The Forward Movement Of The Present In Time Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Davies & Gribbin (1992: 130):

A further difficulty, they [B-theorists] point out, concerns the question of how fast the present moves forward in time — how fast time flows. The answer can only be one second per second (or twenty-four hours per day), which tells us nothing at all; it is a mere tautology. The concept of flux or change refers to something that has different values at different times. But what sense can one attach to the notion of time changing with time?

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of the General Theory of Relativity, time is a dimension: one of the four axes of space-time. The notion of any dimension flowing is inconsistent with both the theory and the notion of a dimension.

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the present is the time of making meaning, a senser sensing or a sayer saying, and this time serves as a reference point for labelling temporal locations as past or future. The "movement of the present in time" is the change of the location of this reference point on the time axis.