Cosmological Continuity Presentism (CCP): A Generative Spacetime Ontology Compatible with General Relativity

Cosmological Continuity Presentism (CCP) develops a presentist spacetime ontology compatible with relativistic field theory by interpreting spacetime as progressively generated rather than as a completed four-dimensional block. The framework introduces a generation parameter σ representing accumulated causal activity, formulated as a scalar functional of the stress–energy tensor and promoted to a constrained scalar field via a variational principle. The gradient structure of σ is determined by the matter–energy distribution without modifying the Einstein field equations. Reality at stage σ is defined as the generated manifold M(σ), consisting of prior generated hypersurfaces together with the present Σ_σ, while future hypersurfaces are excluded, yielding a growing spacetime domain consistent with the initial-value formulation of general relativity. Within this framework, earlier states do not persist as independently existing regions of spacetime but leave physically instantiated causal records in later configurations. These encodings provide partial persistence and evidential traces of prior states without implying that present physical structure exhausts all truths about the past. CCP thereby distinguishes between ontological persistence, restricted to present physical structures, and determinate historical truth, reflecting the occurrence of prior events independently of their present encoding. The formal development employs ADM decomposition and globally hyperbolic foliation to demonstrate that CCP preserves local Lorentz-invariant dynamics while introducing an ontological distinction between generated past structure and the active present boundary. The framework predicts a small but definite statistical time-asymmetry in cosmological observables, expressed as a causal-skew parameter ε(σ) in cosmic microwave background multipole correlations. This asymmetry is derived from the gradient structure of the covariant generation field ∇μσ and yields a dipole-modulated angular dependence aligned with the cosmological matter frame. In contrast, standard ΛCDM cosmology—including block-universe interpretations—does not generically produce or require such a directionally organized signal as a lawlike consequence of its ontology, beyond contingent initial conditions, cosmic variance, or known physical effects. CCP does not claim that such frameworks cannot accommodate ε ≠ 0, but rather that this structure does not arise as a necessary consequence within them, whereas it follows from the generative dynamics in CCP. CCP further examines implications for quantum interpretations, causal-set growth models, and the phenomenology of temporal experience, proposing that conscious processes correspond to ongoing physical activity localized at the present hypersurface. By grounding temporal becoming in the causal and dynamical structure of relativistic spacetime, CCP provides an empirically testable interpretive extension of general relativity that preserves established local physical laws while introducing a distinctive, potentially observable signature of spacetime generation.