Being and Becoming in Modern Physics
Steven Savitt · 2021 · Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Summary
Examines how relativity bears on the block-universe vs. presentism debate, including simultaneity, temporal passage, becoming, and the relationship between physics and metaphysics.
Why it matters here
Direct treatment of the physics-of-time question — exactly the territory the block-universe claim lives in, without reducing the debate to a slogan.
Linked claims
The 4D 'block' picture follows naturally from special relativity, where there is no objective universal 'now'. Many physicists and philosophers accept it.
The past is real and growing. The future is not yet. A compromise that preserves becoming.
The natural common-sense view: only what exists now exists. Hard to reconcile with relativity but not refuted.
Umbrella entry for the time question. Time, in some real sense, undeniably organises both experience and physics. Whether it is fundamental, emergent, or illusory is what's actually contested.