The rate of time's passage

Abstract

1. Many philosophers say that time has a kind of flow or passage that distinguishes it from space. Future times and events become less future; past ones become more past; persisting things grow older. The world is caught up in a process of purely chronological change. This is the dynamic view of time. A traditional objection to the dynamic view says that if time passes in this way, it must pass at some rate, yet we cannot say what the rate would be. I claim that we can see easily enough what the rate of time's passage would have to be, but there can be no such rate. This objection appears to refute decisively not only the dynamic view, but any tensed theory of time. 2. There are several ways of stating the dynamic view. We might say that each time or event has one or more tense properties, such as being present or being a year in the future. And times or events change in respect of these properties: your next birthday is now in the future, but it will one day be present. More precisely, times or events have tense properties simpliciter. The 21st century, and no other, is present. It is not just present for us, or present in the 21st century; nor does its presentness consist in its coinciding with the time of my writing this or your reading it. There is an absolute division of times or events into past, present, and future. And there is constant change in where times or events lie with respect to this division.

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