Questions tagged [time]
By Einstein's definition, time is what clocks measure – but how can we define “clock” without referring to time? This tag is for such philosophical questions about the many unresolved issues concerning time. Though this includes questions about the interpretation of physical theories and concepts, if your question is about what current physics can quantitatively predict or explain, it is probably not about philosophy and therefore off-topic.
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What is the point of acquiring knowledge when time would take it away soon enough?
After spending hours and hours of researching on different aspects of philosophy, not to mention the effort, here is my question:
What is the point of acquiring knowledge when time would take it ...
user37486
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Do we need to predicate the past perfect tense to those that have died?
Do we need to predicate the past perfect tense to those that have died?
The PAST PERFECT TENSE indicates that an action was completed
(finished or "perfected") at some point in the past before ...
user35983
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What is reflexivity in temporal logic?
According to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, reflexivity can be defined by :
∀x(x ≺ x)
Where ≺ means "Precedes" : For all x, x precedes x
But what does it mean for an instant in time x ...
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Can time exist without change?
Imagine an event of one second in length, like two hands clapping. Suppose that another interval of time elapses between the clap, a period in which nothing happens in the whole universe (or in all ...
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Could reality be a projection of another reality?
I'm new to metaphysics.
So, I apologize if this is an established question.
I've been asking the question, could reality be a projection of another reality?
In geometry, you can project a three ...
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What's the difference between infinite divisibility and infinte extension?
I understand that most people would say that time, such as the time it takes to write this question, is infinitely divisible. But I'm guessing it's unusual to suppose that makes time infinitely ...
user35983
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What is actual is a metaphysical necessity?
You look out of the window and it's raining. You grab a bottle and pour some water into a glass. You probably don't consider these events as necessary: it could have been a sunny day and you were free ...
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If time is discrete, does moving means teleporting?
Please follow this thought experiment:
1) A ball moves one centimeter in one unit of time.
2) A ball disappears. Then, after a unit of time, it reappears one centimeter far away.
By now we don't ...
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Grandfather Paradox and Can vs Cannot
Varanas and Vihvelin provide responses to David Lewis' 'Can vs Cannot' discussion. Have there been any appropriate counterresponses to these?
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Time travel and changing the past
Many philosophers argue that time travel is possible without causally affecting the past?
Is it even possible to time travel without causally affecting the past.
The grandfather paradox is an ...
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Grandfather Paradox and Causal Loop
How does the grandfather paradox cause a causal loop (and therefore a bootstrap paradox)?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandfather_paradox
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Does the "Temporal" determinateness apply to both temporal and non-temporal entities?
Heidegger wrote in Being and Time that:
In both pre-philosophical and philosophical usage the expression
'termporal' has been pre-empted by the signification we have cited; in
the following ...
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Theories to suggest that there exists only one version of history
How do we know that the past is fixed and that there only exists one version of history?
Are there any interesting arguments surrounding this?
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Forward time travel
It is commonly thought that forward time travel is more logically possible than backward time travel.
Does the following raise a paradox to forward time travel:
Tim goes 20 years in thee future to ...
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Must an eternal object be uncaused?
Let's say that we grant that item "X" is eternal. By "eternal" we mean that it has always existed and that it always will exist.
Because "X" is eternal, does it follow that it MUST be uncaused?
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Why are there sixty seconds in one minute and sixty minutes in one hour, but sixty hours do not equal one day? [closed]
Why are there sixty seconds in one minute and sixty minutes in one hour, but sixty hours do not equal one day?
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What would a fractal universe tell us about Time?
To begin with let's look at what is known as the coastline paradox. Briefly it goes like this: If you measure the circumference of Britain with a 1km long stick, and then do the same with a 100m long ...
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Can dasein repeat without a time
Can dasein repeat without a time or is dasein necessarily in time. I recall that dasein is structured by care, but not if that always involves times
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How can God be temporal if he never began?
I was reading through this article and it says:
What may be the dominant view of philosophers today is that he is temporal but everlasting; that is, God never began to exist and he never will go ...
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Can an eternalist think that pastness and futureness are properties?
I take an eternalist to be someone who believes there are no past/future things, it all exists "at once". I understand the position as it applies to concrete objects, but I am not so clear on what the ...
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Does an infinitesimal instant of time have zero duration? [closed]
Is there a philosophical argument supporting the hypothesis that an infinitesimal instant of time has zero duration?
The reference to infinitesimal includes the modern presentation of it in non-...
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If nothing happens, does time still pass?
This question may have been asked before; actually, it's definitely been asked before, since it's on the topic of whether time is real or a man-made construct, but I don't believe it has yet been ...
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Is there a theory about time traveling without paradox or multiple universes? [closed]
If you think about time travel you will quickly come to problems like the time paradox. In order to avoid a solution of the question about the paradox, the theory of multiple universes is used. Is ...
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Consciousness and Spacetime [closed]
What is consciousness?
Is our conceived perception a part of space or time?
Can we be conscious in a state where time is non existent, or frozen?
Is consciousness energy?
Does it adhere to ...
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Is this a paradox about clairvoyance?
You play a game with a fortune teller. There are two cards with the face down on the table; he wins if you raises the card's suit he foresees, you win if his prediction turns out to be wrong. Suppose ...
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Are A series and B series actually about time or only about language?
Actually, A series is represented by sentences like:
She was home yesterday.
B series represented by sentences like:
She was home on the 24th of August, 2018.
A-theory represents time as A ...
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For a clairvoyant able to perceive time as we perceive space, is the future determined?
We can think about a future event as unknown or not yet existing, but once it has happened, it can be only as it is.
If I am in an instant of time t1 and in a subsequent instant t2 an event x occurs, ...
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Once it happened, an event was necessary?
What would happen to an event in the past, if time itself ceases to exist? Without time, has what existed (such as the writing of this sentence) never happened?
A total disappearance of space-time ...
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Cosmology - What are the problems with the theory of Eternal Return?
I have been thinking of Niestzche's Eternal return theory and how it could be possible that everything we do and our entire history and the universe will be repeated exactly the same again, and again ...
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What's the difference between the time-image in Deleuze's Cinema 2 and a film's narrative structure?
Reading Gilles Deleuze's Cinema 2: The Time-Image, I could never really tell what he meant by time crystals. His examples and analyses all just seem to be describing the narrative structure, the shape ...
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Is perception of time completely subjective?
I know that if you are into an interesting activity time seems to pass very quickly, whereas the opposite happens when you're bored, but that's not what I'm asking.
Imagine conducting an experiment ...
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Is information causal?
I am coming to this question in response to scepticism about emergentism as more than an overlay (eg. SEP article).
Entropy is well established as related to relative information about systems, and ...
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Time - Does the Big Crunch mean our existence would be cyclical?
Given Nietzsche's Eternal Return philosophy, would the Big Crunch mean that our existence is cyclical, and therefore coincide with Eternal Return philosophy?
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If time is going to end, then did it have a beginning? How do we know time will end?
Why do most physicists believe time is finite? What proof do we have that time is not infinite and therefore will never end?
And how can 'time' actually come into existence if something coming into ...
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Philosophy - If Space and Time are infinite and therefore infinite copies of us would end up existing, then wouldn't we still be gone after we die?
I have been pondering a question in my head. If Space and Time are infinite, then does that mean that Nietzsche's Eternal Return theory is true in the way that my life would recur, that when 'I' ('I' ...
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Philosophy - Is Nietzsche's Eternal Return theory true?
Is Nietzsche's Eternal Return theory true? I am extremely worried that it is because of the very likely fact that Einstein's Block Universe theory is true, and what renders Einstein's Block Universe ...
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Philosophy - Does Einstein's Block Universe theory prove Nietzsche's Eternal Return theory is true?
If the Past, Present, and Future all exist in exactly the same way, then every single moment would be a ‘Now’ moment for me. it would also mean that me being dead in the future is equally real in the ...
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Philosophy - If both the Rebound Universe and Block Universe theories are true would that mean Nietzsche's Eternal Return theory true?
If the Block Universe is true, and if the Rebound Universe is also true where the universe goes from Big Crunch to Big bang then doesn't that mean that the Block Universe is shaped like a circle where ...
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Philosophy - Does the block universe theory of time mean that life will repeat after death?
I have suffered severe anxiety, sadness, regret, and depression since I was 13, I had 2 trapped-feeling panic attacks when I was 13 I am now 17 and fighting off frequent urges to have a trapped-...
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Is time more "real" than math and, if so, why?
How is time different from math? Is time a part of math?
For me time is like math rather than a "real" thing. Time is just a tool rather than a "fundamental thing".
I feel confident saying that an ...
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What's wrong with the following argument regarding temporal limits?
Let us suppose there is a limit: you cannot buy something after 10:00PM. From the position of law, of course "cannot" must be taken directly. But from the position of common thinking, people are less ...
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Time Travel and Virtual Particles correlation?
Virtual Particles in Quantum Physics are particles that can form in any place, including a vacuum, and are created in a pair of particles opposite each other, and are usually eliminated. When these ...
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Any good theories on the nature of time in which time is not fundamental?
I've noticed that most of the very successful formulas in physics, once you break them down, contain several references to quantities of time. And it has really begun to bother me that once you start ...
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Is there a theory in philosophy that time can be reduced to causation?
Some people really believe that the past somehow physically exists even if it's past. Like the universe has some kind of container where all its past states are stored. On the other hand, there are ...
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Being alive today: the most improbable coincidence?
Think about it; modern humans have been around for at least a couple hundred thousand years.
Yet, your mind, your soul, your very awareness, happens to be "alive" today. If time is a flow, moving ...
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Why must everything have an origin, but not an ending?
I came across this thinking today when I was reading some evolutionary biology writings. Human beings tend to accept that everything must be traced back to something else, or an origin, starting point;...
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Many worlds defeats Doomsday argument (betting version)? [closed]
Here is a calculation regarding observers placing bets in the many-worlds scenario.
Let us assume that an observer has some current rank n in the human race (there have been n-1 humans born before ...
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A-theory of time verses B theory of time?
In reading about the theories of time, they do not seem to link time to the physicality of events.
All events are locked into change of physical objects, in relation to location.
One can describe the ...
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Perception and Time
How is the subject of 'Time' portrayed? Is the record of human awareness and understanding of 'Time' better articulated by the history of Philosophy or better expressed by the history of Art?
In ...
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Does the future always arrive? [closed]
Does the future always arrive?
To clarify by example : can a future event and an event that occurs in the present ever be identical ?
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