Presentism Without Substrates: A Structural Reformulation of Temporal Ontology

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel reconciliation between presentism and ontic struc- tural realism (OSR) by introducing a structurally dynamic conception of temporal existence. Against both the eternalist metaphysics of the block universe and the eliminativism of classical OSR, we defend a model of "presentist structure-flux," in which only the structural configuration of the present exists, but diachronic conti- nuity is preserved via quasi-isomorphic transitions. This framework accommodates key features of quantum theory (non-locality, entanglement, indistinguishability) while avoiding metaphysical contradictions and offering a novel reconciliation of presentism and structural realism, free from metric commitments and ontological substrata. This article proposes a structural reformulation of presentism, in which only the current configuration of relational constraints—understood morphically—is ontologically instantiated.

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Paris Université Cité

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References found in this work

What Makes Time Special?Craig Callender - 2017 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized.James Ladyman & Don Ross - 2007 - In James Ladyman & Don Ross, Every thing must go: metaphysics naturalized. New York: Oxford University Press.
Objective Becoming.Bradford Skow - 2015 - Oxford: Oxford University Press UK.
Relational quantum mechanics.Carlo Rovelli - 1996 - International Journal of Theoretical Physics 35 (8):1637--1678.
Spacetime is as spacetime does.Vincent Lam & Christian Wüthrich - 2018 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 64:39-51.

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