The theory of relativity is often regarded as inhospitable to the idea that there is an objective passage of time in the world. In light of this, many philosophers and physicists embrace a “block universe” view, according to which change and temporal passage are merely a subjective appearance or illusion. My aim in this paper is to argue against such a view, and show that we can make sense of an objective passage of time in the setting of relativity theory by abandoning the assumption that the now must be global, and re-conceiving temporal passage as a purely local phenomenon. Various versions of local becoming have been proposed in the literature. Here I focus on the causal diamond theory proposed by Steven F. Savitt and Richard Arthur, which models the now in terms of a local structure called a causal diamond. After defending the reality of temporal passage and exploring its compatibility with relativity theory, I show how the causal diamond approach can be used to counter the argument for the ideality of time due to Kurt Gödel, based on his “rotating universe” solution to the Einstein field equations (the Gödel universe). I defend the second component of his argument, the modal step, against the consensus view that finds it wanting, and reject the first step, showing that the Gödel universe is compatible with an objective passage of time as long as the latter is construed locally, along the lines of the causal diamond approach.

相对论通常被认为不适合世界上存在客观时间流逝的想法。有鉴于此，许多哲学家和物理学家都拥护“块宇宙”的观点，认为变化和时间流逝只是一种主观的表象或幻觉。我在这篇论文中的目的是反对这种观点，并表明我们可以通过放弃现在必须是全球性的假设来理解相对论中客观的时间流逝，并将时间流逝重新设想为纯粹的局部现象。文献中已经提出了各种版本的局部生成。在这里，我重点介绍Steven F. Savitt 和 Richard Arthur 提出的因果钻石理论，该理论对现在就称为因果钻石的局部结构而言。在捍卫时间流逝的现实并探索其与相对论的兼容性之后，我展示了如何使用因果钻石方法来反驳由库尔特·哥德尔（Kurt Gödel）提出的关于时间理想性的论点，基于他对爱因斯坦的“旋转宇宙”解决方案场方程（哥德尔宇宙）。我捍卫他论证的第二个组成部分，模态步骤，反对认为它缺乏的共识观点，并拒绝第一步，表明哥德尔宇宙与客观的时间流逝是相容的，只要后者是局部解释的，沿着因果钻石方法的路线。