• Before reading McTaggart's article, how did you conceive of the nature of time? 

Before reading, I believe that time exists. It is intangible, but recognizing the title of "The Unreality of Time," I hypothesize that the article is going to be about how time is just an illusion and unreal. I have always thought that things exist in a linear fashion with a distinct past, present, and future, where the past and future are infinitely large and the present is infinitely small, even if they don't have a physical appearance with actual atoms that make it up, such as time, peace, justice, and other ideas. It may be intangible, but that does not make it any less real.

• Did you recognize your own view of time in one of the series that McTaggart describes? 

After reading, I recognize that I was slightly off by the nature of McTaggart's argument. He talks about two different series, and the distinction that McTaggart makes between the "A series" and the "B series" is that the A series of times talk about things that have properties of the past, present, and future. However, these same series of events can likely be told by before, during, and after a specific event. For example, I am currently writing this blog post. Submitting the blog post will be both after writing it and in the future, whereas reading the assignment is before and in the past. Therefore, the B series has relations between events, but the A-series talks about the properties of events with one instant, each having a different role. The third type of series he talks about is the C series, where all that is required in order, not directionality, as he explains in an example: "They are, let us say, in the order M, N, 0, P. And they are therefore not in the order M, 0, N, P, or 0, N, M, P, or in any other possible order. But that they have this order no more implies that there is any change than the order of the letters of the alphabet, or of the Peers on the Parliament Roll implies any change" (McTaggart 462) Essentially, he is explaining that the starting and ending point can be interchangeable, but not necessarily the portions in between. Based on this, my own view on time is the A-series, because I consider it to be linear, with a past, present, and future. I tend to avoid making a relationship between multiple events and tend to not think of time as being able to go forward and backward. This is surprising because this is the basis of his argument that time is unreal as it is both inherent to time and also contradictory. However, after reading this entirely, I understand that it is not correct to think of a time in a single way, where neither alone will represent time fully.

• What does McTaggart mean by "the unreality of time"? 

According to McTaggart, the A-series is ultimate: it is inherent to time because the B series alone does not include change. (McTaggart 467) Yet, we know from experience that time does change, so the A-series is "more important" because if there was no change, then there was no time. This means that the "A series" is absolutely necessary for time to exist because the B series will always have the same relationships to one another, but the present is always changing in the A-series. Therefore, there cannot be a B series for an A-series, so the A-series is necessary and ultimate. In the next segment, he explains that time is unreal because the A series is also contradictory, because if you take a single event, then that event can neither be past, present, and future, but yet every event at the same time must be past, present, and future, and trying to solve this problem with time will yield "a vicious circle." (McTaggart 468) This means that time is unreal because it is absolutely necessary for time to exist, hence "the unreality of time."

• Were you surprised by any of McTaggart's arguments? 

I was very surprised by his arguments where he walked me through his argument. I personally agree with the "ultimacy argument" where the A series is necessary for time but disagree with the notion that time is actually contradictory. I think that his flaw was that he insinuated that the properties of the events changed, but time will work if it is simply that the objects change within those events from instant to instant. For example, 100 years ago, I did not exist, currently, I do, and 100 years from now I likely will not. It may appear that change has occurred, even though the relation between the events did not change. The properties of the events, however, did change, so therefore I was surprised by this argument and think it is wrong.