We have time because we shall never know

TL;DR

This paper challenges claims that time does not exist by critiquing the reliance on unverified assumptions about the completeness of physical laws and arguing that such metaphysical positions are circular.

Contribution

It provides a philosophical critique of the assumptions underlying the non-existence of time, emphasizing the unprovability of law closure and the circularity of related metaphysical arguments.

Findings

Law closure assumptions cannot be operationally verified.

Approaches denying time often rely on circular metaphysical reasoning.

Time may be better understood as arising from change rather than being fundamentally absent.

Abstract

We argue against current proposals concerning the non-existence of time. We point out that a large number of these proposals rely, at least implicitly, on the assumption of `closure' (or `partial closure') of the laws of Physics. I.e. the assumption that laws of Physics as they are known today are either complete (and hence closed) or that they possess features that a hypothetical future `complete' theory must share (and hence are partially closed). Given that the assumption of closure of laws of Physics can never be verified operationally, it cannot justifiably be used to support the claim for non-existence of time. Some approaches against time are `timeless' at the primary level for the universe as a whole. In these approaches time arises at a secondary level, mostly in the sense of `time being abstracted from change'. On the other hand, there are other approaches that deny the existence of time altogether. We argue that metaphysical arguments of this type - similar to those based on closure - by implicitly implying the absence of history, are by their nature circular.