Minkowski spacetime and the presentist/eternalist debate (Concordia University, Montreal)

I show that the age-old debate between presentists (claiming that only the present events are real) and eternalists (claiming that past, present and future events are equally real) is ill-posed and that there is no clear way to express an ontological disagreement between the two positions. As a consequence, all attempts at using the special theory of relativity to adjudicate debate of these sorts are misplaced.