Times are emergent properties…

This just struck me as the basis for a good argument against many variations of four-dimensionalism. This is not a complete formulation—obviously—but is (potentially) the basis for the argument that times are emergent properties. Here goes:

i) Only things are extant (occupy physical reality)
ii) States are not things
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iii) States are not extant

For instance, feelings (happiness, sadness, anger, etc.) are states—they emerge from things (they supervene on and are irreducible to things) but are not in and of themselves extant. Therefore, feeling exist but are not extant. So, sadness, for example, arises from some arrangement of things—physical brain events and the like—and supervenes on those conditions (our feelings causally effect our physical parts), but it is not identical to those conditions.

Similarly, times are states—they emerge from things (supervene on and are irreducible to things) but are not extant.

More to come…Please comment.