Why Is There Motion in our World?

Abstract

Is there asymmetry in physical processes? Does the physical world evolve toward its state of rest? If it does, why is there motion in our world now? - In this paper, I try to reconstruct to largely distinct answers to these ever exciting questions: (1) the antique answer given by Aristotle, the most influential `scientist´ in antiquity, and (2) the modern answer rendered by the thermodynamic and cosmological theories of our times. By comparing these answers, an attempt will be made to highlight some similarities and differences between them. I try to show that these problems belong, today as well as in Aristotle´s `pre-scientific´ time, to the border region of physics and metaphysics. (An earlier version of this paper is about to appear in Open Systems and Information Dynamics).