Solution (source code)

= Solution

<Special relativity> supplies a tenseless mathematical representation: events have <spacetime> relations, proper-time intervals and causal order whether or not a coordinate labels one event “now.” For <spacelike separated> events, different <Inertial frame>[inertial frames] disagree about simultaneity and temporal order. The invariant structure therefore does not select a global present consisting of all and only events simultaneous with an observer's current event.

That supports an <argument> for <eternalism (philosophy of time)>[eternalism] if one adds that what exists should not depend on an arbitrary <inertial frame> and that no extra preferred foliation is available. On those assumptions, restricting existence to a frame-dependent simultaneity plane looks unjustified. A <spacetime> account can instead represent an observer's temporal location as it represents spatial location, without introducing an objective moving present.

The conclusion is not a formal derivation of metaphysics from the <Lorentz transformation>[Lorentz transformations] alone. Relativity establishes the metric and its symmetries, not a complete semantics for existence, becoming or experience. A presentist could add a preferred but empirically hidden slicing, though this adds structure unsupported by ordinary relativistic predictions. Local becoming along a worldline or causal <Partial order>[partial orders] are other possibilities, and do not reinstate a unique invariant global simultaneity relation.

A tenseless description also does not erase every temporal distinction. Timelike-separated events retain invariant order, <Light cone>[light cones] distinguish causal possibilities, and clocks measure nonzero proper durations. The absence of a global privileged “now” does not identify past and future dynamically or explain the thermodynamic arrow. Relativity strongly constrains a global present and makes a block representation natural; whether that representation exhausts temporal reality requires additional philosophical premises.