Making of Time: Causality, Entropy, and Becoming

If only the present exists, how can we make sense of causal chains that stretch across time, the irreversible processes we observe in nature, and the one-way arrow of time? This question strikes at the heart of temporal metaphysics and physics. Existential Realism (ER) is a present-centered ontological framework that claims only present entities exist in the fullest sense, yet past and future entities are still in some sense real due to their causal connections and informational traces. Unlike standard presentism (which would render past and future wholly unreal, raising puzzles about truth, memory, and cause), ER draws a crucial distinction between existence and reality. Under ER, the present is the locus of existence, but the past remains ontologically real insofar as it has left enduring effects and information in the world. The future, likewise, though not yet existent, can be treated as real in the mode of anticipated possibilities that influence current plans and expectations. This nuanced ontology aims to resolve presentism’s classic problems — for example, how past causes can still have effects, or how past-tense statements can be true if the past is utterly nonexistent. In what follows, we will deepen the case for Existential Realism by showing how it accounts for causal relations, the linear order of time, the sense of temporal becoming, and the thermodynamic arrow of time. We will draw on insights from the philosophy of physics – including Hans Reichenbach’s analysis of time’s direction, Huw Price’s reflections on retrocausality and perspective, and Barry Loewer’s work on entropy and the “Past Hypothesis” – to demonstrate that a present-centric metaphysics can be fully time-compatible. Ultimately, we argue that ER not only accommodates modern physics but preserves our intuitive and scientific understanding of time’s asymmetries and the unfolding causal story of the universe.