Maddenation

Augustine on Time

People use the “I know it when I see it” reasoning all the time. Is this just something we humans come up with, or did it originate somewhere? Maybe it originated with Augustine, who said

What, then, is time? I know well enough what it is, provided that nobody asks me; but if I am asked what it is and try to explain, I am baffled.

(There are lots of different translations of it.) There’s also an interesting article by Anders Cullhed called Nobel Prize Authors on Time (I am guessing that Augustine was awarded a lifetime achievement Nobel Prize, since they wouldn’t actually have to give him any money.)

PatrickQuotes07/28/06 2 comments

Comments

Dad • 07/29/06 8:48 AM:

Cullhed doesn’t help much in defining time either. I’m fascinated by our being continuously balanced on the sharp point of the present moment. We can conjecture about the future, but our only experience, once we stop and think about it, is the past.

Dad • 07/30/06 10:57 PM:

By the way, I like the idea of a “lifetime achievement” Nobel Prize for St. Augustine. What would be his category? Peace? Literature?

Post a comment

Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)

Please capitalize your name properly and use the same information each time you comment. We will not send you spam, and your email address will not be posted.


Remember me?

Formatting
*bold*=bold
_italic_=italic
"link":http://url.com=link


Styles
Search

Entries Comments Both
Archives
Related Entries
  1. On Time
    Time is the most unpredictable and secret thing in our life.
  1. Why poetry?
    [Poetry] may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves.
  1. Top 100 Gadgets of All Time
    Mobile Magazine’s list of the Top 100 Gadgets of all time.
  1. Your Estimated Wait Time Is
    “Your estimated wait time is…Six-hundred fifty seconds.”
  1. Universal Time
    David’s entry got me thinking. You knew it was coming. It was only a matter of, well, time. Let me…
Validation

XHTML & CSS