Edwin,
I thought I would offer up some outsiders arguments for a presentist view of time, that you might find useful.
Our minds function as flashes of perception and so we think of time as the point of the present, moving from past to future. Consequently this is the basis of narrative, history and civilization.
The reality is that it is change turning future to past, as in tomorrow becomes yesterday, because the earth turns. This makes time an effect of action, similar to temperature, rather than space.
Duration is the state of the present, as events coalesce and dissolve, not evidence of some underlaying dimension.
Clocks can run at different rates because they are separate actions. A faster clock/action will use energy quicker, like an animal with higher metabolism will age quicker than one with a slower rate.
Time is asymmetric because action is inertial. The earth turns one direction, not both.
The simultaneity of the present was dismissed by arguing different actions appear in different sequence to different locations, yet this is no more consequential than seeing the moon as it was a moment ago, simultaneous with seeing stars as they were years ago. It is the very fact these events radiated away the energy manifesting them that we can see them, as well as why they no longer exist.
There are philosophic issues as well, specifically determinism. It is the occurrence of an event which fully computes the input into it, such as information carrying light coming from opposite directions.
Predetermination assumes this calculation can be made beforehand. Yet events are first in the present, then in the past. They are determined by their occurrence.
Alan Watts used the example of a boat and its wake to show the problem with this, in that the boat creates the wake, not the wake tearing the boat.
The assumption is that prior events are cause of subsequent ones, but it is the underlaying energy which is cause of both. Prior events may predict subsequent ones, but are equally consumed by them.
Consider that energy exists as the present, thus is "conserved." So it is constantly creating new information and dissolving old. So the energy goes from past to future, as information goes future to past.
In the East, the past is considered to be in front of the observer and the future behind, because the past and what is in front are known, while the future and what is behind are unknown. In the West, we view the future as in front and the past behind, because we see ourselves as beings moving through our context and thus toward our future, while in the east, the observer is considered to be part of the context and only sees events after they occur, while the energy continues on.
Consider a factory, where the product goes start to finish, while the production line faces the other way, consuming material and expelling product. One future to past. The other past to future. Compare this to individuals and species, where the individual goes from birth to death, being in the future to being in the past, while the species is constantly moving onto new generations and shedding old ones.
Consider as well that galaxies are processes of energy radiating out as form gravitates in.
Hopefully this is of interest. Good luck in the contest!
Regards,
John
