Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.
Passage $1$:
It is essential to rid ourselves of the false impressions of time, which our human limitations seem to impose upon us. Above all, we must rid ourselves of the belief that the future is in some way less determined than the past, if the borderline between past and future is illusory, then so must be the distinction between the two regions of time which it is supposed to separate. The only reason we believe the future to be still undecided while the past is immutable is that we can remember the one and not the other. To avoid these prejudices we must picture the history of the universe not as a three-dimensional stage on which things change but as a static four-dimensional space time structure of which we are a part. We that events are not real until they”happen”, whereas in reality past, present and future are all frozen in the four dimensions of space time. Unfortunately even if all this is accepted, we have to continue using the language of a “moving” time, for we have no other but we must try to interpret this language always as a description of the unchanging space time structure of the universe.
Contemplating the history of the universe in this way, it is attractive to believe that the periods of expansion and contraction could be related to each other by symmetry. Both points of view merit serious consideration and that we cannot say with any certainty that the contracting universe will or will not, differ fundamentally from the expanding phase that we observe today.
Which of the following best exemplifies the author’s attitude to time?
- The impression of a moving time is false
- ‘Now’ is a purely subjective phenomenon existing only within the human mind
- The future is not in any way less determined than the past
- All of the above