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Full Idea
If there were a vacuum in space, one could establish its size. But if there were a vacuum in time, i.e. a duration without change, it would be impossible to establish its length.
Gist of Idea
If there were duration without change, we could never establish its length
Source
Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.15)
Book Ref
Leibniz,Gottfried: 'New Essays on Human Understanding', ed/tr. Remnant/Bennett [CUP 1996], p.155
A Reaction
See Idea 4226 for Shoemaker's wonderful counterproposal to this apparently unanswerable claim. I suppose Leibniz is right, but it just might be possible to bring induction to bear on the problem.
Related Idea
Idea 4226 If three regions 'freeze' every three, four and five years, after sixty years everything stops for a year [Shoemaker, by Lowe]
| 18455 | Some think time is seen at rest, as well as in movement [Porphyry] |
| 16697 | Time is independent of motion, because God could stop everything for a short or long time [Crathorn, by Pasnau] |
| 12955 | If there were duration without change, we could never establish its length [Leibniz] |
| 4226 | If three regions 'freeze' every three, four and five years, after sixty years everything stops for a year [Shoemaker, by Lowe] |
| 8595 | If three regions freeze every 3rd, 4th and 5th year, they all freeze together every 60 years [Shoemaker] |
| 22917 | Since nothing occurs in a temporal vacuum, there is no way to measure its length [Le Poidevin] |
| 22921 | Temporal vacuums would be unexperienced, unmeasured, and unending [Le Poidevin] |