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Augustine -Infinity And Time

...we shall be focusing mainly on St .Augustine’s conception of these ideas though other references shall be made. The first concept that should be grappled with is the perception of time itself. Time to a great degree is memory based. Now Augustine mentioned that when dealing with everyday things , there are some experiences that can only be perceived through particular senses and there are those things that can be perceived through a combination of the senses. For example one cannot tell weather a piece of food tastes bad merely by touching it yet through the combination of touch and taste the ability to perceive particular aspects of the meat changes along with it. Time or at least the awareness of time is not bound to a single sense nor is it known through the cooperation of multiple senses ,yet it is still perceived. According to a recent publication in the Stanford Encyclopaedia it has been suggested that time is a psychological process that we are aware of in thought, this much is true from the perspective that even if we were bereft of all senses we would still be able to think and contemplate and in thinking we are aware of the passing of time as we think. This is done in relation to nothing else which further supports the idea that the perception of time is based in a cognitive process.

“ Time is nothing but a stretching out in length” When we contemplate time we do so in relation to certain events such as a flash of lightening followed by thunder. Most observing these natural occurrences would regard both the flash and ensuing sound of thunder to be one and the same event. Yet when one examines the event more carefully it is seen as not being so simple. In basic terms ,humans have classified time as consisting of the past ,present and the future. Whilst this seems to be reliable enough upon further examination the...

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