  Time can be defined as the duration between events. It is irreversible. When
used as a variable in quantifying the changing properties of matter, this
irreversibility of time is incompatible with Newton's deterministic mechanics
and with its quantum mechanical prolongation. Experimental evidence, involving
rejection of the traditional isolation paradigm, points to a solution of this
paradox. No system may be thought of as isolated. Irreversibility is imported
from ``elsewhere''. The popular objection of the followers of determinism,
consisting in extrapolating local behaviour to the scale of the universe and
stressing alleged contradictions generated by the non-isolation hypothesis, is
intellectually unacceptable. It is unjustifiable to draw conclusions by
extrapolating beyond the domain of scientific observation.
