Becoming, Duration, and the Evolving Block Universe

Abstract

The two-times problem asks how the directed, oriented time of biological and conscious systems relates to the time of fundamental physics. The Evolving Block Universe, in which spacetime grows along Ricci eigenlines through an irreversible quantum dynamics, explains the direction of physical time and its multi-scale emergence up to brain time. It does not explain how this physical time is related to the experience of temporal passage. We argue that Bergson's durée, the continuous qualitative experience of lived time, marks the first-person level beyond brain time at which this hierarchy reaches its limit. This locates the remaining gap between physical time and lived time at the epistemological level.