Aging and the metrics of time

In contrast to clock time, which is extrinsic, universal and reversible, age is an intrinsic, directed measure of the state of a particular system. It is proposed that if the dynamical equations of a given system are cast into canonical form, a time scale intrinsic to that system can be derived. The metric which converts a given intrinsic time to clock time is derived in terms of the given system's constitutive parameters. Age becomes a question of similitude, two systems being in corresponding states (i.e. at the same age) at identical instants of intrinsic time (not clock time).It is further proposed that there is an intrinsic time associated with any dissipative process and that the coupling coefficients, L_ik, of irreversible thermodynamics are metrics which scale the passage of intrinsic time to clock time as measured by a standard harmonic oscillator. Thus in addition to the long standing conjecture that entropy production determines the direction of time's arrow there also is a sense in which it determines the rate of its flow.