Temporal conceptions

Concepts about the flow of time that include, principally linear and cyclic concepts. The linear view pervades modern western thought: time is envisioned as an arrow flying continuously from the past to the preset and the future to never come back. In the cyclic conception, found in oriental and other cosmologies, time moves in periodical cycles; here the past is indeed prologue. A cyclic model (for example, of expansion and contraction of the universe) stands in contrast to the big bang, ever-expanding universe, a model more generally accepted because the cyclic model may fail due to increases in entropy. In futures research, predator-prey models demonstrate cyclic behavior; seasonality and boom-bust economic cycles are further illustrations.