ER - Existence, Reality and Time

What if time is not a problem to be solved, but the very condition that makes existence possible?

ER: Existence, Reality and Time continues and deepens the journey that began with Time Explained. While Time Explained was written as an accessible entry point, this book is an in‑depth exploration of Existential Realism (ER) for readers who want to go further.

If you already read Time Explained, this book is the next step. It sharpens the arguments, expands the examples, and follows the consequences of ER much further—across physics, philosophy, cognitive science, and lived experience.

This is not dry, abstract philosophy. It is an interdisciplinary investigation that connects scientific models, human experience, and metaphysical clarity. Newcomers to theories of time may want to start with Time Explained first; ER is written for readers ready to engage more deeply.

Reading sample

Why Time Remains Poorly Understood

Time is the most familiar feature of our lives—and for that very reason, the hardest to see clearly.

Time is everywhere and yet strangely invisible. Everything that exists, happens, or is experienced unfolds in time—and still, we lack a shared understanding of what time actually is. Part of the problem is that time is too close to us. We confuse clocks, schedules, and measurements with time itself. Physics offers powerful but conflicting pictures: absolute time, relative time, block universes, background parameters. Philosophy, meanwhile, has often stepped back from the problem, leaving gaps between theory and lived experience. Most importantly, our strongest intuition—that time passes—sits uneasily with many scientific models that deny any real flow. The result is a deep tension between how time is described and how it is lived. This book starts from that tension rather than explaining it away.

Presentism — The Oldest Intuition

The idea that only the present is real feels obvious. It is also deeply misleading.

What it is: Presentism holds that only the present moment truly exists. The past is gone, the future is not yet real. Reality is confined to what is happening now.

Why it fails: While this view fits everyday intuition, it struggles to account for scientific knowledge. Physics relies on relations across past and future, from causal chains to spacetime structure. Presentism also has difficulty explaining persistence, change, and objective temporal order without smuggling in what it officially denies.

Presentism protects the present—but at the cost of thinning out reality too much.

Eternalism — The Physicists’ Picture

Eternalism promises clarity—but only by declaring everything that ever was or will be already fully actual.

What it is: Eternalism treats past, present, and future as equally existing. Time does not genuinely pass; instead, the universe is a fixed four‑dimensional structure in which all events coexist.

Why it fails: This view aligns well with relativity, but it does so by radically overpopulating reality. Every event that ever happened or will happen is treated as equally actual—right now—merely located at different coordinates in spacetime.

In this picture, nothing truly comes into being. Change is reduced to perspective, and the present loses any special status. Becoming is not explained but eliminated. What remains is a universe already filled with all moments at once, where the lived sense of unfolding time is dismissed rather than accounted for.

Eternalism gains mathematical elegance—but at the cost of inflating reality beyond necessity and emptying the present of significance.

Existential Realism — A Different Starting Point

Existential Realism (ER) starts where all certainty begins: in the reality of the present.

What it is: Existential Realism begins with the undeniable fact of the present. The present is where existence is actual, where reality is not inferred but encountered. From there, ER distinguishes between existence and reality: the present exists, while past and future are real without being present.

Why it does not fail: This framework preserves what presentism gets right—the primacy of the now—without denying the reality required by science. It also avoids eternalism’s static universe by placing becoming at the center. Change is not an illusion; it is fundamental.

ER integrates physics, phenomenology, and cognitive science into a coherent picture in which time is neither a mere parameter nor a subjective trick, but the dynamic condition of existence itself.

Crucially, ER is empirically grounded. Matter exists only in the present: physical processes occur now, even though they are constrained by past conditions and future possibilities.

This book develops that framework in full detail.

Which Book Should You Start With?

Two books, two entry points — one shared framework.

Time Explained is the place to begin if you are new to philosophical and scientific debates about time. It offers a clear, accessible overview and introduces Existential Realism without requiring prior background. It is written to re‑orient intuition and open the problem space.

ER: Existence, Reality and Time is the continuation. It is a sustained, in‑depth investigation for readers who want to follow the arguments further, explore their consequences, and engage more rigorously with physics, philosophy, and cognition.

If Time Explained opened the door, ER invites you to walk through it.

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