The B-theorist of time (Mellor, Smart, Williams, Sider) holds that the world is a four-dimensional manifold in which all events, past, present, and future, are equally real. There is no objective becoming; the apparent flow of time is a feature of conscious experience or of the indexical content of tensed claims, not a metaphysical fact about the manifold. The block-universe view is an influential metaphysical interpretation of relativity: the relativity of simultaneity makes a privileged present problematic, and the four-dimensional manifold is a natural setting for relativistic physics, though the interpretation remains contested. If the B-theorist is right, the present account of [§2.6](<2.6 Triconditionality of Nature.md>) must be reinterpreted: T is the temporal extension of the block, not the directed flow of becoming, and the structural conditions obtain across the block as a whole rather than as a feature of a moving present.

The move is influential and the position is widely held. Smart's "The River of Time" -(Smart, J. J. C., 1949) and *Philosophy and Scientific Realism* -(Smart, J. J. C., 1963) give the position its mid-century analytic articulation. Williams's "The Myth of Passage" -(Williams, Donald C., 1951) is the canonical statement of the case against objective becoming. Mellor's *Real Time* -(Mellor, D. H., 1981) and *Real Time II* -(Mellor, D. H., 1998) develop the most careful contemporary defense, on which tensed claims are reduced to tenseless truth-conditions and the apparent flow of time is a perspectival feature. Sider's *Four-Dimensionalism* -(Sider, Theodore, 2001) defends the block as the proper setting for ordinary objects, with persistence cashed out as having temporal parts at different times. Putnam's "Time and Physical Geometry" -(Putnam, Hilary, 1967) and Rietdijk's -(Rietdijk, C. W., 1966) argue that special relativity forces the block. Maudlin's *The Metaphysics Within Physics* -(Maudlin, Tim, 2007) defends time's fundamentality against the standard B-theoretic readings. Price's *Time's Arrow and Archimedes' Point* -(Price, Huw, 1996) argues for a thoroughgoing block view on which temporal asymmetry is a perspectival illusion.

The target of the present reply is the structural claim: that the block universe is a static four-dimensional manifold without genuine becoming, and therefore that the structural conditions [§2.6](<2.6 Triconditionality of Nature.md>) names (if they obtain at all) obtain in a sense compatible with the absence of becoming, and possibly in a sense weaker than the present account requires. The reply is not that the B-theory is incoherent (it is not) but that the B-theoretic block instantiates the structural conditions of [§2.6](<2.6 Triconditionality of Nature.md>) in the sense the account requires. The block is not a counterexample to the present account; it is one of the available metaphysics of how the structural conditions are instantiated.

Three forms of the move develop the position at three depths: the strict-static-block form, the relativistic form, and the perspectival-becoming form. Each is consistent with the present account at the level the account operates.

*First.* The strict-static-block reading: the four-dimensional manifold is static in the sense that no genuine becoming obtains. The events of the manifold are timelessly arrayed, and the appearance of becoming is illusory. This is the most extreme reading and is sometimes endorsed by readers of Williams or by readers who take the relativistic argument to its eliminativist limit.

The strict-static-block reading must distinguish two senses of 'static.' In one sense, the block is static in that the manifold as a whole does not itself change: there is no super-time in which the four-dimensional manifold is arrayed and across which it evolves. In this sense, 'static' is correct and uncontroversial. In a second sense, 'static' would mean that the events within the manifold do not stand in temporal relations: that no event is earlier or later than any other event, that there is no directed ordering. In this second sense, the block is not static; the temporal extension of the manifold is what makes it a four-dimensional manifold rather than a three-dimensional one. The events within the block stand in B-series relations (earlier than, later than, simultaneous with) and these relations supply the directed ordering T requires. The B-theorist who denies becoming in the metaphysical sense (no objective A-series flow) does not deny temporal relations in the structural sense (B-series ordering across the manifold). The present account requires the latter, not the former.

The events within the block are distinguishable from one another (S). They stand in temporal relations of earlier and later (T). The manifold is a unified four-dimensional whole, but it does not itself persist through a further time. Within it, worldlines, temporal parts, or other cross-time relations may realize the bearing and continuity role associated with Φ. The block's unity should not be redescribed as temporal persistence of the whole. The B-theoretic block instantiates the dimension feature of T cleanly. On the composition view developed at [§7.2.2](<7.2.2 What is Required.md>), Temporality requires both the dimension and the passage as two features held together; the block-only reading without objective passage gives one feature where the composition requires two. The B-theorist who reduces passage to indexical content (Mellor, Williams, the perspectival-becoming form below) is in disagreement with the composition view on the metaphysical status of passage rather than consistent with it; the disagreement lives there. The B-theorist who allows objective passage through the manifold is the composition view in B-vocabulary.

*Second.* The relativistic form is the central motivation for the block. Special relativity's relativity of simultaneity is incompatible with a privileged objective present: different inertial frames disagree on which events are simultaneous, and there is no frame-independent fact of the matter. The four-dimensional manifold of Minkowski spacetime is the natural setting; events stand in the light-cone structure (causal past, causal future, elsewhere) rather than in a frame-independent A-series (the tensed past/present/future ordering with the present moving); the block is what relativity gives us.

The relativistic argument is correct as far as it goes, and the present account accommodates it without revision. T (directed ordering of states) does not require a frame-independent global present. It requires that events stand in temporal relations sufficient to support change, and the light-cone structure of Minkowski spacetime supplies exactly that: every event has a determinate causal past (events that can have influenced it) and a determinate causal future (events it can influence). The ordering is partial rather than total (events in each other's elsewhere do not stand in a determinate temporal relation) but partial ordering is sufficient for the present account. Change is local; the structural conditions [§2.6](<2.6 Triconditionality of Nature.md>) names are conditions on local processes of change, not on the existence of a global frame-independent present. Relativity makes the present account more careful, not less correct.

A note on the contested status of the inference itself. The move from special relativity to the four-dimensional block is not a settled physics result. Neo-Lorentzian interpretations, (Bell, John S., 1976), Maudlin's *Quantum Non-Locality and Relativity* -(Maudlin, Tim, 2002), ch. 7, and Craig's *Time and the Metaphysics of Relativity* -(Craig, William Lane, 2001) most directly, preserve a privileged frame consistently with the empirical content by treating Lorentz contraction and time dilation as dynamical effects on rods and clocks rather than as features of the spacetime structure itself; the Putnam–Stein exchange (Stein, Howard, 1968); (Stein, Howard, 1991) and Balashov–Janssen -(Balashov, Yuri, and Michel Janssen, 2003) press the orthodox four-dimensionalist reading against these alternatives. The dispute is genuine, and the present account does not contest either reading: on the orthodox reading T is supplied by light-cone partial ordering across the manifold, on the neo-Lorentzian reading T is supplied by a privileged dynamical frame, and on either reading the directed ordering the structural conditions [§2.6](<2.6 Triconditionality of Nature.md>) name is instantiated.

*Third.* The perspectival-becoming form (Mellor's mature position; Williams's "Myth of Passage"; Price's perspectival arrow) accepts the block at the metaphysical level and locates becoming at the perspectival level: the apparent flow of time is a feature of conscious experience, of indexical content, of the perspective of an observer embedded within the block, not a fact about the manifold itself.

The perspectival reading is consistent with the present account on the dimension feature of T and in tension with it on the passage feature. The structural conditions are instantiated by the manifold; the Mellor account preserves the dimension feature of T (B-series ordering), preserves S (event-distinctness), preserves a cross-time continuity or temporal-parts structure capable of realizing the Φ-role, and offers a story about how perspectival experience of becoming arises from the structural facts. On the composition view at [§7.2.2](<7.2.2 What is Required.md>), the passage feature of Temporality is metaphysically real rather than indexical, and Mellor's reduction is what the composition view declines. The story about perspectival becoming is consistent with the present account where it explains how the metaphysically-real passage registers from within a configuration that tracks its own position; it is not consistent where the becoming is the whole of what passage names. The disagreement is local to the passage feature; the rest of the Mellor architecture stands.

A kindred move is the growing-block theory (Tooley, Broad's earlier position): the past and present are real, the future is not, and the block grows by accretion as time passes. Growing-block is structurally a hybrid: it accepts B-series relations among the past-and-present events, accepts a privileged present (the leading edge of the block), and posits an objective process of accretion. The present account is consistent with growing-block in the sense that the growing block instantiates T (across the past-and-present), S, and Φ; the disputes between growing-block and the strict-block (and between both and presentism, on which only the present moment is real, the past having ceased and the future not yet existing) are internal to the metaphysics of which structures are instantiated, not whether the structural conditions obtain.

Another kindred is the moving-spotlight theory (Cameron, Skow): the block is timelessly there, and a privileged present moves across it. The present account is consistent with the moving-spotlight in the sense that the spotlight obtains within an already-structured block; the spotlight is one structural feature among others, supported by the underlying structure.

*What converges.* Three forms and each is consistent with the present account at the level it operates: the strict-static-block reading distinguishes two senses of 'static' and yields the structural conditions in the sense the account requires; the relativistic form replaces a global present with light-cone structure and supplies T as a partial ordering; and the perspectival-becoming form locates becoming in conscious experience while preserving the structural conditions at the metaphysical level. Across the three forms, the B-theoretic block instantiates T ∧ S ∧ Φ, sometimes more cleanly than the A-theoretic alternatives.

Sibling counter-constructions: the McTaggart-unreality objection is [§4.2.5](<4.2.5 The Unreality of Time.md>). The temporary-intrinsics objection, on which apparent change is the difference of intrinsic properties at different times rather than change of a single intrinsic, is [§4.2.7](<4.2.7 The Problem of Temporary Intrinsics.md>). The emergent-time objection, on which time is derivative rather than fundamental, is [§4.2.3](<4.2.3 Emergent Time.md>).

A consequence for the Kalām engagement ([§5.1.2](<5.1.2 Cosmological Argument.md>)). On the composition view at [§7.2.2](<7.2.2 What is Required.md>), the passage feature of Temporality is metaphysically real; *began to exist* therefore has determinate structural content. What the composition view marks is two readings of the begin-question: a quantitative reading (how far back the passage runs along the dimension) engaged at [§5.1.2](<5.1.2 Cosmological Argument.md>) and a categorial reading (a moment-prior-to-T from which T began) foreclosed by Parasitic Negation. The strict-B-theoretic reduction of passage to indexical content is a separable issue that does not absorb the begin-question in the way Craig's pressure assumes; the composition view's commitment to objective passage is what the [§5.1.2](<5.1.2 Cosmological Argument.md>) engagement runs on.

What the B-theoretic literature genuinely establishes is worth preserving: it gives powerful reasons to question naïve assumptions about a frame-independent present, objective passage, and the metaphysical privilege of the present moment. B-theorists commonly locate apparent flow and presentness in conscious experience or the indexical content of tensed claims; A-theoretic and neo-Lorentzian rivals contest that interpretation. These are live philosophical disputes, and the present account is designed to state what it preserves across them. What the present account adds is that the four-dimensional manifold the B-theorist describes is not an alternative to T ∧ S ∧ Φ but a particular specification of it. The events of the manifold are distinct (S), the manifold has temporal extension (T), and the manifold's structure underwrites the cross-time identity of objects (Φ). The block is what the dimension feature of T looks like when it is described by the metaphysics of relativistic physics.

The block is the standard backdrop now in a way it was not in McTaggart's day. The present account, on the present reading, is what the block is when it is described not as a metaphysics of time but as a metaphysics of the structural conditions that any time must instantiate. The block's events are distinct and ordered, and its cross-time structure bears the persistence Φ names; that is what the block consists in, and that is what [§2.6](<2.6 Triconditionality of Nature.md>) names.


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← [4.2.5 The Unreality of Time](<4.2.5 The Unreality of Time.md>) | [4.2.7 The Problem of Temporary Intrinsics](<4.2.7 The Problem of Temporary Intrinsics.md>) →
