display all the ideas for this combination of texts
5 ideas
18454 | Time is the circular movement of the soul [Porphyry] |
Full Idea: It is the circular movement of the soul that constitutes time, just as the permanence of intelligence in itself constitutes eternity. | |
From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 5Enn3 32(5-7)) | |
A reaction: Plato loved circles. If you think time is subjective, this is trying to express your intuition. Personally I think it is nonsense |
18455 | Some think time is seen at rest, as well as in movement [Porphyry] |
Full Idea: Some have believed that time manifested in rest as well as in movement. | |
From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 5Enn3 32(5-7)) | |
A reaction: If you like this idea, you should see Shoemaker's lovely three-worlds thought experiment. |
20819 | The past and the future subsist, but only the present exists [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
Full Idea: When he wished to be subtle, Chrysippus wrote that the past part of time and the future part do not exist but subsist, and only the present exists. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - On Common Conceptions 1081f | |
A reaction: [from lost On Void] I think I prefer the ontology of Idea 20818. Idea 20819 does not offer an epistemology. Is the present substantial enough to be known? The word 'subsist' is an ontological evasion (even though Russell briefly relied on it). |
20818 | The present does not exist, so our immediate experience is actually part past and part future [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
Full Idea: Stoics do not allow a minimal time to exist, and do not want to have a partless 'now'; so what one thinks one has grasped as present is in part future and in part past. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - On Common Conceptions 1081c | |
A reaction: [from lost On Parts Bk3-5] I agree with the ontology here, but I take our grasp of the present to be very short-term memory of the past. I ignore special relativity. Chrysippus expressed two views about this; in the other one he was a Presentist. |
20821 | Time is continous and infinitely divisible, so there cannot be a wholly present time [Chrysippus, by Stobaeus] |
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. | |
From: 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. |