Memory Systems, the Epistemic Arrow of Time, and the Second Law

TL;DR

This paper formalizes the concept of memory systems and demonstrates that in our universe, human memory functions as a thermodynamically constrained system that only records the past, linking the epistemic arrow of time to the second law of thermodynamics.

Contribution

It introduces a formal framework for classifying memory systems and shows that human memory is a thermodynamically constrained type that only encodes past information.

Findings

Two types of memory systems are time-symmetric, encoding past and future.

The third type of memory system, including human memory, relies on the second law of thermodynamics.

Human memory only provides information about the past due to thermodynamic constraints.

Abstract

The epistemic arrow of time is the fact that our knowledge of the past seems to be both of a different kind and more detailed than our knowledge of the future. Just like with the other arrows of time, it has often been speculated that the epistemic arrow arises due to the second law of thermodynamics. In this paper we investigate the epistemic arrow of time, using a fully formal framework. We begin by defining a memory system as any physical system whose present state can provide information about the state of the external world at some time other than the present. We then identify two types of memory systems in our universe, along with an important special case of the first type, which we distinguish as a third type of memory system. We show that two of these types of memory system are time-symmetric, able to provide knowledge about both the past and the future. However, the third type of memory systems exploits the second law of thermodynamics in all of its instances we find in our universe. The result is that in our universe, this type of memory system only ever provides information about the past. Finally, we argue that human memory is of this third type, completing the argument. Our analysis is indebted to prior work in Wolpert 1992, but expands and improves upon this work in several respects.