There is an alternative to the block universe view: how relativity contradicts four-dimensionalism

Simon Saunders and Vesselin Petkov argue four-dimensionalism is the only ontology compatible with special relativity. Saunders argues the requirement of intersubjectivity requires four-dimensionalism, whereas Petkov argues the relativity of simultaneity, relativistic length contraction, and the twins paradox require a block universe model. Each succeeds in showing a certain species of presentism is not compatible with special relativity, but neither shows either that three-dimensionalism is incompatible with—or that four-dimensionalism is essential to—special relativity. Both fail to show three-dimensionalism is incompatible with special relativity because both erroneously conflate three-dimensionalism with the concept of a spatially extended present time. When the speed of light is finite in a three-dimensional world, though, the resulting world is special relativistic. In formulating their separate—but related—arguments for four-dimensionalism, Saunders and Petkov repeat the error of Putnam, Rietdijk, and others of conflating what exists with what lies on a perspectival line of simultaneity. Because their arguments ascribe ontological meaning to a perspectival feature, their ontological conclusions are unwarranted. Moreover, because the block universe argument relies on infinitely fast propagation of light signals, the block universe and special relativity are in fact mutually exclusive.