Editing Philosophy of space and time (section)

==Ancient and medieval views==
The earliest recorded philosophy of [[time]] was expounded by the [[ancient Egypt]]ian thinker [[Ptahhotep]] (c.&nbsp;2650–2600&nbsp;BC), who said:

{{quote|Follow your desire as long as you live, and do not perform more than is ordered, do not lessen the time of the following desire, for the wasting of time is an abomination to the spirit... |''11th [[Maxim (philosophy)|maxim]] of Ptahhotep''<ref>[[John Bartlett (publisher)|John Bartlett]] -  [https://books.google.com/books?id=9IhVDgAAQBAJ&pg Bartlett's Familiar Quotations] - [https://books.google.com/books?id=9IhVDgAAQBAJ&pg=PP130 (page locatable by contents)] Hachette UK, 2 December 2014 {{ISBN|031625018X}} Accessed December 13th, 2017</ref>}}

The [[Vedas]], the earliest texts on [[Indian philosophy]] and [[Hindu philosophy]], dating back to the late 2nd millennium&nbsp;BC, describe ancient [[Hindu cosmology]], in which the [[universe]] goes through repeated cycles of creation, destruction, and rebirth, with each cycle lasting 4,320,000,000 years.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Cosmology of the Bhagavata Purana: Mysteries of the Sacred Universe |first1=Richard L. |last1=Thompson |publisher=[[Motilal Banarsidass]] |year=2007 |isbn=978-81-208-1919-1 |page=225 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3TZmDSr-1msC}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=3TZmDSr-1msC&pg=PA225  Extract of page 225]</ref> [[Ancient Greek philosophers]], including [[Parmenides]] and [[Heraclitus]], wrote essays on the nature of time.<ref>Dagobert Runes, ''Dictionary of Philosophy'', p. 318.</ref>

[[Incas]] regarded space and time as a single concept, named ''[[Pacha (Inca mythology)|pacha]]'' ({{langx|qu|pacha}}, {{langx|ay|pacha}}).<ref>Atuq Eusebio Manga Qespi, Instituto de lingüística y Cultura Amerindia de la Universidad de Valencia. [http://revistas.ucm.es/ghi/05566533/articulos/REAA9494110155A.PDF ''Pacha: un concepto andino de espacio y tiempo''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101105152313/http://revistas.ucm.es/ghi/05566533/articulos/REAA9494110155A.PDF |date=2010-11-05 }}. Revísta española de Antropología Americana, 24, pp. 155–189. Edit. Complutense, Madrid. 1994</ref><ref>Stephen Hart, [http://www.ucl.ac.uk/spanish-latinamerican/Resources/Peru_cult Peruvian Cultural Studies:Work in Progress]</ref><ref>Paul Richard Steele, Catherine J. Allen, ''Handbook of Inca mythology'', p. 86, ({{ISBN|1-57607-354-8}})</ref>

[[Plato]], in the ''[[Timaeus (dialogue)|Timaeus]]'', identified time with the period of motion of the heavenly bodies, and space as that in which things come to be. [[Aristotle]], in Book IV of his ''[[Physics (Aristotle)|Physics]]'', defined time as the number of changes with respect to before and after, and the place of an object as the innermost motionless boundary of that which surrounds it.

In Book 11 of [[St. Augustine of Hippo|St. Augustine's]] ''[[Confessions (St. Augustine)|Confessions]]'', he reflects on the nature of time, asking, "What then is time? If no one asks me, I know: if I wish to explain it to one who asks, I know not." He goes on to comment on the difficulty of thinking about time, pointing out the inaccuracy of common speech: "For but few things are there of which we speak properly; of most things we speak improperly, still, the things intended are understood."<ref>St. Augustine, ''Confessions'', Book 11. http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/augconf/aug11.htm (Accessed 19/5/14).</ref>  But Augustine presented the first philosophical argument for the reality of Creation (against Aristotle) in the context of his discussion of time,  saying that knowledge of time depends on the knowledge of the movement of things,  and therefore time cannot be where there are no creatures to measure its passing (''Confessions'' Book XI ¶30; [[The City of God|''City of God'']] Book XI ch.6).

In contrast to ancient Greek philosophers who believed that the universe had an infinite past with no beginning, [[Medieval philosophy|medieval philosophers]] and [[theologians]] developed the concept of the universe having a finite past with a beginning, now known as [[temporal finitism]]. [[John Philoponus]] presented early arguments, adopted by later [[Christian philosopher]]s and theologians of the form "argument from the impossibility of the existence of an actual infinite", which states:<ref name=Craig>{{Cite journal|title=Whitrow and Popper on the Impossibility of an Infinite Past|first=William Lane|last=Craig|journal=The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science|volume=30|issue=2|date=June 1979|pages=165–170 [165–6]|doi=10.1093/bjps/30.2.165}}</ref>
:"An actual infinite cannot exist."
:"An infinite temporal regress of events is an actual infinite."
:"∴ An infinite temporal regress of events cannot exist."

In the early 11th century, the [[Islamic physics|Muslim physicist]] [[Ibn al-Haytham]] (Alhacen or Alhazen) discussed [[Depth perception|space perception]] and its [[Epistemology|epistemological]] implications in his ''[[Book of Optics]]'' (1021). He also rejected Aristotle's definition of ''topos'' (''Physics'' IV) by way of geometric demonstrations and defined place as a mathematical spatial extension.<ref>[[Nader El-Bizri]], 'In Defence of the Sovereignty of Philosophy: al-Baghdadi's Critique of Ibn al-Haytham's Geometrisation of Place', ''Arabic Sciences and Philosophy'' 17 (2007), 57–80</ref> His [[experiment]]al disproof of the extramission<ref name=alhacen >[6.54] And it has already been shown that forms of light and color continually generated in air and in all [other] transparent bodies, and  forms continually extend through the air, as well as through [other] transparent bodies, in various directions," ... "hence the extramission of [visual] rays is superfluous and useless".—[[Alhacen]] (11th c.) as translated by A.Mark Smith p.372 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3657357.pdf (2001) Alhacen's Theory of Visual Perception: A Critical Edition, with English Translation and Commentary, of the First Three Books of Alhacen's "De aspectibus", the Medieval Latin Version of Ibn al-Haytham's "Kitāb al-Manāẓir": Volume Two] ''Transactions of the American Philosophical Society'', New Series, '''Vol. 91''', No. 5 (2001), pp. 339-819</ref> hypothesis of vision led to changes in the understanding of the [[visual perception]] of space, contrary to the previous [[Emission theory (vision)|emission theory of vision]] supported by [[Euclid]] and [[Ptolemy]]. In "tying the visual perception of space to prior bodily experience, Alhacen unequivocally rejected the intuitiveness of spatial perception and, therefore, the autonomy of vision. Without tangible notions of distance and size for correlation, sight can tell us next to nothing about such things."<ref>{{Cite journal|first=A. Mark|last=Smith|title=The Alhacenian Account Of Spatial Perception And Its Epistemological Implications|journal=Arabic Sciences and Philosophy|volume=15|year=2005|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|pages=219–40|doi=10.1017/S0957423905000184|issue=2|s2cid=171003284}}</ref>