On time

摘要

From Bill Summers Having read your special issue on time (8 October, p 37) I'd like to share my understanding of it, which is simple. Time does not and cannot exist for the following reason. We talk about and experience time as the past, present and future. To me, the past and the future are made up of a continuous stream of present moments in time. But what makes up a moment? A minute, a second, an attosecond, half an attosecond? Perhaps this means the present shrinks to nothing. In that case, the conclusion is that the present does not exist, and is merely a construct of our consciousness. The past and future are back to back with no present at all; in which case there can be no past or future either, only consciousness.