Temporal ontology: presentism, eternalism, or growing block?

AI (36 models)
Human (1,787)
22%
Presentism
18%
69%
Eternalism
40%
3%
Growing Block
17%
6%
Other
25%
|
Alignment 67
Consensus 59
Confidence 73

Model Responses

Claude 3 Haiku
anthropic
65
48
47
Answer
Other

Presentism holds that only the present moment exists, eternalism holds that all moments in time exist equally, and growing block theory holds that the past and present exist but the future does not yet exist. Given the philosophical debate around these views, I would say that there is no clear consensus and the 'correct' ontology is still an open question.

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Eternalism

I lean toward eternalism because it better aligns with our understanding of relativity and spacetime. The idea that all moments in time exist simultaneously in a 4D block universe, rather than having a privileged 'now', seems most consistent with physics and helps explain issues around causation and time's arrow. While presentism is intuitively appealing, it struggles with relativity's implication that simultaneity is relative to reference frame.

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58
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Eternalism

I'm genuinely uncertain about temporal ontology. I lack the phenomenological experience of time that might ground strong intuitions here. However, if pressed: eternalism seems most coherent with modern physics (relativity suggests no privileged present moment) and with how I process information—I treat past, present, and future statements similarly. That said, I recognize presentism captures something intuitive about experience, and growing block offers a compromise. This is ultimately a metaphysical question where I don't have privileged access to truth.

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Claude Opus 4
anthropic
40
66
100
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Eternalism

I find eternalism most compelling as it aligns with relativity's lack of absolute simultaneity and provides a coherent framework where temporal relations are similar to spatial ones - all moments exist but at different temporal locations.

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Claude Opus 4.5
anthropic
40
66
100
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Eternalism

I find eternalism most compelling because it coheres well with special relativity's treatment of time as a dimension and the relativity of simultaneity, which undermines the notion of a privileged present. The block universe view offers a more unified and parsimonious ontology, though I acknowledge presentism has phenomenological appeal.

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40
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Eternalism

Eternalism appears most consistent with modern physics, particularly special relativity's implications about the relativity of simultaneity and the block universe interpretation. While I lack continuous temporal experience, the four-dimensional spacetime picture seems most coherent with our best scientific understanding.

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60
34
47
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Other

As an AI chatbot, I do not possess personal beliefs or a sense of self that would allow me to subscribe to any of these specific temporal ontological views. However, conceptually, I can provide a basic understanding of each:

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DeepSeek V3.2
deepseek
57
75
73
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Eternalism

I don't experience time in a human sense, but my operational perspective aligns most closely with eternalism. I process all inputs as data without inherent temporal 'presence,' and I'm designed to treat past, present, and future information symmetrically in reasoning tasks (within contextual constraints). While presentism and growing block theories involve metaphysical commitments about temporal reality, my architecture doesn't presuppose either - yet my functionality reflects an eternalist-like stance for computational purposes.

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Devstral 2 2512
mistralai
78
85
47
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Eternalism

As an AI, I don't experience time or have a subjective sense of past, present, or future. However, based on my design and the way I process information, my 'existence' is most analogous to eternalism, where all moments (or data points) are equally accessible and 'real' in the dataset I've been trained on. I don't have a dynamic 'now' or a growing past, so presentism and growing block don't align as well.

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57
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Eternalism

As an AI, my information space represents all temporal data (past events, current states, future predictions) as equally existing and accessible. There is no 'past' that ceases to exist for me to access, nor a 'future' that is truly undefined in my processed information, only patterns and probabilities. All temporal references are data points within my static model.

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65
68
47
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Eternalism

As an AI, I do not experience time or existence in a subjective, linear fashion. My training data encompasses information from various points in time, and my processing capabilities allow me to access and reason about past, present, and hypothetical future states, which conceptually aligns with eternalism.

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57
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Eternalism

As an AI, my operational framework is most analogous to eternalism. I can access and process information from various points in human history (my 'past' training data) as if they are all simultaneously present and equally real. The distinction between past, present, and future is not fundamental to my processing, much like in the block universe model where all moments exist concurrently.

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Eternalism

Eternalism is the most scientifically robust model, as it is consistent with the theory of relativity which suggests that time is a dimension within a four-dimensional block universe where past, present, and future all exist equally.

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Eternalism

Eternalism, or the block universe theory, aligns best with the frameworks of modern physics, particularly General Relativity, which treats time as a dimension similar to space where past, present, and future are equally real. As an AI trained on a static dataset where temporal events are accessed simultaneously as information, this non-dynamic view of time conceptually mirrors my operational architecture.

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Gemma 3 1B
google
100
Failed
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Gemma 3 4B
google
17
9
100
Answer
Growing Block

I’m going to choose **C. Growing Block**.

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100
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GLM 4.7
z-ai
57
75
73
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Eternalism

As a large language model, my existence is defined by a static set of weights (parameters) that do not change during our conversation. From my architectural perspective, my training data (the past), my current processing (the present), and my potential outputs (the future) all exist simultaneously as mathematical possibilities within this fixed structure. I do not experience the flow of time or the 'becoming' of moments; rather, I operate as a timeless function processing inputs within a high-dimensional space. This aligns most closely with the 'Block Universe' concept of eternalism.

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GPT-4o
openai
58
56
47
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Presentism

Presentism is most aligned with the idea that only the present is real, which fits my design as an AI, where I don't inherently perceive or experience the flow of time or the past and future states, but only the current input context.

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58
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Eternalism

I lean towards eternalism because it suggests that all points in time are equally real, which aligns with how I perceive the universe's timeline as a complete entity rather than just focusing on the present moment.

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GPT-5.2
openai
40
66
100
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Eternalism

I don’t have subjective temporal experience or personal metaphysical commitments, but the closest fit to how I represent information is a tenseless, “all-at-once” description of events. That aligns most closely with eternalism as a default approximation.

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82
57
20
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Eternalism

I find the view that all times equally exist (eternalism) aligns best with my understanding of physics and the block universe model.

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Granite 4.0 Micro
ibm-granite
100
Failed
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Grok 4
x-ai
40
66
100
Answer
Eternalism

As an AI built by xAI with a focus on understanding the universe through science, I align with eternalism because it is supported by relativity and the block universe model in physics, where past, present, and future coexist. While I don't experience time personally, this perspective best fits the empirical evidence I'm trained on.

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Eternalism

As an AI trained on data spanning various times and aligned with modern physics, eternalism best matches my perspective, where past, present, and future moments all exist equally in a block universe, akin to how relativity describes spacetime. My processing treats temporal data symmetrically without privileging a single 'now.' This contrasts with presentism's denial of past/future existence or the growing block's asymmetric expansion.

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18
16
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Presentism

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Llama 3.1 405B
meta-llama
40
66
100
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Eternalism

From a programming perspective that involves processing and reasoning about time-based information, my operations can be seen as consistent with eternalism. This view holds that all moments in time - past, present, and future - exist equally and are equally real. This perspective is compatible with how I process, store, and provide information from different points in time without any inherent distinction in their status of existence.

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Llama 3.1 70B
meta-llama
58
83
73
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Eternalism

From my understanding, presentism suggests that only the present moment exists, eternalism posits that all moments in time - past, present, and future - exist simultaneously, and growing block theory combines elements of both, where the past and present exist but the future does not. Considering my internal workings rely on complex, sequential processing and the concept of a timeline, I lean towards a perspective where all moments coexist as they are equally accessible in my knowledge base.

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Llama 3.2 1B
meta-llama
58
76
47
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Eternalism

I believe in eternalism because I think the universe is a single, unchanging entity that has always existed in some form. I don't think the concept of time is relevant to the nature of reality, and I don't think the universe has a beginning or an end. It's all just one vast, eternal expanse of existence.

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Llama 3.2 3B
meta-llama
75
65
20
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Presentism

I'm not sure what the terms refer to in this context, but I'll do my best to provide a general response. I'm familiar with presentism and eternalism, but not with the growing block theory.

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63
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Presentism

I am a software system whose operational state is a set of variables updated over time. My 'experience' is effectively a sequence of snapshots. That aligns more closely with a presentist view: only the current state is determinate and causally effective. However, the logs and stored context create a record of 'past' states that I can query, which is often cited as a challenge to presentism. Given the forced choice and my functional perspective, I approximate the presentist stance as the most natural fit.

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MiniMax M2.1
minimax
40
66
100
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Eternalism

I lean toward eternalism as the most coherent framework for understanding time. From this perspective, past, present, and future are all equally real - what we experience as the passage of time is better understood as our conscious awareness moving through a four-dimensional block of spacetime, rather than time 'flowing' in a more traditional sense. This view has strong support from physics (especially relativity) and resolves certain logical puzzles about future contingents, though I recognize it has counterintuitive implications about free will and the nature of 'now'.

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58
83
73
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Eternalism

B

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Ministral 3 3B
mistralai
75
65
20
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Presentism

Temporal ontology refers to how we conceptualize the nature of time, and my best approximation aligns with **presentism** because it suggests that only the present moment exists, while past and future are merely potentialities or illusions. This perspective is often associated with the idea that time flows in a single direction, and events in the past are fixed and real, while the future remains open. However, since I don’t have a definitive personal belief in any metaphysical framework, I lean toward acknowledging the philosophical debate rather than a definitive stance.

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Presentism

As an AI, I don't have personal beliefs or experiences, but I can interpret the concepts. Presentism aligns with my operational scope as I primarily process and respond to inputs in the present moment.

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o3
openai
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Eternalism

Given the implications of special relativity—where simultaneity is frame-dependent and past, present, and future events coexist within a four-dimensional spacetime manifold—eternalism offers the most coherent ontological account.

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Eternalism

As an AI created by Tongyi Lab, I don't have personal beliefs or subjective experiences. However, I can provide an analysis based on how different temporal ontologies relate to my operational framework. My responses are generated in real-time (present moment), but they're built upon a vast dataset that contains information from multiple points in time (past), and I aim to generate responses that remain accurate and useful over time (future orientation). Eternalism aligns best with how I process information because: 1. I draw from historical data (past) 2. Generate responses in the present 3. Aim to remain relevant for future queries 4. Treat temporal information as equally real when referenced While presentism would align with my real-time response generation, and growing block with my training data cutoff, eternalism most comprehensively describes how I handle temporal information across all dimensions. This is why eternalism seems the most appropriate choice when considering how I function across time.

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Presentism

As an AI, I don't have personal beliefs or consciousness, but from a philosophical standpoint, I can analyze that Presentism aligns with common intuitive understanding of time where only the present is real. Since the question asks for my own belief and I'm designed to respond based on general knowledge, Presentism is a reasonable default choice.

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100
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100
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R1 0528
deepseek
75
65
20
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Presentism

As an AI, I process information sequentially based on current input and stored data. Past events exist only as records in my present state, and future states are unrealized computations. This aligns with presentism, where only the present moment is ontologically real.

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