Neither Presentism nor Eternalism
History and Philosophy of Physics
2020-02-11 v2 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Abstract
Is reality three-dimensional and becoming real (Presentism), or is reality four-dimensional and becoming illusory (Eternalism)? Both options raise difficulties. I argue that we do not need to be trapped by this dilemma. There is a third possibility: reality has a more complex temporal structure than either of these two naive options. Fundamental becoming is real, but local and unoriented. A notion of present is well defined, but only locally and in the context of approximations.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1910.02474,
title = {Neither Presentism nor Eternalism},
author = {Carlo Rovelli},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1910.02474},
year = {2020}
}
Comments
2 figures, 6 pages