  Many macroscopic physical processes are known to occur in a time-directed way
despite the apparent time-symmetry of the known fundamental laws. A popular
explanation is to postulate an unimaginably atypical state for the early
universe -- a "Past Hypothesis" (PH) -- that seeds the time-asymmetry from
which all others follow. I will argue that such a PH faces serious new
difficulties. First I strengthen the grounds for existing criticism by
providing a systematic analytic framework for assessing the status of the PH. I
outline three broad categories of criticism that put into question a list of
essential requirements of the proposal. The resulting analysis paints a grim
picture for the prospects of providing an adequate formulation for an explicit
PH. I then provide a new argument that substantively extends this criticism by
showing that any time-independent measure on the space of models of the
universe must necessarily break one of its gauge symmetries. The PH then faces
a new dilemma: reject a gauge symmetry of the universe and introduce a
distinction without difference or reject the time-independence of the measure
and lose explanatory power.
