Time, Determinism & Free Will
Eternalism (Block Universe)
Holds that past, present, and future are all equally real, laid out together in a single four-dimensional ‘block’ of spacetime — meaning the flow of time from present to future is a feature of human perception rather than of the universe itself.
Proponents
Hermann Minkowski, C. W. Rietdijk, Hilary Putnam
Evidence For
Special relativity's relativity of simultaneity means observers in relative motion disagree about which distant events count as happening 'now' — difficult to reconcile with a single, objective universal present, and naturally suggesting that all of spacetime is equally real.
Evidence Against
Struggles to account for the strong, seemingly universal experience of time 'flowing' or 'passing' rather than simply being laid out all at once; some philosophers of physics argue relativity is compatible with a privileged present after all under alternative interpretations.
Real Sources
Transmissions
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