The Evolutionary Arrow Of Time

Source

For us humans, time appears to be very important when it comes to defining events and it need not to be quantified as with the case in the physical sciences. We have developed our vocabularies to fit in with our perception of time or our perception of time has guided us in developing our vocabularies like for example, he was there, it is currently on the table, i'm going to be there, e.t.c.
The first example represents a past event due to the presence of "was", the second represents the present and the third, the future. Some believe time is real, some believe it's merely a concept to aid in our understanding of the universe. The consensus is that it is what we observe our clocks to measure which is in itself not a guarantee that it's real - Einstein's theories of relativity can explain better. There's another consensus though, one that almost no one can deny and it's that this so called time seems to have an arrow. The arrow arises from the fact that it appears to be moving in one direction irreversibly - past to future, and an arrow has a tail, body and a pointed head. When we use an arrow to conceptualise direction, it usually starts from the tail, through the body to the pointed head which still is influenced by the way time seems to move. Basically the arrow of time helps us to distinguish events in space but it is also a mystery and the reason is that physics can't exactly tell us why it seems to behave that way. When you look at the equations/laws of physics used to model dynamic events, which usually involves time, the direction of time is mostly irrelevant, we are mostly interested in it's magnitude but in real life certain events mandates taking into account it's direction. For example, you can mathematically model the state of an egg in an environment, in the model time is involved and you are free to look at it from past to future and vice versa (future to past) but in real life it is only the former that we always observe (past to future) - the egg would eventually break. The equation/model does not tell you that it's only one direction that is applicable and why it is so. The future to past scenario implies that a shattered/broken egg can spontaneously become an egg that is whole/not shattered, where have you seen this happen before ? 😂

The egg scenario is under what is called the "thermodynamic arrow of time" - the egg starts from being whole and eventually breaks, this is actually related to the second law of thermodynamics which states that the entropy (degree of disorderliness) always tends to increase (with time) in an isolated system. We have a lot of scenarios like the egg that usually starts from something ordered/pleasing, eventually and inevitably becomes disordered/displeasing, when we age is another example. They are under the thermodynamic arrow of time and the irreversible change of state of such events gives the impression of time moving in only one direction. There are other types of time's arrow in addition to the thermodynamic kind discussed earlier, like the cosmological arrow of time, psychological arrow of time, quantum arrow of time, e.t.c. your can read more of them later, the main objective of this article however is to introduce another kind.

Some few days back while taking a walk, a thought came to my mind and it was about the theory of evolution (in biology). The theory tells us about the diversification of life from a primordial or last common universal ancestor with the help of genetic drifts and natural selection. The diversification wasn't instantaneous, it was a gradual and rather slow process (relatively speaking) through reproduction, so that one begins to look at progressive generations of which time becomes very significant. From the grand scheme of things, all living things are related and fit into the evolutionary tree of life. Just like the cosmological arrow of time, we (all living things) seem to be inside of a global timeline (evolutionary timeline) that begins from a primordial ancestor and currently humans seem to be the last on the tree. The thought that came to my mind was that there doesn't seem to be a reverse, like Apes eventually becoming the last common ancestor to them and some of the other mammals they originally branched out of. It also looks almost impossible going back to the actual predecessor of all living things, where we are headed is very uncertain but there obviously seems/seemed to be an arrow of time in biological evolution. As a matter of fact, a reverse in evolution would also mean that humans at some point later would no longer be available to make the observation which is itself paradoxical. So, we can view this as another arrow of time - evolutionary arrow of time.

Maybe the arrow of time is indeed real and thus time, maybe we are all wrong but whatever you do, always try to use your time judiciously for it apparently waits for no one.

I think this is where we bid ourselves goodbye. 😉

For further reading

Time

Arrow of time

Evolution

Thank you all once again for stopping by to read my jargons and also thank you @stemng, @lemouth and the @Steemstem team for your valuable supports.

Source

Lastly, please don't forget to do the needful
Upvote
Comment
Reblog
If you enjoyed my jargons.

Background image source by @doze