, can just be recalled into the memory, while the latter, being viewed as unknown and undetermined, can be predicted only approximately by taking into account our knowledge about cause-effect relationships.