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Does it make sense to say that time does not exist?

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In philosophy, I often encounter statements such as "time does not exist", "motion does not exist", "the self does not exist", "time is unreal", "time is an illusion", "there is no such thing as time", etc. I find such statements problematic, since if they were true, the words "time", "motion" etc would seemingly fail to refer to anything. They would in effect be nonsense-words. In that case, the statements would have the same status as "X does not exist", where X represents a random nonsense-word. Such statements, it seems to me, are either (a) meaningless, or (b) trivially true in the sense that a nonsense-word obviously does not represent anything that exists. Either way, they would not be saying anything informative.

Here, then, are a few questions for discussion:

1. If I say that unicorns do not exist, I mean that there is nothing in the world that has the set of properties defining a unicorn (horse-like body, single horn, etc). But how does one analyse the statement "time does not exist"? What properties define "time", and how could one ascertain empirically that these properties are not instantiated? Isn't time's apparent existence proof of its real existence? Don't they amount to the same thing? What else is there to the concept of time other than our subjective experience of it?

2. If you think it is true, or at least meaningful, to say that time (or motion, or the self) does not exist, can you please explain (non-tautologically) exactly what this is denying? What would it mean for time to exist?

3. Are the affirmative equivalents ("time exists", "motion exists", etc) synthetic a priori propositions?

Note that I am not disputing any scientific findings (or philosophical speculations) that might make someone claim that time does not exist. I am only concerned with the language aspect, i.e. how to express such findings/speculations without talking nonsense.

@ACB,

ACB;128221 wrote:

In philosophy, I often encounter statements such as "time does not exist", "motion does not exist", "the self does not exist", "time is unreal", "time is an illusion", "there is no such thing as time", etc. I find such statements problematic, since if they were true, the words "time", "motion" etc would seemingly fail to refer to anything. They would in effect be nonsense-words. In that case, the statements would have the same status as "X does not exist", where X represents a random nonsense-word. Such statements, it seems to me, are either (a) meaningless, or (b) trivially true in the sense that a nonsense-word obviously does not represent anything that exists. Either way, they would not be saying anything informative.

Here, then, are a few questions for discussion:

1. If I say that unicorns do not exist, I mean that there is nothing in the world that has the set of properties defining a unicorn (horse-like body, single horn, etc). But how does one analyse the statement "time does not exist"? What properties define "time", and how could one ascertain empirically that these properties are not instantiated? Isn't time's apparent existence proof of its real existence? Don't they amount to the same thing? What else is there to the concept of time other than our subjective experience of it?

2. If you think it is true, or at least meaningful, to say that time (or motion, or the self) does not exist, can you please explain (non-tautologically) exactly what this is denying? What would it mean for time to exist?

3. Are the affirmative equivalents ("time exists", "motion exists", etc) synthetic a priori propositions?

Note that I am not disputing any scientific findings (or philosophical speculations) that might make someone claim that time does not exist. I am only concerned with the language aspect, i.e. how to express such findings/speculations without talking nonsense.

The question seems to be how time could not exist, and yet, people have breakfast before lunch.

@ACB,

ACB;128221 wrote:

3. Are the affirmative equivalents ("time exists", "motion exists", etc) synthetic a priori propositions?

They are both synthetic and a priori judgements. This is, generally speaking, a unification of the rationalist position with the empiricist position.

Consider, for example, our knowledge that two plus three is equal to five and that the interior angles of any triangle add up to a straight line. These (and similar) truths of mathematics are synthetic judgments, Kant held, since they contribute significantly to our knowledge of the world; the sum of the interior angles is not contained in the concept of a triangle. Yet, clearly, such truths are known a priori, since they apply with strict and universal necessity to all of the objects of our experience, without having been derived from that experience itself. In these instances, Kant supposed, no one will ask whether or not we have synthetic a priori knowledge; plainly, we do. The question is, how do we come to have such knowledge? If experience does not supply the required connection between the concepts involved, what does? Kant's answer is that we do it ourselves.

Space and time, Kant argued in the "Transcendental Aesthetic" of the first Critique, are the "pure forms of sensible intuition" under which we perceive what we do. This is a transcendental argument.

Time is not a thing in itself, yet it is necessary. It is based upon conventional human distinctions but is a requirement for our judgements. Man is not, and cannot be, the ultimate arbiter, he does not have access to things in themselves. Space and time are, according to Kant, forms of human intuition, and they can only be proved valid for things as they appear to us and not for things as they are in themselves.

Since mathematics derives from our own sensible intuition, we can be absolutely sure that it must apply to everything we perceive, but for the same reason we can have no assurance that it has anything to do with the way things are apart from our perception of them.

The "pure forms of sensible intuition" are both informative - allow us to gain new knowledge (which encompasses, roughly, the empiricist position) - as well as necessary (which encompasses, roughly, the rationalist position).

In my opinion, the things as they are in themselves, involve the entire structure of reality. To say we can't know them is to say we can't objectively come to know the cosmos as a whole. For this would require us to be seperate from the whole and at the same time posess the ability to make reasonable judgements regarding it, which is impossible.

@ACB,

ACB;128221 wrote:

In philosophy, I often encounter statements such as "time does not exist", "motion does not exist", "the self does not exist", "time is unreal", "time is an illusion", "there is no such thing as time", etc. I find such statements problematic, since if they were true, the words "time", "motion" etc would seemingly fail to refer to anything. They would in effect be nonsense-words. In that case, the statements would have the same status as "X does not exist", where X represents a random nonsense-word. Such statements, it seems to me, are either (a) meaningless, or (b) trivially true in the sense that a nonsense-word obviously does not represent anything that exists. Either way, they would not be saying anything informative.

Here, then, are a few questions for discussion:

1. If I say that unicorns do not exist, I mean that there is nothing in the world that has the set of properties defining a unicorn (horse-like body, single horn, etc). But how does one analyse the statement "time does not exist"? What properties define "time", and how could one ascertain empirically that these properties are not instantiated? Isn't time's apparent existence proof of its real existence? Don't they amount to the same thing? What else is there to the concept of time other than our subjective experience of it?

2. If you think it is true, or at least meaningful, to say that time (or motion, or the self) does not exist, can you please explain (non-tautologically) exactly what this is denying? What would it mean for time to exist?

3. Are the affirmative equivalents ("time exists", "motion exists", etc) synthetic a priori propositions?

Note that I am not disputing any scientific findings (or philosophical speculations) that might make someone claim that time does not exist. I am only concerned with the language aspect, i.e. how to express such findings/speculations without talking nonsense.

This is why linguistic philosophy is, for some, first philosophy. What does "time" mean? What does "mean" mean?

I find it important to remember that words do not have precise meanings like numbers. "The self is an illusion" is profound to one listener and absurd to another. I suppose the best thing about linguistic philosophy, in the broad sense, is that it gets one thinking about language, and also about the limits of language.

Nonsense is relative.

@ACB,

I' not sure of the question. Ask me tomorrow.

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