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Full Idea
Assuming time to be infinitely divisible, the present can have no duration at all, for if it did, we could divide it into parts, and some parts would be earlier than others.
Gist of Idea
If time is infinitely divisible, then the present must be infinitely short
Source
Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 09 'in present')
Book Ref
Le Poidevin,Robin: 'Travels in Four Dimensions' [OUP 2003], p.156
A Reaction
I quite like Aristotle's view that things only have parts when you actually divide them. In modern physics fields don't seem to be infinitely divisible. It's a puzzle, though, innit?
| 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] |