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Temporal Motion

It is often said that Time seems to us to move, to pass, to crawl, and even to fly; that is, Time seems to be in motion. This sensation of the movement of Time is quite universal in human experience. It seems to us that either, Time is moving around/past us or that we are moving through time. Additionally, Time seems to have only one dimension, or direction, which depends on whether, we are moving through time, or if time is moving around us; if the former is true then, time moves futureward and if the latter is true, then time moves pastward. This sensation is appropriately illustrated by Peter Van Inwagen in his writings on temporality. “Many have found it natural to picture time as a river flowing futureward, and to picture us, the inhabitants of time, as drifting downstream, drifting with the current of the river of time, in a boat called the present…. It is equally natural for us to picture ourselves as standing on an island called the present in a river that flows not futureward but pastward…” From this, we also see that accompanying the concept of temporal motion is the concept of the present. The present, it seems, is a point in time which we constantly occupy, an experience from which we can not escape. To put it another way, as John Ellis McTaggart did, “We perceive events in time as being present, and those are the only events which we perceive directly.” The concept of the present then, is just as essential to the experience of temporal motion as the concept of Time. Although both of these concepts are essential to temporal motion, they are also the source, particularly their relationship to one another, of the criticisms that dismiss temporal motion as a subjective experience, an illusion that does not exist in reality. What then, is the nature of temporal motion? Is temporal motion real; that is, can temporal motion ultimately exist independently of us experiencing it, or is the seeming motion of time an illusion, merely just a product...