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Full Idea
Time is the measure of change, and it makes no sense to speak of how things were before there was anything that changed.
Gist of Idea
Time is the measure of change, so we can't speak of time before all change
Source
Michael Dummett (Thought and Reality [1997], 8)
Book Ref
Dummett,Michael: 'Thought and Reality (Gifford Lectures)' [OUP 2006], p.104
A Reaction
Something creating its own measure sounds like me marking my own exam papers. If an object appears, then inverts five seconds later, how can the inversion create the five seconds? How does that differ from inverting ten seconds later?
| 22885 | For Aristotle time is not a process but a means for measuring processes [Aristotle, by Bardon] |
| 8590 | Time does not exist without change [Aristotle] |
| 5104 | Time is an aspect of change [Aristotle] |
| 22959 | Time is not change, but the number we associate with change [Aristotle] |
| 22964 | Change only exists in time through its being temporally measure [Aristotle] |
| 22965 | Time measures rest, as well as change [Aristotle] |
| 20820 | Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus] |
| 8186 | Time is the measure of change, so we can't speak of time before all change [Dummett] |
| 19949 | Quantum theory relies on a clock outside the system - but where is it located? [New Sci.] |