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27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 3. Parts of Time / c. Intervals

[brief sections in the passing of time]

4 ideas
Time is divisible, into past, present and future [Sext.Empiricus]
     Full Idea: Time cannot be indivisible, since it is divided into past, present and future.
     From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Physicists (two books) [c.180], II.193)
     A reaction: Does the fact that you can name the parts of something prove that it is divisible? Do electrons have left and right-hand sides?
How can time be divisible if we can't compare one length of time with another? [Sext.Empiricus]
     Full Idea: Time is clearly divisible (into past, present and future), but it can't be, because a divisible thing is measured by some part of itself (divisions of length), but the two parts must coincide to make the measurement (e.g. present must coincide with past).
     From: Sextus Empiricus (Outlines of Pyrrhonism [c.180], III.143)
The primitive parts of time are intervals, not instants [Le Poidevin]
     Full Idea: Intervals of time can be viewed as primitive, and not decomposable into a series of instants.
     From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 09 'in present')
     A reaction: Given that instants are nothing, and intervals are something, the latter are clearly the better candidates to be the parts of time. Is there a smallest interval?
Surely if things extend over time, then time itself must be extended? [Cameron]
     Full Idea: If there are temporally extended entities - and there are - then there must be extended regions of time for those entities to extend in. Hence presentism is false.
     From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmaking for Presentists [2011], 4)
     A reaction: [Cameron is playing devil's advocate] Something has to be weird here, and I take it to be the fact that the past no longer exists, and yet it is fixed and supports truths. Get over it. My childhood has gone. Totally. Irrevocably.