Objection 1: "You cannot speak of time as if it were something we could comprehend. It is difficult to comprehend time, and I am not sure that we can."
Reply 1: You used the word; do you not comprehend it to some degree? If you do not, then you do not know what you are talking about: you do not know what it is which -you say- we cannot comprehend. If you do understand it, your argument really fails. I do not ask you to know everything about time. But you do understand it. If you want to believe this and act on it logically, try showing up for work 5 hours late some time, and tell your boss that you do not at all comprehend time.

Obj 2: "You cannot speak of the present; it does not mean anything. For if it is an amount of time, say a second, then this is divisable into deciseconds; and these into milliseconds, etc. until it is of no time length at all. In that case, you are comitted to saying that it has a length and that it does not. But if you say that the present is indivisible, you say it is of no duration as before, in which case it is not the building block (as it were) of the timeline. For an addition of durationless moments cannot yeild a duration of time: one would wonder what the present is and when it is, and conclude that there is no such thing."
Re 2: This is an intriguing logical puzzle. However, that is all it is, since there is a past, present and future, all distinct. (This is not to say that these are static.) Philosophy fails to be useful when it is used to argue against what is self-evident. As for this common division of the timeline, we speak of it every day; we know it, period. Need I say more here?

Obj 3: "Ah, you define time to be what you want! Well, I have the right to define it as I want, and I define it quite differently. I define it as being a toaster, because I have this right."
Re 4: A popular pseudo-logic has it that we can define anything any way we want. I have heard this objection many times, so I will deal with it. To these objectors, I respond: I suppose you have no problem with the old black slave trade, since the whites who enslaved chose to define the blacks as mere animals? Or better yet, their law defined them thus, so it was "right for them," right? What wickedness and nonsense!

If you have any further objections, email me.

Click here to return to argument summary.

© Copyright 1997, Luke Wadel. Written permission of the author is required for copying, electronically or otherwise.