What is time? Don't ask me, and I know. Ask me, and I don't know. (St. Augustine) This post sketches, without defending, one theory of time, the B-theory of time, and shows how it sires the position in temporal ontology called 'eternalism.'
On the B-Theory of time, real or objective time is exhausted by what J. M. E. McTaggart called the B-series, the series of times, events, and individuals ordered by the B-relations (earlier than, later than, simultaneous with). If the B-theory is correct, then our ordinary sense that events approach us from the future, arrive at the present, and then recede into the past is at best a mind-dependent phenomenon, at worst an illusion. Either way, it is not something that really occurs. For on the B-theory, there are no such irreducible monadic A-properties as futurity, presentness and pastness. There is just a manifold of tenselessly existing events ordered by the B-relations. Time does not pass or flow, let alone fly. There is no temporal becoming or temporal passage. My birth is not sinking into the past, becoming ever more past, nor is my death approaching from the future, getting closer and closer. Tempus fugit does not express a truth about reality. At best, it picks out a truth about our subjective experience of reality.
The B-theorist does not deny that there is time. He does not hold that time is an illusion or mere appearance. What he denies is that the sense that time passes or flows corresponds to an ingredient in real time. His claim is that real or objective time is exhausted by the B-series and that temporal becoming is at best subjective.
If there is no temporal becoming in reality, then change is not a becoming different or a passing away or a coming into being. When a tomato ripens, it does not become ripe: it simply is (tenselessly) unripe at certain times and is (tenselessly) ripe at certain later times. And when it ceases to exist, it doesn't pass away: it simply is at certain times and is not at certain later times. Similarly for beginning to exist. There is nothing more to a thing’s beginning to exist at time t than its nonexistence at all times earlier than t and its existence at some times later than t. (I am assuming that one and the same thing cannot have two beginnings of existence.)
What about motion? A ball rolls down a hill. Does it ‘go’ from one place to another? No. It is simply at different places at different times. The B-theory implies the at-at theory of motion.
You could say that the B-theorist has a static view of time that strips way its 'dynamism.' Since there is no change without time, the ‘stripping’ transfers to change, whether it it be existential change, quidditative change, or change in position.
Employing a political metaphor, one could say that a B-theorist is an egalitarian about times and the events at times: they are all equal in point of reality. Accordingly, my writing now is no more real (but also no less real) than Socrates' drinking the hemlock millennia ago. Nor is it more real than my death which, needless to say, lies in the future. But this future event is not approaching or getting closer. It is merely later than the event of my writing and the events simultaneous with my writing. Each time is present at itself, but no time is present, period.
This is to say that the present moment enjoys no ontological privilege. There is nothing special about it in point of being or existence. So, on the B-theory, you can't say that the present alone exists. You can no more say this than you can say that here, the place here I am now, alone exists. My here enjoys no ontological privilege, and neither does yours. We all believe in the quality of places. If I were to insist that my here is ontologically special, the only existing here, a wokester would call me a ‘spatial racist,’ and in this one instance she would be justified!
None of this is to say that the B-theorist does not have uses for 'past,' 'present,' and 'future.' He can speak with the vulgar while thinking with the learned. Thus a B-theorist can hold that an utterance at time t of 'E is past' expresses the fact that E is earlier than t. An old objection is that this does not capture the meaning of 'E is past.' For the fact that E is earlier than t, if true, is always true; while 'E is past' is true only after E. This difference in truth conditions shows a difference in meaning. The B-theorist can respond by saying that his concern is not with semantics but with ontology. His concern is with the reality, or rather the lack of reality, of tense, and not with the meanings of tensed sentences or sentences featuring A-expressions. The B-theorist can say that, regardless of meaning, what makes it true that E is past at t is that E is earlier than t, and that, in mind-independent reality, nothing else is needed to make 'E is past' uttered at t true.
Compare 'BV is hungry' and 'I am hungry' said by BV. The one is true if and only if the other is. But the two sentences differ in meaning. The first, if true, is true no matter who says it and no matter what the state of his stomach; but the second is true only if asserted by someone who is hungry, and who is identical to BV. Despite the difference in meaning, what makes it true that I am hungry (assertively uttered by BV) is that BV is hungry. In sum, the B-theorist need not be committed to the insupportable contention that A-statements are translatable salva significatione into B-statements.
The B-theorist, then, denies that the present moment enjoys any temporal or existential privilege. All times are equal in point of existence. Every time is temporally present to itself such that no time is temporally present simpliciter. This temporal egalitarianism entails a decoupling of existence and temporal presentness. There just is no irreducible monadic property of temporal presentness; hence existence cannot be identified with it. To exist is to exist tenselessly. The B-theory excludes presentism according to which there is a genuine, irreducible, property of temporal presentness and existence is either identical or logically equivalent to this property. Presentism implies that only the temporally present is real or existent. If to exist is to exist now, then the past and future do not exist, not just now (which is trivial) but at all. The B-theory leads to what is known in the trade as 'eternalism' according to which the catalog of what exists is not exhausted by present items, but includes past and future ones as well.
Please note that the B-theory is incompatible not only with presentism, but with any theory that is committed to irreducible A-properties. Thus the B-theory rules out 'pastism,' the crazy theory that only the past exists and 'futurism,' the crazy view that only the future exists. It also rules out the sane view that only the past and the present exist, and that the future is open and to be determined.
Why be a B-theorist? McTaggart has a famous argument according to which the monadic A-properties lead to contradiction. We should examine that argument in a separate post. The argument is endorsed by Hugh Mellor in his Real Time. Mellor, however, does not conclude, with McTaggart, that time is unreal, but that real time is exhausted by the B-series. Mellor denies what McTaggart affirms, namely, that the B-series depends on the A-series.
Another consideration in support of the B-theory is that the physics of Einstein & Co. has no need of temporal becoming. So if physics gets at the world as it is in itself apart from our subjective additions, then real time is exhausted by the B-series.