I propose that, in addition to the commonly recognized increase of entropy, two more time arrows influence living beings. The increase of damage reactions, which produce aging and genetic variation, and the decrease of the rate of entropy production involved in natural selection are neglected arrows of time. Although based on the statistical theory of the arrow of time, they are distinguishable from the general arrow of the increase of entropy. Physiology under healthy conditions only obeys the increase of entropy (...) arrow. But aging, death, and evolution are determined by the other time arrows as well. Paradoxes emerge from conflicts among the specific determinisms associated with each arrow. These conflicts, along with uncertainties intrinsic to the low-number statistics of the arrows of damage reactions and decrease of the rate of production of entropy, highlight the limits of determinism at different levels of biology and its dependence on time span and number of organisms. The recognition of the three time arrows opens new perspectives for the problem of compatibility of the flow of time in physics and psychology. (shrink)

Problems of scientific cosmology only rarely occur in the works of Karl Popper. Nevertheless, it was a subject that interested him and which he occasionally commented on. What is more important, his general claim of falsifiability as a criterion that demarcates science from non-science has played a significant role in periods of the development of modern physical cosmology. The paper examines the historical contexts of the interaction between cosmology and Popperian philosophy of science. Apart from covering Popper’s inspiration from Einstein (...) and his views on questions of cosmology, it focuses on the impact of his thoughts in two periods of controversy of modern cosmology, the one related to the steady state theory and the other to the recent multiverse proposal. It turns out that the impact has been considerable, and continues to be so, but also that the versions of Popperian methodology discussed by cosmologists are sometimes far from what Popper actually thought and wrote. (shrink)