Reddit mentions: The best time physics books

You sound like a bright eyed youth. Don't dim your bright eyes by seeking "realizations" by ingesting a chemical, man. It's only temporary, superficial "enlightenment". Be honest with yourself, you're just totally stoked and eager to take some drugs and "like, have all these PROFOUND realizations and get a way positive outlook man...". It's not like you haven't already crafted an image and an identity for your post-trip self that you fully intend on living up to..

What if I told you transcendental meditation and astral projection makes people think of things differently in a positive way and have realizations that they benefit from, similar to a great LSD experience? Would you be eagerly wanting to try it, and wanting to convince your girlfriend to try it too? Fuck no you wouldn't because you lack the discipline and you know it. You want to take a short cut that requires literally no thought or effort. You like drugs, and you want to justify your drug use as some kind of enlightenment-seeking, neo-shamanic, vision quest. You want to be a part of the internet counter culture of "educated drug users, who do their research".

What are your interests and hobbies in life? Do you have priorities? Let me recommend you books that will broaden your horizons to some mind blowing topics

In Search of Time: The History, Physics, and Philosophy of Time

Cybernetics, Second Edition: or the Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine

Astral Projection and the Nature of Reality: Exploring the Out-of-Body State

The Origins and History of Consciousness

Nothing: A Very Short Introduction

Physics of the Future and Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku.

They deal in sci-fi concepts and their cross-overs in the actual science of today. Great read and easy to read. You'll feel super smart by the end with loads of information that you gained while enjoying the book.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by saying that you want to focus on astronomy; I'm not aware of much in the way of the philosophy of astronomy. There's been some movement toward establishing the philosophy of cosmology as a distinct subfield, but it's still a relatively new thing, and there's not a lot out there. Your best bet, probably, is to focus more on the philosophy of space and time more broadly, so that's the kind of stuff I'm going to suggest. I'm not sure what your starting level is, but here are some things that might be worth your time:

• Hans Reichenbach's The Philosophy of Space and Time and The Direction of Time
  
  
• Tim Maudlin's The Metaphysics Within Physics and Quantum Non-Locality and Relativity
  
  
• Gordon McCabe's "The Structure and Interpretation of Cosmology"
  
  
• Josh Knobe's "The Philosophical Implications of Inflationary Cosmology"
  
  
• David Albert's Time and Chance and After Physics
  
  
• Huw Price's Time's Arrow and Archimedes' Point
  
  
• Larry Sklar's Space, Time, and Spacetime
  
  There's a lot more out there, but a close reading of even all this is probably beyond the scope of single semester. If you can say a little bit more about what exactly you're interested in, I might be able to narrow things down a little bit.

For anyone really interested in a lot of this stuff, especially the physics-related sutff, I STRONGLY recommend reading Michio Kaku's (yeah, that guy) writing. Especially "Physics of the Impossible".

He writes a lot about what it would take to change the future of humanity, and the related impacts on a real level.

I live in NZ and recently read his 'Physics of the Impossible' book, where he refers to the Kiwi as a 'flightless bird from Australia'. ಠ_ಠ

Still loved the book, just made me chuckle.

I recommend "Physics of the Impossible" for a neat physics background read.

http://www.amazon.ca/Physics-Impossible-Scientific-Exploration-Teleportation/dp/0385520697

It is discussed excellently by Michio Kushi in Physics of the Impossible.

The Arrow of Time

Fantastic book.

Check out this book by Michio Kaku. He talks about the possibilities of this and other science fiction ideas. Interesting but light read.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0385520697/ref=redir_mdp_mobile?redirect=true&tag=michkakutheop-20

Michio Kaku goes into this in his book Physics of the Impossible. They made a TV series about it, and you should check out this episode

To my knowledge, the concept of entropy as the arrow of time was first discussed in this book (which is The Arrow of Time by Peter Coveney)

Check out https://www.amazon.com/Human-Calculator-Calendar-2013/dp/0988408414

I saw a show with this guy in 2010. I've been waiting for the calendar ever since.

Here's a recently published one:

http://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Handbook-Philosophy-Time-Handbooks/dp/0199298203/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344040384&sr=1-9&keywords=the+philosophy+of+time

I don't know how good it is though. This one I do know is good:

http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415437271/

Also, there was a compilation of many years of the journal Chronos (premier phil of time journal) in book form, I saw it once but I can't seem to find it again.

As a personal suggestion, on the topic of presentism, you'd do well to read William Lane Craig, The Tensed Theory of Time: A Critical Examination, and The Tenseless Theory of Time: A Critical Examination. Argues strongly in favor of presentism.

Try reading Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku. It's not at all utterly ridiculous for a civilization to be advanced enough to travel long distances. Rather than staggeringly improbable, it's likely.

http://www.amazon.com/Physics-Impossible-Scientific-Exploration-Teleportation/dp/0385520697

Crop circles, inside out cows, "dropping by a trailer park"... I guess you completely missed the story of missile de-activations caused by saucers. It's been going on for decades.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxDsveTvupY

But go on, be a skeptic. Don't open your mind.

Teleportation is not only possible, but already being done. Though, we are a looooooong way off from being able to transport a human being.

Time travel, according to some in theoretical physics, is possible. I personally do not believe it is, but some use the tenants of relativity to indicate that it would work.

Healing factors - not sure what you mean. But we are working on nanotechnology which some day may be able to be instructed to seek out and repair damaged cells while destroying disease.

Invisibility is again, not only possible, but already being developed. There are several experiments that have shown that you can cloak things, the science fiction fantasy of a personal cloaking device is probably a bit far fetched, but given enough time we might be able to. The only caveat is that our current understanding of how it would be achieved would leave you completely devoid of all incoming light so you would, too, be essentially blind. But it would be capable of housing a research facility (visually, radiation and other forms of detection such as walking up to it and trying to touch it would work).

I highly recommend reading Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku