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Full Idea
If the present is the limit of the past, and the limit of the past has passed away together with that of which it is the limit, the present no longer exists. And if the present begins the future, which doesn't exist, the present does not yet exist.
Gist of Idea
If the present is just the limit of the past or the future, it can't exist because they don't exist
Source
Sextus Empiricus (Against the Physicists (two books) [c.180], II.201)
Book Ref
Sextus Empiricus: 'Against the Physicists/Against the Ethicists', ed/tr. Bury,R.G. [Harvard Loeb 1997], p.311
A Reaction
If I mark a line on the ground where the wall will begin, the limit seems prior to the object. The gun starts the race, but is not part of it. That said, I cannot think of any more mysterious entity than the present moment. It isn't a line or a bang.
| 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] |