Single Idea 16207

[catalogued under 27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 3. Parts of Time / b. Instants]

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).

Gist of Idea

Time could be discrete (like integers) or dense (rationals) or continuous (reals)

Source

Katherine Hawley (How Things Persist [2001], 2.5)

Book Reference

Hawley,Katherine: 'How Things Persist' [OUP 2004], p.51


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).