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Single Idea 5980

[filed under theme 27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / g. Growing block ]

Full Idea

A short time ago or a short time ahead we might put at ten days, but how can anything which does not exist be either long or short?

Gist of Idea

How can ten days ahead be a short time, if it doesn't exist?

Source

Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.15)

Book Ref

Augustine: 'Confessions', ed/tr. Pine-Coffin,R.S. [Penguin 1961], p.264

A Reaction

A nice question, which gets at the paradoxical nature of time very nicely. How can it be long, but non-existent? We could break the paradox by concluding '..and therefore time does exist', even though we can't see how.

The 33 ideas from Augustine

16702 All things are in the present time to God [Augustine]
3912 I must exist in order to be mistaken, so that even if I am mistaken, I can't be wrong about my own existence [Augustine]
6683 The contact of spirit and body is utterly amazing, and incomprehensible [Augustine]
22887 If God existed before creation, why would a perfect being desire to change things? [Augustine, by Bardon]
22888 To be aware of time it can only exist in the mind, as memory or anticipation [Augustine, by Bardon]
22977 I can distinguish different smells even when I am not experiencing them [Augustine]
22978 Memory is so vast that I cannot recognise it as part of my mind [Augustine]
22976 Memories are preserved separately, according to category [Augustine]
22979 Three main questions seem to be whether a thing is, what it is, and what sort it is [Augustine]
22980 Memory contains innumerable principles of maths, as well as past sense experiences [Augustine]
22982 Why does joy in my mind make me happy, but joy in my memory doesn't? [Augustine]
22983 We would avoid remembering sorrow or fear if that triggered the emotions afresh [Augustine]
22981 Mind and memory are the same, as shown in 'bear it in mind' or 'it slipped from mind' [Augustine]
22984 Without memory I could not even speak of myself [Augustine]
22985 Everyone wants happiness [Augustine]
5976 If God is outside time in eternity, can He hear prayers? [Augustine]
5977 Heaven and earth must be created, because they are subject to change [Augustine]
5978 I know what time is, until someone asks me to explain it [Augustine]
5979 If the past is no longer, and the future is not yet, how can they exist? [Augustine]
5981 The whole of the current year is not present, so how can it exist? [Augustine]
5980 How can ten days ahead be a short time, if it doesn't exist? [Augustine]
5982 If the future does not exist, how can prophets see it? [Augustine]
5983 I disagree with the idea that time is nothing but cosmic movement [Augustine]
5984 Maybe time is an extension of the mind [Augustine]
16588 I prefer a lack of form to mean non-existence, than to think of some quasi-existence [Augustine]
22167 Our images of bodies are not produced by the bodies, but by our own minds [Augustine, by Aquinas]
22117 Our minds grasp reality by direct illumination (rather than abstraction from experience) [Augustine, by Matthews]
22118 Augustine created the modern concept of the will [Augustine, by Matthews]
4348 Love, and do what you will [Augustine]
7821 Pagans produced three hundred definitions of the highest good [Augustine, by Grayling]
22116 Augustine identified Donatism, Pelagianism and Manicheism as the main heresies [Augustine, by Matthews]
19338 Augustine said evil does not really exist, and evil is a limitation in goodness [Augustine, by Perkins]
22119 Augustine said (unusually) that 'ought' does not imply 'can' [Augustine, by Matthews]