Why Does Time Seem to Pass

According to the B-theory, the passage of time is an illusion. Although times are objectively ordered, with every time earlier or later than every other, no time is objectively past, present or future. The A-theory, by contrast, says that time passes. Here I shall use the term ‘A-theory’ to include any ‘dynamic’ view of time; the term thus encompasses presentism, growing block theories and shrinking block theories as well as more traditional ‘moving spotlight’ versions of the A-theory. The B-theory cannot be regarded as fully satisfactory until an adequate account has been given of the illusion of passage. For, as many philosophers and scientists have remarked, it seems to us that we experience time passing; and indeed this is often cited by A-theorists as the best reason for believing that time passes. The following is a small but representative sample of the many descriptions of the phenomenology given by both A-theorists and B-theorists: