Everytime I try to read an explanation of both I don’t really understand the difference. Saying “this happened in the past” and “this happened before that” is just using different words to describe the exact same thing to me. I guess I’m also not understanding the implications of this distinction.
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This is a bit of a head melt, but they seem to kinda be saying the same thing from different perspectives. In science, everything that happens can be observed 2 ways. From your perspective, you are standing still. From the perspective of someone on a spaceship, you are rotating with the earth, and are definitely not still.
Theory A is from the perspective of someone living in the timeline being described, so things are described as in the distant past, recent past, present, future, and distant future. In this system though, “present” isn’t easily defined. Is “present” now, as you read that word, or is it now as you read it again. Both times you just read “now” are in the past, so it’s kinda murky for describing things. Tomorrow is in the future. Until tomorrow. Then it’s the present. And then it’s the past.
Theory B tries to remove subjective experience from time. It just states thing x happened before thing y. It’s less murky, and there’s no tense included. Theory B also kinda suggests that tenses don’t exist maybe, and that the past and future and present are constructs of our minds to help us understand time
I’m not a specialist, just trying to break down what I just read.
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