Constancy and event are mutually exclusive yet complementary ways of identifying time

Evidence

Even below the level of intellect one will have to recognize the same form at work both in procreation and in growth: that life at any given moment transcends itself, that its present forms a unity with the “not-yet” of the future. As long as one separates past, present, and future with analytical sharpness, time is unreal, because by this separation only the temporal unextended, that is, the atemporal moment of the present tense, is real. Life, however, is the unique mode of existence for whose reality this distinction does not hold. … For life alone is time real. … Time is the—perhaps abstract—form in our consciousness of life itself, as experienced in unformulable, immediate concreteness. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 809 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The future does not lie ahead of us like some unexplored land, separated from the present by a sharp boundary line, but rather we live continually in a border region which belongs as much to the future as to the present. All theories which locate the essence of human spirit in the will simply say that spiritual existence projects out beyond its narrow present, so to speak, that the future is already reality within it. … Time is life seen apart from its contents, because life alone transcends the atemporal present of every other kind of reality in both directions and thereby realizes, all by itself, the temporal dimension, that is, time. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 808 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

When we furnish a house these days, intending the articles to last a quarter of a century, we invariably invest in furniture designed according to the very latest patterns and do not even consider articles in vogue two years before. Yet it is evident that the attraction of fashion will desert the present article just as it left the earlier one, and satisfaction or dissatisfaction with both forms is determined by other material criterions. A peculiar psychological process seems to be at work here in addition to the mere bias of the moment. Some fashion always exists and fashion per se is indeed immortal, which fact seems to affect in some manner or other each of its manifestations, although the very nature of each individual fashion stamps it as being transitory. The fact that change itself does not change in this instance endows each of the objects which it affects with a psychological appearance of duration. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 742 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Life’s self-transcendence makes time real, unlike analytical separation of tenses — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 809; Life alone realizes time by transcending the present in both directions — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 808; Inferring causation merely from temporal sequence is the post hoc fallacy. — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 1131 (+5 more)

Related

• Life’s self-transcendence makes time real, unlike analytical separation of tenses (similarity 0.82)
• Subjective duration is a separate sensation from physical elapsed time (similarity 0.81)
• Strictly conceived, reality is not temporal at all (similarity 0.81)
• Motion alone makes the present dimension of universal time apprehensible (similarity 0.80)
• Life alone realizes time by transcending the present in both directions (similarity 0.80)
• Utopian fulfillment splits into temporal tendency and perceptual latency of present things. (similarity 0.79)
• Everyday psychic duration stands opposed to authentic historicity (similarity 0.79)
• Time is plastic because it differentiates itself both synchronically and diachronically (similarity 0.78)
• Time is only a formal determination displaceable by plasticity (similarity 0.78)
• Events and constancies are mutually exclusive yet mutually defining (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Life’s self-transcendence makes time real, unlike analytical separation of tenses #corroborates (0.60) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 809
• Life alone realizes time by transcending the present in both directions #corroborates (0.50) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 808
• The permanence of change itself grants passing objects an illusion of duration #expands (0.40) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 742
• Inferring causation merely from temporal sequence is the post hoc fallacy. #exemplifies (0.30) — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 1131