Aristotle's Paradox of Time

A clip of Staffan Carlshamre discussing a paradox about time which goes back to Aristotle.

#philosophy #time #aristotle

[mugsofmirth]

Fascinating paradox. And yet even more paradoxical is the fact that we exist always in the ever present NOW

[MrJeffrey]

When I watch my mind, thoughts seem to arrive in an instant. Then it takes time to convert them into language; that's the part we call "thinking". But the part where something complex spontaneously pops into consciousness accounts for more than thinking does. I think language is far more responsible for our perceiving time than we assume.

[alwaysgreatusa]

The present is everything and cannot be measured, whereas the past and the future are merely our fundamental conceptions for coming to terms with and understanding that the present constantly changes. That is to say, the past and the future are merely our ways of conceiving that everything changes.

[stefanmarin]

What the fucc Aristotle then how can I sleep now at night?

[ranomukherjee]

So am I existence of nonexistent ! How horrifying the paradox of life is!

[BrendaCreates]

The solution is the block theory of time. There is no past, present or future. Everything exists in one eternal now.

[irevelato]

Isn’t this Zeno of Elea’s paradox rephrased in Aristotle’s words?

[bobk]

For Aristotle the following true: There is no motion or change in a point in time [an instant (a now) with no temporal dimension]. The present is when we experiencing something. But any experiencing has an extent of time. That is, there is no experiencing without some time. Therefore, there are two internal limits; one between the past and present, the other between the present and the past.

[syxke]

Its funny how they tried to fool us by letting them think for us. But once we do some critical thinking for ourselves we’ll understand that, yea past and future don’t exist only present. But if we take a step back to analyze the concept of future-past.. we understand that the present is in physicality and that future/ lies in our mind

[davidcotuit]

A paradox indeed since no one can deny the present. Think of it as you may, it is nevertheless something. This is another way of putting something I think about. If you divide sections of time down to infinity, what are you left with? Oh yes, that's right: the present.

[Abdominal]

Time itself doesn't exist. All there is, is the ever present now. Time is our perception of our own mortality, as it is limited. The universe does not take consideration of our mortality. You're welcome, I solved it long ago.

[claupassionfruit]

Not even the present exist because as you say now, 1 sec is gone.That sec has multiple divisions so basically there s no past present or future.

[andybasten]

Let us give credit to Africa (Kemit), which was Aristotle's University

[franklinkarunakaran]

No, past present and future are live.
Time is eternal in which we are travelling.
Human life is like travelling in a train . Many station we cross in time and get down on death others travel.

[exercisethemind]

"Nothing" is an exaggeration designed to illustrate a point. The present is not literally nothing. Modernists are too literal. They miss the point. Value the present BECAUSE it exists, it is real, but it is fleeting.

[anisahmed]

A view re time: Time doesn't have an existential reality.

[zolnsalt]

He said 'the past does not exist'... Wouldn't the past exist until the end of time?

[logike]

Aristotle's view of time is so old. There is actually no paradox because Aristotle interpreted time in terms of the A-theory view of time, which is indeed false because it was disproved by McTaggart's perennial work "The Unreality of Time" a century ago. The A-theory is the view that time consists of Past, Present, and Future. But PPF is merely our subjective point of view time, namely in terms of tensed properties, and these properties are contradictory. An event cannot have the properties of PPF. So the A-theory is false.

But B-theory is different. There is no paradox if you adopt the B-theory view of time, that is, time is real, it exists. But time exists in terms of events ordered by earlier-than/later-than relations, and so has a direction. So, for example, Cesar Crossing the Rubicon happened earlier than Bill Clinton being elected president of the US. But no one in their right mind should believe past times don't exist at all, because then you are forced to say that Cesar crossing the Rubicon is false and never happened. But does anyone really believe this? Of course the present SEEMS "more real" to us than the past. But no one in their right mind should believe that Cesar crossing the Rubicon is unreal in the same way that unicorns are unreal. So there is a huge difference between real/unreal that people who deny the reality of the past are not explaining. It's another reason why A-theory is false. Aristotle was just confused because he couldn't think of time without tense.

We have a preference for the present time (however fleeting) over other times since the present time appears "more real" to us than other times. But the appearance is an illusion, and it's why the philosophical view of presentism is false, including the A-theory view of time. The present time is no more than past times. But time itself, according to the B-theory, exists and is real. (Although B-theorists have two different ways of going. Either eternalism, the the view all times are equally real, or the growing-block view, that only the past and present exist, but the future does not.)

Again, no paradox. The only time paradox I think of is time travel. Suppose you get into a time machine, travel back in time, and kill your grandfather before you were born. How is this possible? For, killing your grandfather before you were born would make your ability to travel back in time impossible to do that in the first place. The only way out of this paradox is to hypothesize different timelines or branches of time, so that in one time you were born and got into a time machine, but then traveled to a different timeline killing your grandfather.

Also read Michael Tooley's famous Time, Tense, and Causation where explains this as well.

[actiongaming]

Nobody
That random homeless person I met on the street:

[seanmoran]

Do not the effects of the past exist then