Time and Tense: A Note on the B-Theory

What is time?  Don't ask me, and I know.  Ask me, and I don't know. (Augustine)  This post sketches, without defending, one theory of time.

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. 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.  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 experience of reality.

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 blogging now is no more real (but also no less real) than Socrates' drinking the hemlock millenia ago.  Nor is it more real than my death which, needless to say,  lies in the future.  Each time is present at itself, but no time is present, period.  And each time (and the events at it) exists relative to itself, but no time exists absolutely.

This is not 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; but the second is true only if asserted by someone who is hungry. 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.  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 property of temporal presentness; hence existence cannot be identified with it.  To exist is to exist tenselessly.  The opposite view is that of the presentist: there is a genuine 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.

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.

 

Comments

[Kevin Kim]

If past, present, and future exist tenselessly, what are the implications for counterfactuals, i.e., the would-haves, etc.? What status, if any, do they enjoy?

[Account Deleted]

For some time now I have been wondering about (or perhaps toying with) the idea as to why are we compelled to accept either the B-Time series or the A-Time series but cannot accept both? Is there an argument against such a possibility?

[Bill Vallicella]

Hi Kevin,

The B-theorist won't have any trouble with counterfactuals. Or do you have aspecific problem in mind?

[Bill Vallicella]

Peter,

Well, there is McT's original argument according to which the B-series requires the A-series, the latter is self-contradictory, hence time is unreal.

But I believe it is possible to think of events as tenselessly existent as the B-theory does while holding to an absolute NOW that moves along the B-series.

[Kevin Kim]

I guess my question is whether counterfactuals enjoy some sort of existence according to the B-theory. Maybe I've got the analogy wrong, but upon reading this post about the B-theory, I imagined a visual metaphor along the lines of the "eternal now" that some theists talk about when referring to the godly perspective.

"...a B-theorist is an egalitarian about times and the events at times: they are all equal in point of reality."

The metaphor involved a spool of movie film, where the movie in its entirety is analogous to the history of the universe, with each frame of the movie being analogous to all states of affairs in the universe at a given moment in time. A person standing next to the spool of film could, in theory, unspool the whole movie and see all of its moments at a glance -- a godlike perspective not available to the characters inside the movie, who experience its events frame by frame. All the frames of the movie already exist simultaneously, and that simultaneity would be analogous to the tenseless existence of past, present, and future in B-theory.

Perhaps I've conjured up the wrong image in thinking about B-theory, but that image is what leads me to my problem with counterfactuals: the spool of film can only refer to actual states of affairs. Being linear, the spool doesn't branch off into shadowy would-haves and could-haves and all the rest; only one actual path exists from the movie's beginning to its end. The uncomfortable implication of the image is that there are no alternatives: the film's events must run their inevitable course, leaving no room for freedom. One would think that, for freedom to exist, counterfactuals would have to exist in some sense. If the film represents all there is, and if counterfactuals are a subset of all there is (because they exist in some way), then for there to be freedom, the film must somehow contain the counterfactuals in its frames.

Perhaps I'm asking two different questions, here: (1) is my image an appropriate way to visualize the B-theory notion of spatiotemporality, and (2) regardless of the justice of my chosen metaphor, how do counterfactuals figure into B-theory?

[Bill Vallicella]

Kevin,

Imagine the film unspooled and laid out flat. Each frame is equally real. If we ignore the continuity of time and think of it as composed of discrete moments, then each frame can be thought of as a moment of time. If the NOW is the projector that illuminates and projects each frame onto a screen, then there is no projector. For there is no moving NOW on the B-theory.

But you can't say the frames exist simultaneously: they are ordered by the B-relations, earlier and later.

As for counterfactuals, their analysis requires possible worlds. The B-theory is consistent with there being a plurality of worlds. 'If I were to drop this glass, it would shatter.' Suppose the glass is never dropped in the actual world and never shatters. The counterfactual is nonetheless true because there are possible worlds in which the glass exists, is dropped, and does shatter.

The B-theory does imply that the future is not open: it is as settled or determinate as the past.