Is time real?

A pretty good (admittedly brief) look at two views of time:

  • Presentism: there’s nothing but the eternal now. Here, the past and the future are only present in our minds.
  • Eternalism: The past, present, and future aren’t the makings of our conscious mind. They’re as real as the dimensions of space. ‘Now’ is to time, as ‘here’ is to space.

Alas, they both make sense to me.

Travelers

“Thousands of special operatives, sent back in time from the future, are tasked with preventing the collapse of society. These operatives, known as “travelers”, take over the body of a 21st century individual via a “transfer of consciousness”; to minimize impact on the timeline, it is performed moments before the person’s “recorded time of death”. The transfer requires the exact location of the target; smartphones and GPS have made this possible only from the early 21st century onward. Prepared using social media and public records concerning their targets, small teams of travelers must maintain their hosts’ pre-existing lives as cover while carrying out missions, dictated by their “Director” in the future, aimed at saving the world from a series of catastrophic events. The Director communicates with travelers via pre-pubescent children used as “messengers”; unlike adults, any child can safely be taken over for a few minutes and then released from control. The show focuses on one team of five travelers, starting from their transfers of consciousness. As the series progresses, changes in the present make significantly unanticipated changes in the future.” (Wikipedia)