Branching time is a popular theory of time that is intended to account for the openness of the future. Generally, branching time models the openness of the future by positing a multiplicity of concrete alternative futures mirroring all the possible ways the future could unfold. In the literature, a distinction is drawn among branching-time theories: those that make use of moment-based structures and those that employ history-based ones. In this paper, I introduce and discuss a particular kind of openness relative to the possibility that time ends (doomsday). I then show that whereas moment-based branching structures cannot represent this kind of openness, history-based structures can account for it. The conclusion is that history-based structures have an advantage over moment-based ones.

中文翻译：

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分枝时间与末日

分支时间是一种流行的时间理论，旨在解释未来的开放性。一般而言，分支时间通过设定多种具体的替代期货来模拟未来的开放性，这些期货反映了未来可能展开的所有可能方式。在文献中，对时间分支理论进行了区分：那些使用基于矩的结构和那些使用基于历史的结构。在本文中，我介绍并讨论了一种与时间结束（世界末日）的可能性相关的特殊开放性。然后我表明，虽然基于矩的分支结构不能代表这种开放性，但基于历史的结构可以解释它。结论是基于历史的结构比基于矩的结构具有优势。