ABSTRACT
But this distinction will not work in a general relativistic universe where we take our times as instants or our events as instantaneous events. Newton-Smith is suggesting that t1 is locally before t2 if t2 immediately succeeds t1, and that t1 is globally before t2 if there are other times after t1 and before t2. However, if time is continuous, as it is represented to be in the General Theory of Relativity, then no instant of time or instantaneous event is locally before any other instant. Between any two instants t1 and t2, there is an infinite number of other instants. Thus, for any two instants t1 and t2, if t1 is before t2, t1 is globally before t2. The distinction works in Newton-Smith’s model because he adopts “the fictional assumption that we are dealing with worlds in which there are only a finite number of instants or moments, say four.”2
