Journal for General Philosophy of Science

, Volume 43, Issue 2, pp 313–326 | Cite as

Twins’ Paradox and Closed Timelike Curves: The Role of Proper Time and the Presentist View on Spacetime

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Abstract

Relativity allegedly contradicts presentism, the dynamic view of time and reality, according to which temporal passage is conceived of as an existentially distinguished ‘moving’ now. Against this common belief, the paper motivates a presentist interpretation of spacetime: It is argued that the fundamental concept of time—proper time—cannot be characterized by the earlier-later relation, i.e., not in the B-theoretical sense. Only the presentist can provide a temporal understanding of the twins’ paradox and of universes with closed timelike curves.

Keywords

Twins’ paradox Closed timelike curves Presentism 
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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2012

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Institut für PhilosophieUniversität BonnBonnGermany

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