The Unreality of Time - The C-series

The C-series

"...this other series — let us call it the C-series — is not temporal, for it involves no change, but only an order. Events have an order. They are, let us say, in the order M, N, O, P. And they are therefore not in the order M, O, N, P, or O, N, M, P, or in any other possible order. But that they have this order no more implies that there is any change than the order of the letters of the alphabet..."

According to McTaggart the C-series is not temporal because it is fixed forever. He also says that adding "change" to the C-series is not sufficient to get the B-series, because this would not determine the direction of time:

"...the C series, while it determines the order, does not determine the direction. If the C series runs M, N, O, P, then the B series from earlier to later cannot run M, O, N, P, or M, P, O, N, or in any way but two. But it can run either M, N, O, P (so that M is earliest and P latest) or else P, O, N, M (so that P is earliest and M latest). And there is nothing either in the C series or in the fact of change to determine which it will be...a person who contemplates a time-order may contemplate it in either direction...But in dealing with the time series we have not to do merely with a change in an external contemplation of it, but with a change that belongs to the series itself. And this change has a direction of its own...Therefore, besides the C series and the fact of change there must be given—in order to get time—the fact that the change is in one direction and not in the other. We can now see that the A series, together with the C series, is sufficient to give us time. For in order to get change, and change in a given direction, it is sufficient that one position in the C series should be Present, to the exclusion of all others, and that this characteristic of presentness should pass along the series in such a way that all positions on the one side of the Present have been present, and all positions on the other side of it will be present. That which has been present is Past, that which will be present is Future."