The issue of the ontological status of Minkowski spacetime is revisited. It is shown that when the question of dimensionality of reality is taken into account in the analysis of relativity of simultaneity it follows that reality can be three-dimensional only if its existence is relativized. Therefore special relativity poses a clear dilemma - the view regarding reality as three-dimensional can be preserved only if existence is relativized; if existence is absolute, reality is four-dimensional with time as the forth dimension. The existing attempts to make the concept of objective becoming (or objective flow of time) compatible with special relativity fail to answer a crucial question - what is the dimensionality of reality in that case. It is argued that existence - the most fundamental "attribute" - cannot be relativized. In such a case relativity of simultaneity does imply that reality is a four-dimensional world whose events are equally existent and therefore are not objectively divided into past, present, and future.

The paper is available online at: http://alcor.concordia.ca/~scol/seminars/absolute.html and is also posted for discussion in the Karl Jaspers Forum at: http://www.douglashospital.qc.ca/fdg/kjf/48-TAPET.htm