Katherine Fazekas Englehardt

Recent work at the intersection of physics and philosophy of time suggests that time’s absence from theories of quantum gravity (QG) entails that reality is fundamentally atemporal and that time is emergent. I consider two potential ways that time might be emergent: in a robust, dualist sense and in a systemic, physical sense. I examine what each of these possibilities would entail for substantivalist and relationist views of time. I also examine what is meant by ‘fundamental’ when it is said that time’s absence from QG makes reality ‘fundamentally’ atemporal. I argue that there are four senses of ‘fundamental’ at play and although time’s absence from QG precludes it from being fundamental in all four senses, time may still be fundamental in two important ways. A consequence of this clarification of senses of ‘emergence’ and ‘fundamentality’ is that time may be both emergent and fundamental (in some sense). In particular, I propose that time is part of an emergent structure that is foundational for things with macro-level existence.

This paper explains the phenomena that compose the experience of the passage of time and argues that this experience represents the temporal direction of causal processes. The experience of the passage of time comprises several more specific experiences, namely: (1) the experience of continuously advancing to later times; (2) the observation of continuous change, both in the things around us and in ourselves; (3) the feeling of a lack of control over (1) and (2); and (4) the experience of a number of phenomena that we describe as animated, dynamic, or flowing. The experience of passage is a causal process whose function is to promote survival and reproductive success by representing the temporal direction of causal processes (including itself). It does this primarily via the specious present, wherein later content is presented as more vivid than earlier content. The experience of passage is veridical and is compatible with either the B‐theory or the A‐theoretic views of time.

B- theorists frequently argue that the A- theoretic views are incompatible with the Special Theory of Relativity (STR) and that this is a problem for the A- theoretic views. however, the B- theory needs to be revised in light of implications of STR. in particular, it follows from STR that some events stand in genuine temporal relations to each other while others do not. Consequently, there isn’t a single temporal order of all events. instead, there are multiple B- series. Some B- theorists defend a view of the passage of time according to which passage is simply temporal succession. This paper argues that, in Minkowski spacetime, time passes in each of the multiple B- series, but there is no passage spanning across all events because some events stand in no genuine temporal relations to each other.