Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', '17: Of Superstition' and 'How Things Persist'

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2 ideas

27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / d. Time as measure
Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus]
     Full Idea: Posidonius defined time thus: it is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed and slowness.
     From: report of Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.08.42
     A reaction: Hm. Can we define motion or speed without alluding to time? Looks like we have to define them as a conjoined pair, which means we cannot fully understand either of them.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 3. Parts of Time / b. Instants
Time could be discrete (like integers) or dense (rationals) or continuous (reals) [Hawley]
     Full Idea: There seem to be three possible ways for time to be fine-grained. The ordering of instants could be discrete (like the integers), dense (like the rational numbers) or continuous (like the real numbers).
     From: Katherine Hawley (How Things Persist [2001], 2.5)
     A reaction: She seems to assume that time must be 'grained', but I would take the continuous view to imply that there is no grain at all (which is bad news for her version of stage theory).