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ORIGINAL: Arpig

On page 5 of the Predators thread up in General BDSM, I said the following:

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You have exactly the same amount of time as anybody else, and its worth exactly the same as well. It's worth just what you paid for it...nothing."

and

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Yeah, probably, because I just don't think time is all that valuable, I mean all I have to do is wake up and I have 24 hours. If I piss them away foolishly, no big deal because tomorrow I'll get another 24 hours just for waking up.

When challenged/questioned about it I mentioned that I had a warped view of time due to reading part of Aristotle's Metaphysics back in grade 10. I was asked to elaborate, and rather than derail that thread into a bizarre direction, I'm starting this thread.

So, here goes, be warned, I'm going to get all metaphysical on your ass...

The basic reason that Aristotle messed up my view of time (and by extension a person's time) was because he basically proved that time must exist and yet it cannot exist. Here's roughly how it goes...

1. Time exists, this is obvious from simple observation. There are things that are no longer, and things that are, and things aren't yet. So time exists.
2. Everything exists within time, and this can be seen as the defining aspect of existence. In order for something to be said to exist, it must have some duration within time, no matter how short. So time is essential for existence, without time nothing can exist.
3. Time is made up of three basic parts. Past, Present, & Future.
4. These three parts are essential to the existence of time, without all three components, time cannot exist.
4. Past & Future offer no problems, but the Present does.
    A. In order for the Present to exist, it must, by definition, not be Past or Future.
    B. If the Present has any duration, it must, again by definition, contain a Past and a Future within it, which would be impossible, since it is the Present.
    C. Therefore the Present has no duration within time.
    D. Therefore the Present does not exist.
5. If the Present does not exist, neither can the Past or Future, as they require a Present to divide one from the other. Therefore time does not exist.
6. If time does not exist, then nothing can have a duration within time, and therefore nothing exists.

See...it's fucked up. So I don't pay much attention to time, and I attach no real value to it, since it doesn't really exist, it's a fabrication of our minds that is inherently flawed.

Now, once again, this is not my theory of time, it is Aristotle's, well at least what I remember of it through the haze of 30 some odd years.

I'm not asking a question, I'm just answering one. Discuss or ignore as you wish.

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ORIGINAL: quietalice

I thought time was a big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff?

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ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy

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ORIGINAL: Arpig4. These three parts are essential to the existence of time, without all three components, time cannot exist.
4. Past & Future offer no problems, but the Present does.
    A. In order for the Present to exist, it must, by definition, not be Past or Future.
    B. If the Present has any duration, it must, again by definition, contain a Past and a Future within it, which would be impossible, since it is the Present.
    C. Therefore the Present has no duration within time.
    D. Therefore the Present does not exist.

The problem is with B. (Actually 5B since you used 4 twice). The "present" does have duration, but the duration is infinitesimally small to preclude it from including a past and future. Inifinitessimally small is not the same as not existing.

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ORIGINAL: Kirata

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ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy

The "present" does have duration, but the duration is infinitesimally small to preclude it from including a past and future.

And you know this how?

Efforts to understand time below the Planck scale have led to an exceedingly strange juncture in physics. The problem, in brief, is that time may not exist at the most fundamental level of physical reality... “The meaning of time has become terribly problematic in contemporary physics,” says Simon Saunders, a philosopher of physics at the University of Oxford. “The situation is so uncomfortable that by far the best thing to do is declare oneself an agnostic.”

K.