Usually, we call “real” the things that exist now, in the present. Not those which existed once, or may do so in the future. We say that things in the past or the future “were” real or “will be” real, but we do not say they “are” real. Philosophers call “presentism” the idea that only the present is real, that the past and the future are not—and that reality evolves from one present to another, successive one. This way of thinking no longer works, however, if the “present” is not defined globally, if it is defined only in our vicinity, in an approximate way. If the present that is far away
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