Do the folk represent time as essentially dynamical?

Abstract

Recent research [Latham, Miller, and Norton 2019. “Is our Naïve Theory of Time Dynamical?” Synthese] reveals that a majority of people represent actual time as dynamical. But do they, as suggested by McTaggart and Gödel, represent time as essentially dynamical? This paper distinguishes three interrelated questions. We ask (a) whether the folk representation of time is sensitive or insensitive: i.e. does what satisfies the folk representation of time in counterfactual worlds depend on what satisfies it actually – sensitive – or not – insensitive, and (b) do those who represent actual time as dynamical, represent time in all possible worlds as dynamical – what we call insensitive dynamism – or do they represent time in all possible worlds as dynamical only conditional on the actual world in fact being dynamical – what we call sensitive dynamism, and (c) do dynamists and non-dynamists deploy two different representations of time, or deploy the same representation, but disagree about what actually satisfies that representation? We found no evidence that the folk representation of time is sensitive, or that the folk representation of time is essentially dynamical in either sense, though we did find evidence of a largely (though not universally) shared representation, on which dynamical features are sufficient, but not necessary, for time.