Problems and tasks of the research programme

Time in natural science is an initial and undefinable concept. Therefore at present the basic task in studying time is the creation of its explicit construction, or model. In other words, it is necessary to replace time in the fundamentals of science with other basic concepts. It will be then possible to formulate the properties of time itself as theorems of a deductive theory rather than axioms created by a researcher's intuition. Only in the framework of a certain theory it becomes possible to consistently discuss the properties of time.

Since time necessarily enters into the very basics of the conceptual skeleton of science, to create its construction means, in fact, restructuring the whole basis of the logical fundamentals of natural science. Such restructuring is impossible without touching upon a wide circle of basic general scientific concepts, such as, for instance, space, motion, matter, interaction, energy, entropy, life... One should thus speak of a vast interdisciplinary research programme, and its implementation will require the enthusiasm and effort of very many scientists.

As it frequently happens, attempts of scientific explication leads to splitting of the time concept into at least two concepts: the "nature" of time understood as the existence of mechanisms creating changes in the world, and the clocks representing the methods of measuring these changes. In order to discover the "nature" of time, it is suggested to indicate its natural reference, i.e., process, phenomenon, "carrier" in the material world, whose properties might be identified or put into correspondence with the properties ascribed to time. Such ideas necessarily combine their own phenomenal and noumenal origin, their substantial and relational roots. To indicate the natural references of time and to discuss the consequences of their existence is one of the important tasks of the research programme suggested.

The dynamical theories of any natural objects implicitly incorporate their creators' paradigms concerning the admissible kinds of object variability and on the variability measurement methods adopted. The equations of motion, representing the basic content of a dynamical theory, are actually a description of the variability objects of interest for the researcher as compared with reference variability (the clocks). The clocks used by the researchers may be different, therefore the researcher's ability to discover, to guess, to "see" the sought-for equations of motion depend on the adequacy of their choice od clocks to the processes under study. The main task of the approach to be developed is to suggest, on the basis of an explicit description of both the ways of variability and the references for its measurement, a formalism for deriving rather than guessing the equations of generalized motion of natural systems.