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Does 'is' imply 'was'?

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For a thing to be (is) is it necessary that the the thing (was)?
---E.g. for myself to be alive now, it is necessary that I was alive before now.

How far does this chain of being go back to?

What about creation? A thing is created without a was, or are the parents the 'was'?

@mister kitten,

mister kitten;159759 wrote:

For a thing to be (is) is it necessary that the the thing (was)?
---E.g. for myself to be alive now, it is necessary that I was alive before now.

How far does this chain of being go back to?

What about creation? A thing is created without a was, or are the parents the 'was'?

A lightning bolt is, but not was.

@HexHammer,

Is time past, present and future... Even a lightning bolt takes time, and the electrons are always there, ready, always exchanging charges if in not so violent a fashion...But it is harder to say that the physical manifestation of that exchange of charges ever is to begin with... You cannot put your finger on it, or weigh it, and every example of the phenomenon is different to a degree...It is by the accumulation of lightning strikes that one can say what lightning is, and not because it is a thing certain...We know lightning when it is by what it was...

@mister kitten,

The moment you die, you are dead. Were you dead before the moment you died?

@kplax,

What about 'wis'? in other words 'will'.

---------- Post added 05-18-2010 at 02:02 AM ----------

as, is, wis, wiz, woz, was, as. WILL

@kplax,

kplax;165508 wrote:

The moment you die, you are dead. Were you dead before the moment you died?

I haven't died, yet. Smile

Before one is dead, s/he is alive (barely or not). For s/he to be alive before being dead there implies some existence before the moment before death.

The moment before one comes into existence one is neither dead nor alive; is there a word for that time?

@mister kitten,

mister kitten;165523 wrote:

I haven't died, yet.
Before one is dead, s/he is alive (barely or not). For s/he to be alive before being dead there implies some existence before the moment before death.

The moment before one comes into existence one is neither dead nor alive; is there a word for that time?

nonexistent? i am not sure if one truly exists in the English language

@mister kitten,

What about Tennyson's Idylls of the King? Or what about the computer? Or what about new eves on a house or a new bridge across a stream? If everything that is was, then it seems difficult to account for newness, doesn't it?

@mister kitten,

I think that time and concept are peanut butter and jelly on the same sandwich. I don't think we can separate language from time. Hegel tackled the issue of words like "now" and "here" which are abstractions/negations. It's a lost cause, but there's this brilliant book by Kojeve...all about time, eternity, concept...

@mister kitten,

mister kitten;159759 wrote:

For a thing to be (is) is it necessary that the the thing (was)?
---E.g. for myself to be alive now, it is necessary that I was alive before now.

How far does this chain of being go back to?

What about creation? A thing is created without a was, or are the parents the 'was'?

Solomon once said, "The thing that hath been it is that which shall be"

@mister kitten,

mister kitten;159759 wrote:

For a thing to be (is) is it necessary that the the thing (was)?
---E.g. for myself to be alive now, it is necessary that I was alive before now.

How far does this chain of being go back to?

What about creation? A thing is created without a was, or are the parents the 'was'?

Usually this idea is expressed in terms of causation. So your questions could be replaced by questions like:

What does it mean to say that a thing has a cause that precedes it temporally?
and
How far does this chain of causation go back to?

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