Van Bendegem has recently offered an argument to the effect that, if time is discrete, then there should exist a correspondence between the motions of massive bodies and a discrete geometry. On this basis, he concludes that, even if space is continuous, it should nonetheless appear discrete. This paper examines the two possible ways of making sense of that correspondence, and shows that in neither case van Bendegem’s conclusion logically follows.

The early history of the attempts to unify quantum theory with the general theory of relativity is depicted through the work of the under--appreciated Italo-Brazilian physicist Gleb Wataghin, who is responsible for many of the ideas that the quantum gravity community is entertaining today.

Presentists have typically argued that the Block View is incapable of explaining our experience of time. In this paper I argue that the phenomenology of our experience of time is, on the contrary, against presentism. My argument is based on a dilemma: presentists must either assume that the metaphysical present has no temporal extension, or that it is temporally extended. The former horn leads to phenomenological problems. The latter renders presentism metaphysically incoherent, unless one posits a discrete present that, however, (...) suffers from the same difficulties that the instantaneous present is prone to. After introducing the main phenomenological models of our experience of time that are discussed in the literature, I show that none of them favors presentism. I conclude by arguing that if even the phenomenology of time sides against presentism, the latter metaphysical theory has no scientific evidence in its favor and ought to be dropped. (shrink)