Retrodict

Penrose (Roger) has come up with some unorthodox ideas over the years, but he is always very conscious of what constitutes mainstream science and what does not. He readily admits that one of his ideas rests more on conjecture than on established theory. Now that we are beginning to wade into the prickly question of human consciousness, he knows we are crossing into realm of speculation. "Does consciousness have anything to do with this? This where I'm little more are out on the fringe, to say that, yes, it probably has got something to do with us.

"Retrodiction is terrible -- normally," says Penrose. "That's what the second law is telling you. Yet remembering is 'what we do'. We retrodict with our minds all the time." Ultimately, he says, thermodynamics can offer only limited insight into our mental conception of time's passage. "There isn't a clear statement to say, 'Okay, it's the second law of thermodynamics.' That's no answer. There's is something much more subtle going on ... It has to do with awareness, it has to do with consciousness. It has to do with issues we're very far from understanding"

As for time itself, Penrose stops short of offering a definition. "I really don't know," he says. "I certainly would say that time is not what we think it is a sort of steady progression -- certainly not a sort of universal steady progression. ~ Page 242 /243