Existential Realism: A Philosophy of Time for the 21st Century

This monograph introduces Existential Realism (ER), a novel ontological framework designed to resolve the long-standing impasse between presentism and eternalism. At its core, ER proposes a rigorous two-tier ontology that distinguishes between existence and reality. Existence is defined as concrete, material presence that is empirically accessible in the "now." Reality, by contrast, is a broader category encompassing the causal traces of the past and the anticipated potentials of the future. While acknowledging the presentist view that only the current moment "exists" in a concrete sense, ER rejects the conclusion that the past and future are unreal. Instead, it posits that the past remains real through its enduring physical effects and information (demanifestation), while the future is real as a set of emerging possibilities and tendencies (manifestation). This metaphysics aligns with the processes of wavefunction collapse and measurement, placing the act of becoming at the center of the world's structure. The monograph explores the implications of ER across several key domains: Physics: It reconciles the "moving now" with relativity and quantum nonlocality, offering an alternative to the static "block universe" model. Cognitive Science: It models how memory and anticipation serve as cognitive bridges between the existent present and the real past and future. Ethics: It establishes a basis for moral responsibility and duties toward future generations by framing them as real, though not yet existent, entities. Cosmology: It interprets black holes and cosmic horizons as transitional thresholds where existence cycles back into reality. Ultimately, Existential Realism offers a robust alternative to traditional models, vindicating the lived experience of time's flow as a fundamental, lawful migration of being.