Is the coarse-grained entropy of classical statistical mechanics an anthropomorphism?

pp. 646-665

in: Adolf Grünbaum, Philosophical problems of space and time, Berlin, Springer, 1973

Abstract

In Chapter 8, I claimed that the coarse-grained classical entropy statistics of certain ensembles of branch systems contribute to the "arrow" of time. And in Chapter 22, §4, we shall transpose this theme to a relativistic space-time. But it has been charged that the coarse-grained entropy of a physical system is an anthropomorphism, incapable of a role in physically undergirding time's arrow. Hence it behooves us to face this charge. In the present chapter, I shall argue that the entropy in question can be validly construed in scientific realist fashion instead of being an anthropomorphism.