溫故知新 Old wisdom, today’s insight — ONGO
Is the "Now" a Part of Time, or Its Boundary?
Is the "now" the smallest piece of time, or a widthless boundary dividing past from future?
The now is the continuity of time.
The paradox of the "now" that Aristotle unearthed became a deep-rooted crux of the theory of time. The problem — that no assembly of widthless nows makes a flow — shares a root with Zeno's arrow paradox: how does a now, at rest each instant, become motion? Augustine tried to answer by moving the now into the mind's attention; the modern Husserl denied the widthless point, calling the now a thick present holding what just passed and what soon comes. Whether the "now" — the only time we live — is point or width still trembles beneath us as we live each moment.
For us, quick to miss the now between the gone and the coming, this question — what is the now? — makes us grasp the present again.
Aristotle probes the strange character of the "now." The now is like a knife-line dividing past from future, and so has no width.
📝I, Too, Stand Before It
Aristotle probes the strange character of the "now." The now is like a knife-line dividing past from future, and so has no width. Yet widthless points alone cannot make up flowing time. And still the now, ever different as yesterday's now and today's now, is also the seam that joins time into one. I sense this question touches the nature of the "now" that is the only time we actually live. Upon the now that vanishes when grasped and continues when let go, I too live each moment.
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