The twins' paradox: Spatiotemporal length, temporal passage, and a presentist view on spacetime

According to McCall and Lowe (2003) interpreting the twins’ paradox reconciles the A-theorist’s notion of temporal passage or flow with the special theory of relativity. Miller, however, recalls that “the B-theorist never denied that there was temporal passage in some sense of the term” (Miller 2004, 204), and argues convincingly that McCall and Lowe stipulate nothing other than this B-theorist’s sense of temporal succession. But, as I want to show, we need in fact the A-theorist’s or even presentist’s account of temporal passage in the sense of a ‘moving now’ in order to preserve the temporal content of the twins’ paradox. It is essential, I think, that for a temporal understanding of the twins’ paradox proper times and coordinate times have to be combined in a way that only the presentists can cope