Is it possible to reverse time? Yes, in a sense. It is possible to reverse thermodynamic time by a local decrease in entropy. Cooling down, metabolism, and memory are examples of decreases in entropy.
Memory may be described as an information model: it compresses experience for storage. The information in memory is not all that happened; something was lost or not perceived.
As memory grows, it is necessary to do maintenance like that done with computer systems, such as defragmenting isolated memories and consolidating them into coherent storage. This, too, may decrease entropy. It is also necessary to review memory, to restore weak memories. This remembering, this return to the past, is a form of reversing time.
Time for us is memory. Without memory, there is no time–we are like children focused on the here and now.
Weekly and annual cycles of remembrance renew our memories and help integrate them into an existing framework. The cycle of the week is the cycle of creation and rest. The cycle of the year is the cycle of reviewing the history of God’s people. Other cycles give us a rhythm for life–cycles of the tides, of the school year, of national holidays.
The Greek word chronos describes these regular cycles, whereas the word kairos describes a progression. Chronos is measurable, predictable, cyclic time. Kairos is experienced time, which flows and grows in unpredictable ways. The experiences of kairos are turned into the cycles of chronos by memory.