Editing Time (section)

=== In Western philosophy ===
{{Main|Philosophy of space and time|Temporal finitism}}
[[File:Le Temps.JPG|thumb|Time's mortal aspect is personified in this bronze statue by [[Charles van der Stappen]].]]

Two contrasting viewpoints on time divide prominent philosophers. One view is that time is part of the fundamental structure of the [[universe]]—a [[dimension]] independent of events, in which events occur in [[sequence]]. [[Isaac Newton]] subscribed to this [[Philosophical realism|realist]] view, and hence it is sometimes referred to as [[Absolute space and time|Newtonian time]].<ref name="Rynasiewicz">
{{cite encyclopedia |title=Newton's Views on Space, Time, and Motion |encyclopedia=[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]] |publisher=Stanford University |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/newton-stm/ |access-date=5 February 2012 |last=Rynasiewicz |first=Robert: Johns Hopkins University |date=12 August 2004 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120716191122/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/newton-stm/ |archive-date=16 July 2012 |quote=Newton did not regard space and time as genuine substances (as are, paradigmatically, bodies and minds), but rather as real entities with their own manner of existence as necessitated by God's existence&nbsp;... To paraphrase: Absolute, true, and mathematical time, from its own nature, passes equably without relation to anything external, and thus without reference to any change or way of measuring of time (e.g., the hour, day, month, or year). |url-status=live}}
</ref><ref name=Markosian >{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time/#3 |last=Markosian |first=Ned |author-link=Ned Markosian |title=Time |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2002 Edition) |editor=Edward N. Zalta |quote=The opposing view, normally referred to either as "Platonism with Respect to Time" or as "Absolutism with Respect to Time", has been defended by Plato, Newton, and others. On this view, time is like an empty container into which events may be placed; but it is a container that exists independently of whether or not anything is placed in it. |access-date=23 September 2011 |archive-date=14 September 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060914153738/http://plato.stanford.edu//entries/time/#3 |url-status=live }}</ref>

The opposing view is that ''time'' does not refer to any kind of "container" that events and objects "move through", nor to any entity that "flows", but that it is instead part of a fundamental intellectual structure (together with [[space]] and number) within which humans sequence and compare events. This second view, in the tradition of [[Gottfried Leibniz]]<ref name="Burnham">
{{cite encyclopedia |title=Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) Metaphysics&nbsp;– 7. Space, Time, and Indiscernibles |encyclopedia=The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/leib-met/#H7 |access-date=9 April 2011 |last=Burnham |first=Douglas: Staffordshire University |date=2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110514000548/http://www.iep.utm.edu/leib-met/#H7 |archive-date=14 May 2011 |quote=First of all, Leibniz finds the idea that space and time might be substances or substance-like absurd (see, for example, "Correspondence with Clarke," Leibniz's Fourth Paper, §8ff). In short, an empty space would be a substance with no properties; it will be a substance that even God cannot modify or destroy.... That is, space and time are internal or intrinsic features of the complete concepts of things, not extrinsic.... Leibniz's view has two major implications. First, there is no absolute location in either space or time; location is always the situation of an object or event relative to other objects and events. Second, space and time are not in themselves real (that is, not substances). Space and time are, rather, ideal. Space and time are just metaphysically illegitimate ways of perceiving certain virtual relations between substances. They are phenomena or, strictly speaking, illusions (although they are illusions that are well-founded upon the internal properties of substances).... It is sometimes convenient to think of space and time as something "out there," over and above the entities and their relations to each other, but this convenience must not be confused with reality. Space is nothing but the order of co-existent objects; time nothing but the order of successive events. This is usually called a relational theory of space and time. |url-status=live}}
</ref> and [[Immanuel Kant]],<ref name="Mattey">
{{cite web |last=Mattey |first=G. J. |date=22 January 1997 |title=Critique of Pure Reason, Lecture notes: Philosophy 175 UC Davis |url=http://www-philosophy.ucdavis.edu/mattey/kant/TIMELEC.HTM |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050314201600/http://www-philosophy.ucdavis.edu/mattey/kant/TIMELEC.HTM |archive-date=14 March 2005 |access-date=9 April 2011 |quote=What is correct in the Leibnizian view was its anti-metaphysical stance. Space and time do not exist in and of themselves, but in some sense are the product of the way we represent things. The[y] are ideal, though not in the sense in which Leibniz thought they are ideal (figments of the imagination). The ideality of space is its mind-dependence: it is only a condition of sensibility.... Kant concluded ... "absolute space is not an object of outer sensation; it is rather a fundamental concept which first of all makes possible all such outer sensation."...Much of the argumentation pertaining to space is applicable, ''mutatis mutandis'', to time, so I will not rehearse the arguments. As space is the form of outer intuition, so time is the form of inner intuition.... Kant claimed that time is real, it is "the real form of inner intuition."}}
</ref><ref name="McCormick">
{{cite encyclopedia |title=Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) Metaphysics: 4. Kant's Transcendental Idealism |url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/kantmeta/#H4 |encyclopedia=The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |first=Matt |last=McCormick |date=2006 |quote=Time, Kant argues, is also necessary as a form or condition of our intuitions of objects. The idea of time itself cannot be gathered from experience because succession and simultaneity of objects, the phenomena that would indicate the passage of time, would be impossible to represent if we did not already possess the capacity to represent objects in time.... Another way to put the point is to say that the fact that the mind of the knower makes the ''a priori'' contribution does not mean that space and time or the categories are mere figments of the imagination. Kant is an empirical realist about the world we experience; we can know objects as they appear to us. He gives a robust defense of science and the study of the natural world from his argument about the mind's role in making nature. All discursive, rational beings must conceive of the physical world as spatially and temporally unified, he argues. |access-date=9 April 2011 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110426002607/http://www.iep.utm.edu/kantmeta/#H4 |archive-date=26 April 2011  }}
</ref> holds that ''time'' is neither an event nor a thing, and thus is not itself measurable nor can it be travelled. Furthermore, it may be that there is a [[Subjectivity|subjective]] component to time, but whether or not time itself is "felt", as a sensation, or is a judgment, is a matter of debate.<ref name="DefRefs02">*{{cite web |url=http://www.yourdictionary.com/time |title=Webster's New World College Dictionary |date=2010 |quote=1.indefinite, unlimited duration in which things are considered as happening in the past, present, or future; every moment there has ever been or ever will be… a system of measuring duration 2.the period between two events or during which something exists, happens, or acts; measured or measurable interval |access-date=9 April 2011 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110805101704/http://www.yourdictionary.com/time |archive-date=5 August 2011 }}
*{{cite web |url=http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/time?r=66 |title=The American Heritage Stedman's Medical Dictionary |date=2002 |quote=A duration or relation of events expressed in terms of past, present, and future, and measured in units such as minutes, hours, days, months, or years. |access-date=9 April 2011 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120305015803/http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/time?r=66 |archive-date=5 March 2012 }}
*{{cite web |url=http://www.collinslanguage.com/results.aspx?context=3&reversed=False&action=define&homonym=-1&text=time |title=Collins Language.com |publisher=HarperCollins |date=2011 |quote=1. The continuous passage of existence in which events pass from a state of potentiality in the future, through the present, to a state of finality in the past. 2. ''physics'' a quantity measuring duration, usually with reference to a periodic process such as the rotation of the earth or the frequency of electromagnetic radiation emitted from certain atoms. In classical mechanics, time is absolute in the sense that the time of an event is independent of the observer. According to the theory of relativity it depends on the observer's frame of reference. Time is considered as a fourth coordinate required, along with three spatial coordinates, to specify an event. |access-date=18 December 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111002190630/http://www.collinslanguage.com/results.aspx?context=3&reversed=False&action=define&homonym=-1&text=time |archive-date=2 October 2011 }}
*{{cite web |url=http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/time?r=66 |title=The American Heritage Science Dictionary @dictionary.com |date=2002 |quote=1. A continuous, measurable quantity in which events occur in a sequence proceeding from the past through the present to the future. 2a. An interval separating two points of this quantity; a duration. 2b. A system or reference frame in which such intervals are measured or such quantities are calculated. |access-date=9 April 2011 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120305015803/http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/time?r=66 |archive-date=5 March 2012 }}
*{{cite web |url=http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/Time.html |title=Eric Weisstein's World of Science |date=2007 |quote=A quantity used to specify the order in which events occurred and measure the amount by which one event preceded or followed another. In special relativity, ct (where c is the speed of light and t is time), plays the role of a fourth dimension. |access-date=9 April 2011 |archive-date=29 November 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171129190443/http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/Time.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="DefRefs01">*{{cite web |url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/time/ |title=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |date=2010 |quote=Time is what clocks measure. We use time to place events in sequence one after the other, and we use time to compare how long events last... Among philosophers of physics, the most popular short answer to the question "What is physical time?" is that it is not a substance or object but rather a special system of relations among instantaneous events. This working definition is offered by Adolf Grünbaum who applies the contemporary mathematical theory of continuity to physical processes, and he says time is a linear continuum of instants and is a distinguished one-dimensional sub-space of four-dimensional spacetime. |access-date=9 April 2011 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110411140140/http://www.iep.utm.edu/time/ |archive-date=11 April 2011 }}
*{{cite web |url=http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/time?r=66 |title=Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on Random House Dictionary |date=2010 |quote=1. the system of those sequential relations that any event has to any other, as past, present, or future; indefinite and continuous duration regarded as that in which events succeed one another.... 3. (sometimes initial capital letter) a system or method of measuring or reckoning the passage of time: mean time; apparent time; Greenwich Time. 4. a limited period or interval, as between two successive events: a long time.... 14. a particular or definite point in time, as indicated by a clock: What time is it? ... 18. an indefinite, frequently prolonged period or duration in the future: Time will tell if what we have done here today was right. |access-date=9 April 2011 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120305015803/http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/time?r=66 |archive-date=5 March 2012 }}
*{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HrHvAAAAMAAJ&q=%22time+is+what+clocks+measure%22 |title=Physics |first1=Donald G. |last1=Ivey |first2=J.N.P. |last2=Hume |volume=1 |page=65 |date=1974 |publisher=Ronald Press |quote=Our operational definition of time is that time is what clocks measure. |access-date=7 May 2020 |archive-date=14 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210414052527/https://books.google.com/books?id=HrHvAAAAMAAJ&q=%22time+is+what+clocks+measure%22 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Poidevin">{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2004/entries/time-experience |title=The Experience and Perception of Time |last=Le Poidevin |first=Robin |date=Winter 2004 |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |editor=Edward N. Zalta |access-date=9 April 2011 |archive-date=22 October 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131022013501/http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2004/entries/time-experience/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>
{{cite book |last=Carrol|first= Sean |chapter=Chapter One, Section Two, Plume |title=From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time |title-link=From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time |isbn=978-0-452-29654-1 |quote=As human beings we 'feel' the passage of time.|year=2010 |publisher=Penguin }}
</ref><ref name="lehar">
Lehar, Steve. (2000). [http://cns-alumni.bu.edu/~slehar/webstuff/consc1/consc1.html The Function of Conscious Experience: An Analogical Paradigm of Perception and Behavior] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151021061139/http://cns-alumni.bu.edu/~slehar/webstuff/consc1/consc1.html |date=21 October 2015 }}, ''Consciousness and Cognition''.
</ref>

In philosophy, time was questioned throughout the centuries; what time is and if it is real or not. Ancient Greek philosophers asked if time was linear or cyclical and if time was endless or [[wikt:finite|finite]].<ref name="Philosophy of Time">{{Cite web |url=http://www.exactlywhatistime.com/philosophy-of-time/ |title=Philosophy of Time – Exactly What Is Time? |access-date=2019-03-28 |archive-date=28 March 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190328174952/http://www.exactlywhatistime.com/philosophy-of-time/ |url-status=live}}</ref> These philosophers had different ways of explaining time; for instance, ancient Indian philosophers had something called the [[Wheel of time|Wheel of Time.]] It is believed that there was repeating ages over the lifespan of the universe.<ref name="Ancient Philosophy">{{Cite web|url=http://www.exactlywhatistime.com/philosophy-of-time/ancient-philosophy/|title=Ancient Philosophy – Exactly What Is Time?|access-date=2019-03-28|archive-date=28 March 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190328174951/http://www.exactlywhatistime.com/philosophy-of-time/ancient-philosophy/|url-status=live}}</ref> This led to beliefs like cycles of rebirth and [[reincarnation]].<ref name="Ancient Philosophy" /> The Greek philosophers believe that the universe was infinite, and was an illusion to humans.<ref name="Ancient Philosophy" /> [[Plato]] believed that time was made by the Creator at the same instant as the heavens.<ref name="Ancient Philosophy" /> He also says that time is a period of motion of the [[Astronomical objects|heavenly bodies]].<ref name="Ancient Philosophy" /> [[Aristotle]] believed that time correlated to movement, that time did not exist on its own but was relative to motion of objects.<ref name="Ancient Philosophy" /> He also believed that time was related to the motion of [[celestial bodies]]; the reason that humans can tell time was because of [[Orbitial periods|orbital periods]] and therefore there was a duration on time.<ref name="Bunnag-2017">{{Cite journal|last=Bunnag|first=Anawat|date=August 2017|title=The concept of time in philosophy: A comparative study between Theravada Buddhist and Henri Bergson's concept of time from Thai philosophers' perspectives|url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S2452315117300140|journal=Kasetsart Journal of Social Sciences|doi=10.1016/j.kjss.2017.07.007|doi-access=free|access-date=11 April 2019|archive-date=2 April 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190402163654/https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S2452315117300140|url-status=live}}</ref>

The ''[[Vedas]]'', the earliest texts on [[Indian philosophy]] and [[Hindu philosophy]] dating to the late [[2nd millennium BC]], describe ancient [[Hindu cosmology]], in which the [[universe]] goes through repeated cycles of creation, destruction and rebirth, with each cycle lasting 4,320&nbsp;million years.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Layton |first=Robert |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7TPIDL9RdsoC&pg=PA7 |title=Who Needs the Past?: Indigenous Values and Archaeology |date=1994 |publisher=Psychology Press |isbn=978-0-415-09558-7 |pages=7 |language=en}}</ref> [[Ancient philosophy|Ancient]] [[Greek philosophy|Greek philosophers]], including [[Parmenides]] and [[Heraclitus]], wrote essays on the nature of time.<ref>Dagobert Runes, ''Dictionary of Philosophy'', p. 318.
</ref> [[Plato]], in the [[Timaeus (dialogue)|''Timaeus'']], identified time with the period of motion of the heavenly bodies. [[Aristotle]], in Book IV of his [[Physics (Aristotle)|''Physica'']] defined time as 'number of movement in respect of the before and after'.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Hardie |first1=R. P. |last2=Gaye |first2=R. K. |title=Physics by Aristotle |url=http://classics.mit.edu//Aristotle/physics.4.iv.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140626030252/http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/physics.4.iv.html |archive-date=26 June 2014 |access-date=4 May 2014 |publisher=Massachusetts Institute of Technology}} "''Time then is a kind of number. (Number, we must note, is used in two senses – both of what is counted or the countable and also of that with which we count. Time obviously is what is counted, not that with which we count: there are different kinds of thing.) [...] It is clear, then, that time is 'number of movement in respect of the before and after', and is continuous since it is an attribute of what is continuous.''"</ref> In Book 11 of his ''[[Confessions (St. Augustine)|Confessions]]'', [[Augustine of Hippo|St. Augustine of Hippo]] ruminates 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 that asketh, I know not." He begins to define time by what it is not rather than what it is,<ref>
{{cite book |url=http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nicene_and_Post-Nicene_Fathers:_Series_I/Volume_I/Confessions/Book_XI/Chapter_14 |author-link=Augustine of Hippo |author=Augustine of Hippo |title=Confessions |access-date=9 April 2011 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120119043221/http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nicene_and_Post-Nicene_Fathers:_Series_I/Volume_I/Confessions/Book_XI/Chapter_14 |archive-date=19 January 2012  }} Book 11, Chapter 14.
</ref> an approach similar to that taken in other [[negative theology|negative definitions]]. However, Augustine ends up calling time a "distention" of the mind (Confessions 11.26) by which we simultaneously grasp the past in memory, the present by attention, and the future by expectation.

Philosophers in the 17th and 18th century questioned if time was real and absolute, or if it was an intellectual concept that humans use to understand and sequence events.<ref name="Philosophy of Time" /> These questions lead to realism vs anti-realism; the realists believed that time is a fundamental part of the universe, and be perceived by events happening in a sequence, in a dimension.<ref name="Early Modern Philosophy">{{Cite web|url=http://www.exactlywhatistime.com/philosophy-of-time/early-modern-philosophy/|title=Early Modern Philosophy – Exactly What Is Time?|access-date=2019-03-28|archive-date=28 March 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190328174950/http://www.exactlywhatistime.com/philosophy-of-time/early-modern-philosophy/|url-status=live}}</ref> [[Isaac Newton]] said that we are merely occupying time, he also says that humans can only understand [[relative time]].<ref name="Early Modern Philosophy" /> Isaac Newton believed in absolute space and absolute time; Leibniz believed that time and space are relational.<ref>Gottfried Martin, ''Kant's Metaphysics and Theory of Science.''
</ref> The differences between Leibniz's and Newton's interpretations came to a head in the famous [[Leibniz–Clarke correspondence]]. Relative time is a measurement of objects in motion.<ref name="Early Modern Philosophy" /> The anti-realists believed that time is merely a convenient intellectual concept for humans to understand events.<ref name="Early Modern Philosophy" /> This means that time was useless unless there were objects that it could interact with, this was called [[relational time]].<ref name="Early Modern Philosophy" /> [[René Descartes]], [[John Locke]], and [[David Hume]] said that one's mind needs to acknowledge time, in order to understand what time is.<ref name="Bunnag-2017" /> [[Immanuel Kant]] believed that we can not know what something is unless we experience it first hand.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.iep.utm.edu/kantview/|title=Immanuel Kant|last=Jankowiak|first=Tim|access-date=2019-04-02|archive-date=23 May 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210523180236/https://iep.utm.edu/kantview/|url-status=live}}</ref>

{{Quote box
 |quote=Time is not an empirical concept. For neither co-existence nor succession would be perceived by us, if the representation of time did not exist as a foundation ''a priori''. Without this presupposition, we could not represent to ourselves that things exist together at one and the same time, or at different times, that is, contemporaneously, or in succession.
 |source=[[Immanuel Kant]], ''[[Critique of Pure Reason]]'' (1781), trans. [[Vasilis Politis]] (London: Dent., 1991), p. 54.
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[[Immanuel Kant]], in the ''[[Critique of Pure Reason]]'', described time as an ''[[A priori and a posteriori|a priori]]'' intuition that allows us (together with the other ''a priori'' intuition, space) to comprehend [[empirical evidence|sense experience]].<ref name="kant">
{{cite book |last=Kant |first=Immanuel |author-link=Immanuel Kant |url=https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/k/kant/immanuel/k16p/complete.html |title=The Critique of Pure Reason, 2nd edition |date=1787 |access-date=9 April 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110413222609/http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/k/kant/immanuel/k16p/ |archive-date=13 April 2011 |url-status=dead}} translated by [[J.M.D. Meiklejohn]], eBooks@Adelaide, 2004
</ref> With Kant, neither space nor time are conceived as [[Substance theory|substances]], but rather both are elements of a systematic mental framework that necessarily structures the experiences of any rational agent, or observing subject. Kant thought of time as a fundamental part of an [[Abstract structure|abstract]] conceptual framework, together with space and number, within which we sequence events, [[quantity|quantify]] their duration, and compare the motions of objects. In this view, ''time'' does not refer to any kind of entity that "flows," that objects "move through," or that is a "container" for events. Spatial [[measurement]]s are used to [[quantity|quantify]] the extent of and distances between [[object (philosophy)|objects]], and temporal measurements are used to quantify the durations of and between [[Phenomenon|events]]. Time was designated by Kant as the purest possible [[Schema (Kant)#Time|schema]] of a pure concept or category.

[[Henri Bergson]] believed that time was neither a real homogeneous medium nor a mental construct, but possesses what he referred to as ''[[Duration (philosophy)|Duration]]''. Duration, in Bergson's view, was creativity and memory as an essential component of reality.<ref>Bergson, Henri (1907) ''Creative Evolution''. trans. by Arthur Mitchell. Mineola: Dover, 1998.
</ref>

According to [[Martin Heidegger]] we do not exist inside time, we ''are'' time. Hence, the relationship to the past is a present awareness of ''having been'', which allows the past to exist in the present. The relationship to the future is the state of anticipating a potential possibility, task, or engagement. It is related to the human propensity for caring and being concerned, which causes "being ahead of oneself" when thinking of a pending occurrence. Therefore, this concern for a potential occurrence also allows the future to exist in the present. The present becomes an experience, which is qualitative instead of quantitative. Heidegger seems to think this is the way that a linear relationship with time, or temporal existence, is broken or transcended.<ref name=Balslev>{{Cite book |last=Balslev |first=Anindita N. |author2=Jitendranath Mohanty |title=Religion and Time |publisher=Brill Academic Publishers |series=Studies in the History of Religions, 54. |date=November 1992 |location=The Netherlands |pages=53–59 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y94cKeEVa3sC |isbn=978-90-04-09583-0 |access-date=30 July 2019 |archive-date=20 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200820024824/https://books.google.com/books?id=y94cKeEVa3sC |url-status=live }}</ref> We are not stuck in sequential time. We are able to remember the past and project into the future; we have a kind of random access to our representation of temporal existence; we can, in our thoughts, step out of (ecstasis) sequential time.<ref>{{cite book |author=Heidegger |first=Martin |title=Being and Time |date=1962 |publisher=Blackwell |isbn=978-0-631-19770-6 |page=425 |chapter=V |access-date=30 July 2019 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S57m5gW0L-MC&pg=PA425 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200819212325/https://books.google.com/books?id=S57m5gW0L-MC&pg=PA425 |archive-date=19 August 2020 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Modern era philosophers asked: is time real or unreal, is time happening all at once or a duration, is time tensed or tenseless, and is there a future to be?<ref name="Philosophy of Time"/> There is a theory called the tenseless or [[B-theory of time|B-theory]]; this theory says that any tensed terminology can be replaced with tenseless terminology.<ref name="Modern Philosophy">{{Cite web|url=http://www.exactlywhatistime.com/philosophy-of-time/modern-philosophy/|title=Modern Philosophy – Exactly What Is Time?|access-date=2019-03-28|archive-date=28 March 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190328175027/http://www.exactlywhatistime.com/philosophy-of-time/modern-philosophy/|url-status=live}}</ref> For example, "we will win the game" can be replaced with "we do win the game", taking out the future tense. On the other hand, there is a theory called the tense or [[A Theory of Time|A-theory]]; this theory says that our language has tense verbs for a reason and that the future can not be determined.<ref name="Modern Philosophy" /> There is also something called [[imaginary time]], this was from [[Stephen Hawking]], who said that space and imaginary time are finite but have no boundaries.<ref name="Modern Philosophy" /> Imaginary time is not real or unreal, it is something that is hard to visualize.<ref name="Modern Philosophy" /> Philosophers can agree that physical time exists outside of the human mind and is objective, and psychological time is mind-dependent and subjective.<ref name="Bunnag-2017"/>