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Single Idea 20821

[catalogued under 27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 3. Parts of Time / e. Present moment]

Full Idea

Chrysippus says most clearly that no time is wholly present; for since the divisibility of continuous things is infinite, time as a whole is also subject to infinite divisibility by this method of division.

Gist of Idea

Time is continous and infinitely divisible, so there cannot be a wholly present time

Source

report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.08.42

A Reaction

But what is his reason for thinking that time is a continuous thing? There is a minimum time in quantum mechanics (the Planck Time), but do these quantum intervals overlap? Compare Idea 20819.

Book Reference

'The Stoics Reader', ed/tr. Inwood,B/Gerson,L.P. [Hackett 2008], p.88

Related Ideas

Idea 20818 The present does not exist, so our immediate experience is actually part past and part future [Chrysippus, by Plutarch]

Idea 20819 The past and the future subsist, but only the present exists [Chrysippus, by Plutarch]