“Irreversibility can no longer be identified with a mere appearance that would disappear if we had perfect knowledge…. The claim that the arrow of time is “only phenomenological,” or subjective is therefore absurd.

Recent developments in nonequilibrium physics and chemistry… show unambiguously that the arrow of time is a source of order.”

— Ilya Prigogine, The End of Certainty, p. 3, p. 26.