Time is “only” a dimension in space time, and so should be reversible like the other three dimensions; except that, in the Lorentz transformation equations of Special Relativity, the time dimension is “ict”, where t is time, c (the velocity of light) functions as a conversion constant between the units of measurement, seconds and centimeters, and is the “imaginary” unit, the square root of minus one. It is the “i” that makes time different — not really “imaginary” in the sense of “unreal”, but different nevertheless. The direction in which time points in the continuum depends on the state of motion of the observer, which accounts for the paradoxes of Special Relativity.

Though “different” in this sense from space dimensions, time remains (theoretically) reversible between past and future, in both relativistic (Einsteinian) and classical (Newtonian) physics. However, let us look now at the “Man-dala of the Sciences” presented in a previous essay “The Unfinished Road to Knowledge”. Classical physics occupies the centre of the Mandala, relativity theory is to the left, quantum theory is to the right, thermodynamics/statistical mechanics is up, and complexity (life systems) theory is down. Time reversal remains theoretically possible along the horizontal, from relativity theory through classical physics to quantum theory, but the arrow of time (unidirectionality from past through present to future) appears necessary at both poles of the vertical, in thermodynamics and in complexity theory.

Time becomes irreversible in thermodynamics because of the unidirectional increase in entropy. Time is also irreversible and unidirectional for anti-entropic (i.e. living) beings like ourselves. The direction of time is the same in thermodynamics and in living systems.

We should not be surprised, however, to find examples of reverse flow of time in some physical phenomena that do not belong to thermodynamics or to complex living systems. An example is the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen experiment, in which electrons originating from the same “creation” event (from radiation) retain coordinated spins even after they have diverged so far that they can no longer communicate, the velocity of light being the absolute limit for the speed of communication. One interpretation is that they can “look” back in time to their point of origination, where they MUST have had coordinated spins. They must be able to go back to that point, coordinated, even if “later” in time the spin of one of them is deliberately flipped by an experimenter.

The mechanism is one in which the cause (the deliberate spin flipping of one electron) comes later in time than the effect (the spontaneous spin-flipping of the other electron at its origination). In our perceptual framework, a cause must precede its effect in time; but if we step out of this framework and allow time to be reversible, the effect can precede the cause. The E-P-R experiment, after all, is in the realm of quantum physics, along the horizontal dimension in our mandala of the sciences, where time reversal is permissible. Our only problem is that we are part of one of the vertical poles, the living systems, where such a perceptual framework is very difficult. (“Nature is not only stranger than we think, but stranger than wev CAN think.)

Parenthetically, it should be mentioned that other explanations of the E-P-R experiment are possible: one having to do with playing with space rather than with time, speaks of “non-locality”, imagining the two electrons to remain connected by a non-local linkage even after their physical separation. In reality they are still “identical twins”, even though distant in space; part of the same unity, though dislocated and discontinuous, like pieces of the same gene located on different chromosomes but “turned on” together.

Alternatively still (but perhaps this is a part of the same type of explanation), David Bohm has invoked the theory of “implicate order” (which others call “hidden variables”) to explain the E-P-R experiment. The implicate order is seen as “enfolded” in the observable (explicate) order as a kind of “hidden ground of being”, like the immanent God of pantheism; but it can be “unfolded” again to become explicate and capable of being observed.

Bohm’s theory and the theory of time reversal can be reconciled. The condition in which time is reversible we have called (in another essay) “eternity”, in opposition to the “temporality” of ordinary life. If there is a soul separate from the body, it may enter into eternity after the death of the body, i.e. enter the horizontal dimension in the Mandala of the Sciences by leaving behind the world of living systems. (I picture it, with poetic licence, as the flattened horizontal line on the heart-lung monitor of a patient who has expired in the operating room.) In the world of eternity, which we temporal beings cannot imagine, we can experience all the events of our earthly life “simultaneously”, or in any sequence desired or presented, back and forth. We shall feel guilty and “punished” in some permanent way if we have done wrong, and be in Hell; we shall feel happy and rewarded if we acted right, and be in Heaven – both by our own self-judgment. (Perhaps people with an over-sensitive conscience more often end up in Hell than people with a more “flexible” moral code.)

In any case, if we now equate our concept of “eternity” with Bohm’s concept of “implicate order”, we can unify the two theories. The implication of Bohm’s “unfolding” of the implicate into the explicate order is that the eternal order can intervene in the temporal order, i.e. God can intervene in history, as postulated in the Judeo-Christian tradition. “Enfolding” (explicate into implicate order) would mean that the temporal can influence the eternal, i.e. what we do in history does affect God. And indeed, in the Judeo-Christian Bible, God repeatedly reacts to the doings of humans.

Enfolding and unfolding also provides a mechanism for the “Ultimate Wrap-around” which we postulated in another essay: that we create God and He creates us, in a closed circle like the snake eating its own tail (Ouroborus). God is part (or All) of the eternal order, we are part of the temporal order, and we mutually need each other, like the spiral with an open and a hidden half-turn.

To return to the cause-effect reversal: This can also account for clairvoyance, a faculty which some exceptional people possess, of seeing the future as if it were the past. Cause-effect reversal can thus happen in the mental realm as well as in the physical realm. This may mean that the mind of clairvoyants is able to detach itself somewhat from the body, which functions necessarily in the anti-thermodynamic world of temporality. The mind, if it is partly eternal soul and partly an emergent quality of the brain, may possess eternal as well as temporal qualities.

Has the mind pre-existed the body and joined to it at some point (at birth or in the womb), or is the mind an emergent quality of the brain-body? This might be a meaningless question “in eternity”, where there is no “before” and “after”. We must accept both explanations as mutually compatible, somewhat as in the “Ultimate wrap-around”.

Synchronicity (unusual and meaningful “coincidences”) may be another example of time reversal. The “coincidence” occurs for a specific “purpose” (also a time-reversal term, as we shall see), and “causes”, going back in time, the “antecedent events” which converge at the occurrence.

This brings us to the consideration of our own purposeful (goal-oriented) behaviour, and that of all non-human life as well, at all levels of being, down to the metabolic level. It might be useful to accept teleological explanations of physiological events alongside of purely mechanistic or evolutionary ones.

We routinely and usually fix attention on some desired end to be achieved in the future, then plan the actions (backward in time from the desired end) necessary to achieve the end. This is the opposite (in the direction of time flow) of acting because of antecedent causes, as Skinnerian behaviourism would have it. Exercises in future imaging, e.g. imaging a future peaceful disarmed world, also use the schema of working backwards in time toward a desired end, writing a “history of the future”, as it is sometimes put. It is our common Modus Operandi as human beings, except when we force ourselves into the Procrustean bed of being “scientific” and thinking only of causal mechanisms pushing us from behind.

Whether or not evolution is goal-directed in this sense we do not yet know. Darwin’s variation-selection model is quite convincing in most cases. And yet, a teleological explanation is often shorter, simpler, more straightforward, and should perhaps be chosen as preferable by Occam’s razor.

Then again, maybe we should not ask, as above, “whether or not”, but “to what extent”. Evolution may be more deterministic (pushed from behind by causes) in the beginning stages, and get to be more and more goal-oriented (teleological) as mind or consciousness brightens, in a sort of a positive feedback loop.

And, of course, causes and purposes can coexist and interact; there is no need for “either-or” dilemmas. Aristotle posited four kinds of causes, two of which being “effective cause” and “final cause”. These two together might constitute some kind of a push-pull mechanism. The past and the future both influence the present. These are not necessarily alternative explanations between which we have to choose; they may be complementary.

Introspectively, we feel as if we are choosing a future goal by an act of free will. Looking at behaviour exclusively from the outside, ruling out introspection as scientifically inadmissible evidence, Skinner would tell us that free will is an illusion. But perhaps the two views are not mutually exclusive, are merely different perspectives on the same phenomena.

We can have both our temporal and our eternal perspectives; can live simultaneously on this beautiful Earth and “sub specie Aeternitatis” in Heaven.