The Change and Succession on Superphysics

Continuous and Successive

Sun, 08 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

If the terms ‘continuous’, ‘in contact’, and ‘in succession’ are understood as defined above, then things are:

‘continuous’ if their extremities are one
‘in contact’ if their extremities are together
‘in succession’ if there is nothing of their own kind intermediate between them-nothing that is continuous can be composed ‘of indivisibles’: e.g. a line cannot be composed of points, the line being continuous and the point indivisible.

The extremities of 2 points can neither be:

Motion and magnitude

Sun, 08 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Every magnitude is divisible into magnitudes.

It is impossible for anything continuous to be composed of indivisible parts.

Every magnitude is continuous.

The quicker of 2 things traverses a greater magnitude in an equal time
an equal magnitude in less time
a greater magnitude in less time

This is in conformity with the definition of ‘the quicker’.

The Present

Sun, 08 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The present is also necessarily indivisible.

The present, that is, not in the sense in which the word is applied to one thing in virtue of another, but in its proper and primary sense; in which sense it is inherent in all time.

Everything That Changes Is Divisible

Sun, 08 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Everything that changes must be divisible.

Every change is from something to something.

When a thing is at the goal of its change, it is no longer changing.

Before it starts to change it also does not change.

It follows that the changing must be between the starting-point and the goal.

Inquiry

Sun, 08 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Everything that changes changes from something to something.

That which has changed must at the moment when it has first changed be in that to which it has changed.

For that which changes retires from or leaves that from which it changes: and leaving, if not identical with changing, is at any rate a consequence of it.

Everything that changes changes time

Sun, 08 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Everything that changes changes time in 2 senses:

for the time in which a thing is said to change may be the primary time, or
it may have an extended reference, as e.g. when we say that a thing changes in a particular year because it changes in a particular day.

That being so, that which changes must be changing in any part of the primary time in which it changes.

Infinite Motion

Sun, 08 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The motion of everything that is in motion occupies a period of time, and a greater magnitude is traversed in a longer time, it is impossible that a thing should undergo a finite motion in an infinite time, if this is understood to mean not that the same motion or a part of it is continually repeated, but that the whole infinite time is occupied by the whole finite motion.

Motion and Rest

Sun, 08 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Everything to which motion or rest is natural is in motion or at rest in the natural time, place, and manner.

It follows that a thing which is:

coming to a stand, when it is coming to a stand, must be in motion

at rest cannot be coming to rest.

It follows that coming to a stand must occupy a period of time. For the motion of that which is in motion occupies a period of time, and that which is coming to a stand has been shown to be in motion.

Zeno’s Reasoning

Sun, 08 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Zeno’s reasoning is fallacious.

He says that if everything when it occupies an equal space is at rest, and if that which is in locomotion is always occupying such a space at any moment, the flying arrow is therefore motionless. This is false, for time is not composed of indivisible moments any more than any other magnitude is composed of indivisibles.

The process of change

Sun, 08 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Our next point is that that which is without parts cannot be in motion except accidentally: i.e. it can be in motion only in so far as the body or the magnitude is in motion and the partless is in motion by inclusion therein, just as that which is in a boat may be in motion in consequence of the locomotion of the boat, or a part may be in motion in virtue of the motion of the whole.