The Unreality of Time - The Idea of Change

The Idea of Change

McTaggart has defined two fixed series (the B- and C-series) and one series that is continuously created (the A-series). This is pivotal to his argument about the way things change. In the B- and C-series, things have fixed positions and fixed extents, so they cannot change. They are defined as static from the outset.

Of events in the B-series, McTaggart says, "No event can cease to be, or begin to be, itself, since it never ceases to have a place as itself in the B-series. Thus one event cannot change into another." and "As the B-series indicates permanent relations, no moment could ever cease to be, nor could it become another moment."

Given that the C-series is, like the B-series, a set of events cast in the same sequence forever, it is also unchanging, according to McTaggart. He says of events in the C-series, "...that they have this order no more implies that there is any change than the order of the letters of the alphabet..."

McTaggart argues that what we consider to be change is actually the inclusion of an event in the A-series: "But in one respect it does change. It began by being a future event. It became every moment an event in the nearer future. At last it was present. Then it became past, and will always remain so, though every moment it becomes further and further past." He then asks whether such a change can really occur.

However, there have been attempts to account for the idea of change from some proponents of the B-series. Though, they reject tense overall, they disagree that time must also be so abandoned.