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Full Idea
Socrates either dies when existing, or when not existing. …He does not die when he exists, for he is alive, and he does not die when he has died, for then he will be dying twice, which is absurd. So then, Socrates does not die.
Gist of Idea
Socrates either dies when he exists (before his death) or when he doesn't (after his death)
Source
Sextus Empiricus (Against the Physicists (two books) [c.180], I.269)
Book Ref
Sextus Empiricus: 'Against the Physicists/Against the Ethicists', ed/tr. Bury,R.G. [Harvard Loeb 1997], p.133
A Reaction
A nice dramatisation of a major dilemma. The present moment is just the boundary between the past and the future, and so has no magnitude, and hence nothing can occur during the present. Perhaps my favourite philosophical dilemma.
Related Idea
Idea 1902 Since Socrates either died when he was alive (a contradiction) or died when he was dead (meaningless), he didn't die [Sext.Empiricus]
| 22957 | We can't tell whether the changing present moment is one thing, or a succession of things [Aristotle] |
| 22966 | The present moment is a link (of past to future), and also a limit (of past and of future) [Aristotle] |
| 20818 | The present does not exist, so our immediate experience is actually part past and part future [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| 20821 | Time is continous and infinitely divisible, so there cannot be a wholly present time [Chrysippus, by Stobaeus] |
| 22742 | Socrates either dies when he exists (before his death) or when he doesn't (after his death) [Sext.Empiricus] |
| 22751 | If the present is just the limit of the past or the future, it can't exist because they don't exist [Sext.Empiricus] |
| 22891 | We could be aware of time if senses briefly vibrated, extending their experience of movement [Russell, by Bardon] |
| 17552 | In relativity the length of the 'present moment' is relative to distance from the observer [Heisenberg] |
| 18401 | The pure present moment is too brief to be experienced [Armstrong] |
| 12690 | The present is the collapse of the light wavefront from the Big Bang [Ellis] |
| 22942 | If time is infinitely divisible, then the present must be infinitely short [Le Poidevin] |
| 22990 | The moving spotlight says entities can have properties of being present, past or future [Baron/Miller] |
| 22997 | The present moment is a matter of existence, not of acquiring a property [Baron/Miller] |