Feynman was a mathematical physicist so all of his statements were metaphorical by definition. The difference between Feynman and many of the lesser lights in his field was that he clearly understood that the spacetime narrative on which the models of physics were being constructed was itself merely a metaphor. Einstein himself had made this abundantly clear throughout his life. In quantum field theory electrons don't travel through either space or time but rather through spacetime as a continuum. If you don't understand it don't worry about it because neither could Feynman and Feynman had arguably the sharpest mind in theoretical physics ever produced. He famously said that anybody who claimed to understand quantum mechanics was full of shit and knew nothing whatsoever about it. To him QM was nothing more than a useful maths tool and QFT nothing more than a logical extension of it.Walker wrote:Leo, did Feynman speak literally or figuratively about electrons moving through time?
The notion of electrons having purely a temporal extension is solely my own because such a model refutes the spacetime paradigm.