The Study of Time

The nature of time has haunted through the ages. Some conception of time has always entered into our ideas about mortality and immortality, and permanence and change, so that concepts of time are of fundamental importance in the study of religion, philosophy, literature, history, and mythology.

The purpose of the International Society for the Study of Time (ISST) is to encourage the study of time along all lines of scientific and humanistic inquiry which its members see as appropriate. In accordance with the Society's Constitution, this object is achieved mainly by the organization of cqnferences where scholars and scientists may discuss their time-related work in the company of specialists from other fields.

The Second Conference of the International Society for the Study of Time was held at Hotel Mt. Fuji, near Lake Yamanaka, Japan, on July I to 7,1973. The present volume is the proceedings at that Con­ ference and constitutes the second volume in The Study of Time series.

The First Conference of the International Society for the Study of Time was held at the Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut at Oberwolfach in the Black Forest, Federal Republic of Germany from Sunday, 31 August to Saturday, 6 September, 1969. The origin of this conference and the formation of the Society goes back to a proposal due to J. T. Fraser that was discussed at a conference on "Interdisciplinary Perspectives of Time" held by the New York Academy of Sciences in January, 1966.

The papers in this volume were delivered and responded to at the Third Conference of the International Society for the Study of Time. The meeting took place during sunny days, punctuated by an occasional brief storm, in the confer­ence facilities of the Österreichisches College in Alpbach, Austria, from July 1 to July 10, 1976. In the middle of it came July 4, the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of independence, and in honor of participants from the United States there was a special session of papers on the subject of Freedom and Time.

Future Matters concerns contemporary approaches to the future - how the future is known, created and minded. In a social world whose pace continues to accelerate the future becomes an increasingly difficult terrain.