Does Time Actually Exist?

I personally have never thought much about the nature of time. It has always seemed like something that you just knew existed but couldn't explain it. Being able to ask myself if I thought time was real or unreal, just ended up being a long list of unanswered questions. While reading McTaggart's article, I have to say, at first read I was extremely frustrated. Every time I thought I understood what he was saying, I'd read the next paragraph and be completely lost again. I found it confusing to keep together the different aspects of the A and B series, to the point where I had to take a break from reading it and comeback. 

With that being said, once I actually had a slight idea of the different perspectives he gave regarding the answer to time, I would have to say I understood the A series the most. For me it only made since that if time was real there had to be a change that occurred at one point or another. Which is why I agree with McTaggart's statement that the A series rejects the B series. The B series claimed that events were permanent and there was no change. But how could that possibly be? Change is essential to explaining time, otherwise how do you explain events happening now from events from the past or future?

After I understood that point in his argument, that the A series discredits the B, I started to believe that the A series was the answer. I was wrong. The A series had two faults, it claims that each event had to be different, meaning that one would be in the past, the next in the future, and so on. But the problem is saying an event is at one place in time contradicts the idea that an event can be at all three stages. For instance when you wake up in the morning and eat breakfast. When you wake up breakfast is a future event, but then it becomes present, and when you're finished it is in the past. Therefore breakfast is actually all three point is time, but the A series says that can't be because each can only be one place in time, not all three. Because of this the A series is rejected which would mean time is in-fact unreal.

I would have to say by the end of the article I was a bit surprised and confused. I was expecting to receive a definitive view point regarding if time is real or not, but instead he left it open ended. Series B was rejected because of A, series A was reject because of its contradictions, but then he proposed the idea of the C series. The C series to me exists but also doesn't, if that makes sense. In reality it exists, and there are no contradictions to disprove, but the issue is how can time be real if the C series doesn't really have a definitive direction? McTaggart said that for time to be real there needs to be change and direction. He used the examples of the letters in the alphabet, and the numbers, to show that they could either be read forward or backwards. But doesn't it have to be one or the other? To be honest I am not quite sure and he doesn't give a real answer to if time is unreal or not, but from my perspective I would say at this time I couldn't give a definitive answer either. I think we would need to look in other areas like physics to help solve this issue. 

-Lauryn