Saving Presentism Through Local Actualization: A Functional Ontology of the Present
Description
This article proposes a renewed formulation of presentism based on a field-theoretic and func-
tional conception of the present. Contrary to classical metaphysical and geometric accounts, we
define the present not as a global simultaneity slice but as a local maximum of actualization
within an ontic intensity field. This field evolves over a fundamental, non-metric temporal back-
ground and dynamically determines the structure of becoming. We argue that this model avoids
major objections to presentism, including its incompatibility with relativity and the truthmaker
challenge. It also provides a constructive reinterpretation of temporal ontology compatible with
structural realism and local physics.
Other
Presentism is the metaphysical thesis that only present entities exist. While intuitively compelling
and historically influential, presentism has been widely criticized on both philosophical and physical
grounds. In contemporary metaphysics, presentism faces significant challenges from the truthmaker
principle: if only present things exist, how can statements about the past be true? In physics,
the relativity of simultaneity in special and general relativity appears to undermine any notion of
a privileged global present. These objections have led many to abandon presentism in favor of
eternalism or the block universe model, where past, present, and future are equally real (Malament,
1977; Sider, 2001).
This article aims to defend a version of presentism that avoids its classical pitfalls by grounding
temporal ontology in the dynamics of actualization rather than in geometrical simultaneity. We
argue that the present should not be conceived as a global slice of spacetime, nor as a metaphysi-
cally thin instant, but rather as a structurally defined regime of maximal ontic intensity within a
physical field. This field—the actualization field —evolves over a fundamental non-metric temporal
parameter, distinct from coordinate time. The present is thereby redefined as a local maximum of
actualization, not as a conventional simultaneity class.
This reformulation introduces a functional conception of temporal existence: entities exist not
by virtue of their position on a temporal axis, but by their degree of actualization within a dynamic
structure. Past and future events are not ontologically real in the same sense as present ones; they
are instead encoded in the structure of the field, either as informational derivations or as potential
pathways for future actualization.
This model of local actualization presentism offers several advantages. It avoids the need for
absolute simultaneity and is thus compatible with relativistic physics. It satisfies a modified truth-
maker condition by grounding past truths in present structural encodings. And it redefines becom-
ing not as a primitive metaphysical addition to being, but as an emergent property of the evolving
intensity of the actualization field.
∗Independent Researcher, Paris. Email: your.email@example.com
1
The article proceeds as follows. Section 2 surveys the key objections to classical presentism.
Section 3 introduces the theoretical framework of actualization, including the distinction between
fundamental time and metric time, and the role of the field A(x, t). Section 4 reconstructs presentism
as a functional ontology. Section 5 addresses potential objections, and Section 6 explores broader
implications for metaphysics and physics. We conclude by situating this proposal within ongoing
debates on the nature of time, causality, and existence.
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