Moving Spotlight or Cresting Wave? A New Moving Spotlight Theory

Kristie Miller (University of Sydney)

Abstract.  One argument for the moving spotlight theory is that it better explains our temporal phenomenology than does any static theory of time. Call this the argument from temporal phenomenology. In this paper it is argued that insofar as moving spotlight theorists take this to be a sound argument, they ought embrace a new version of the moving spotlight theory. On such a theory the moving spotlight is replaced by a cresting wave of causal efficacy. That wave causes (inter alia) our temporal phenomenology to have a certain phenomenal character: namely, causes it to seem to us as though time passes. This phenomenal character co-varies with the presence of presentness in that the phenomenal character of our experiences at times that are not present is not as of time passing. That’s because the wave of causal efficacy changes the qualitative properties of each time it reaches. Not only are the qualitative properties of a time when that time is future, different from its qualitative properties when it is present, but so too that time’s qualitative properties when it is past are different from its qualitative properties when it is present.