structure for 'Natural Reality'    |     alphabetical list of themes    |     expand these ideas

27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 3. Parts of Time / e. Present moment

[nature of the present moment of time]

13 ideas
We can't tell whether the changing present moment is one thing, or a succession of things [Aristotle]
The present moment is a link (of past to future), and also a limit (of past and of future) [Aristotle]
The present does not exist, so our immediate experience is actually part past and part future [Chrysippus, by Plutarch]
Time is continous and infinitely divisible, so there cannot be a wholly present time [Chrysippus, by Stobaeus]
Socrates either dies when he exists (before his death) or when he doesn't (after his death) [Sext.Empiricus]
If the present is just the limit of the past or the future, it can't exist because they don't exist [Sext.Empiricus]
We could be aware of time if senses briefly vibrated, extending their experience of movement [Russell, by Bardon]
In relativity the length of the 'present moment' is relative to distance from the observer [Heisenberg]
The pure present moment is too brief to be experienced [Armstrong]
The present is the collapse of the light wavefront from the Big Bang [Ellis]
If time is infinitely divisible, then the present must be infinitely short [Le Poidevin]
The moving spotlight says entities can have properties of being present, past or future [Baron/Miller]
The present moment is a matter of existence, not of acquiring a property [Baron/Miller]