Eckard Blumschein wrote: "When Einstein declared "the separation between past, present, and future an obstinate illusion" he made two horror mistakes at a time."
From a logical point of view, the mistake is only one: his 1905 constant-speed-of-light postulate is false. So one should not reject the block universe without questioning special relativity, as Ellis does. Presentists are much more straightforward:
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/2308/1/presentism_and_qg_vp_3_dd.pdf
PRESENTISM AND QUANTUM GRAVITY, by Bradley Monton
"I am a presentist: I believe that only presently existing things exist. Contrast presentism with eternalism: the eternalist believes that past, present, and future things all exist. Assuming that there are three spatial dimensions, the eternalist believes that the universe is fourdimensional, and while there are different events in different regions of this so-called "block universe", the universe as a whole does not change. The presentist, in contrast, believes that the universe is three-dimensional. (...) The point of this paper is not to argue for presentism, but to defend presentism from a particular type of argument that is often taken to refute it. The form of the argument is as follows:
(1) Presentism is incompatible with relativity theory (usually the focus is on special relativity).
(2) Relativity theory is our most fundamental theory of physics.
(3) Presentism is incompatible with our most fundamental theory of physics. (From (1) and (2).)
(4) Presentism is false. (From (3).)
(...) But regardless of the strength of the arguments for presentism, the presentist is not required to endorse a non-traditional understanding of relativity. The presentist can simply say that presentism is incompatible with special and general relativity, and hence special and general relativity are false."
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[end of quotation]
How can special relativity be false? It is based on two postulates - the principle of relativity and the principle of constancy of the speed of light - so one of the postulates must be false. Which one? This is an absolute-crimestop question in Einsteiniana:
http://www.liferesearchuniversal.com/1984-17
George Orwell: "Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity."
Pentcho Valev pvalev@yahoo.com