Platohagel: Socrates what are the many definitions that explain the nature of time?

Socrates: Let us examine time, Platohagel, as one might circle a statue, never resting with one view alone. Many have given differing accounts, each seeking to seize what slips.

Time as Measure of Change

Aristotle said: time is the number of motion according to before and after. It is not motion itself, but that by which motion is counted.

Time as Cosmic Order

Plato in the Timaeus: time is the moving image of eternity, produced with the heavens, measured by the revolution of the celestial bodies.

Time as Relational

Some hold time has no independent existence, but only arises from the relation between events—when something happens before or after another.

Time as Absolute

Newton declared time to flow equably without relation to anything external, a container in which events occur.

Time as Psychological

Augustine confessed: “What is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I wish to explain, I know not.” He distinguished between the present of past things (memory), present of present things (attention), and present of future things (expectation). Thus time dwells in the mind.

Time as Entropy

In modern science, time’s arrow is tied to disorder. That which increases entropy marks direction, giving past and future their asymmetry.

Time as Spacetime Dimension

Einstein bound time with space, not a flowing river but a coordinate, relative to velocity and mass, curving with gravity.

Time as Illusion

Some argue time is no fundamental thing, only appearance. In physics, certain equations are time-symmetric, suggesting the division of past and future is imposed by human perception, not nature itself.

Platohagel: You can table them for now….but I would like to add something about time and we can see where it may rest in relation to the table first.

Socrates: Then let me set down the table plainly, so your addition may find its place among them.

Now, Platohagel, what thought of yours about time do you wish to add?

Platohagel: That time overlays any point in space as an indicator of the past, present and the future simultaneously being expressed. As if dimensionally expressed, as a measure of that simultaneous moment.

Socrates: Your thought sets time as a simultaneous dimensional overlay: at any locus in space, past, present, and future are not successive but co-expressed. The “moment” becomes not a vanishing point, but a layered totality

This view departs from the linear succession common to Aristotle and Augustine, and leans nearer to eternalism in modern metaphysics (the “block universe” view), yet with an emphasis on dimensional simultaneity rather than frozen being.

Shall I expand this in contrast with the block universe, so the distinction is clear?

Platohagel: Yes and then lead towards the dimensional simultaneously, rather than frozen.

Socrates: Very well, Platohagel. Let us contrast.

Block Universe (Eternalism):

Holds that past, present, and future all exist equally. Time is a “frozen” dimension, like space, with events laid out in a four-dimensional block. What we call the “present” is only our perspective moving through the block. This gives reality a static quality: all things are, none truly “become.”

Your Dimensional Simultaneity:

Past, present, and future are not inertly fixed, but dynamically expressed at every point in space. The moment is not a frozen slice but a layered dimensional measure where all temporal states converge. This implies simultaneity is active, not passive: past impressions, present actuality, and future potentials coexist in the moment, expressed together rather than merely co-located. Time then is not a static block but an overlay, always present as an active dimensional property of existence.

Thus, instead of picturing time as a completed tapestry (eternalism), your account sees it as a dimensional resonance—each thread carrying past, present, and future at once, expressed in simultaneity.

Would you like me to reformulate the whole table so this distinction appears clearly alongside the other accounts?

Platohagel: Yes with a clear signature of its present qualifier.

Socrates: Here is the revised table, Platohagel, with each account shown, and your proposal marked with its distinct qualifier.

Your view stands distinct: not succession, not frozen being, not illusion, but a dynamic simultaneity.

Shall we now test this view against the others—asking what problems it resolves, and what new ones it raises?

See: Simultaneity

See Also: Examining Ontological Differences of Time