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Full Idea
Look how many questions there are on time. Does it have an existence of its own? Does anything exist prior to time, independently of it? Did it begin with the universe, or did it exist even before then?
Gist of Idea
Does time exist on its own? Did anything precede it? Did it pre-exist the cosmos?
Source
Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 088)
Book Ref
Seneca: 'Letters from a Stoic (Selections)', ed/tr. Campbell,Robin [Penguin 1969], p.158
A Reaction
I'm not sure that the questions have shifted or become any clearer after two thousand years, despite Einstein and co. Note that discussions of time were not initiated by Augustine.
| 14525 | Stoics say time is incorporeal and self-sufficient; Epicurus says it is a property of properties of things [Epicurus] |
| 13311 | Does time exist on its own? Did anything precede it? Did it pre-exist the cosmos? [Seneca] |
| 22915 | Newton needs intervals of time, to define velocity and acceleration [Newton, by Le Poidevin] |
| 22893 | Newton thought his laws of motion needed absolute time [Newton, by Bardon] |
| 17012 | Time exists independently, and flows uniformly [Newton] |
| 14012 | Absolute time, from its own nature, flows equably, without relation to anything external [Newton] |
| 5536 | If space and time exist absolutely, we must assume the existence of two pointless non-entities [Kant] |
| 16921 | If all empirical sensation of bodies is removed, space and time are still left [Kant] |
| 24141 | Having a sense of time presupposes absolute time [Nietzsche] |
| 12689 | Simultaneity can be temporal equidistance from the Big Bang [Ellis] |
| 18279 | Relativity is as absolutist about space-time as Newton was about space [Coffa] |
| 16264 | I believe the passing of time is a fundamental fact about the world [Maudlin] |
| 14013 | Special Relativity allows an absolute past, future, elsewhere and simultaneity [Bourne] |