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1. Introduction

The purpose of this article is to show that the Indian Buddhist philosophy of time may be a good alternative to the other philosophies of time, including the modern theories of time found in the Western tradition (the A-, B-, and pure A- theories of time[1]). The main characteristic that distinguishes the Indian Buddhist theory of time from non-Buddhist theories of time is that, unlike non-Buddhist theories of time, according to the Buddhist theory the present replaces. Yandell discusses the position that time consists of replaced present moments, according to the Buddhist theory of time:

The Buddhist view goes as follows. A core Buddhist doctrine is that everything is impermanent. Hence persons are impermanent. At a time, a person is one or more purely momentary states. Over time, a person is a series of such bundles…. Strictly speaking, for the Buddhist the world’s history is a matter of one set of states being replaced by another set which in turn is replaced by another. (Yandell, 1999:5) (Emphasis added.)

The Indian Buddhist philosophy of time is rarely brought up by philosophers outside the Indian tradition as a serious contender for the correct theory of time. But in this article I will argue that there may be reasons that show that the Buddhist theory is perhaps the best philosophy of time we currently have. These reasons are as follows.

(1)    Non-Buddhist theories of time, which do not involve a replacing present, typically involve the interconnection of, and/or the contacting (attaching, abutting, continuous integrating) of, moments, which I will argue in section 2 are impossible. (Some Buddhist theories of time do involve contact or real [rather than imagined or conceptual] interrelatedness between moments. If my reasoning in this

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     article is correct, these varieties of Buddhism are apparently incorrect.)

(2)    Non-Buddhist theories of time, which do not involve a replacing present, involve the (alleged) persistence and identity of objects that change through time, but these theories may fail to explain the persistence and identity of changing objects over time.[2]

I will argue that the problems described in (1) and (2) are very serious, and since the Buddhist philosophy of time is the only theory of time that can be considered not to involve (1) and (2), this shows that the Buddhist philosophy of time is the best we currently have.

In this first section I introduce the R-theory in more detail. In sections 2 and 3 I will argue that points (1) and (2) above may imply that the R-theory is the correct philosophy of time.

1.1 The Doctrine of Momentariness

For reasons I give in section 2 I will call the Indian Buddhist theory of time the R-theory of time. I will discuss how the R-theory of time is a theory of time that involves the doctrine of momentariness found in Indian Buddhism (just “Buddhism” hereafter[3]).[4] According

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to the doctrine of momentariness, if an object m changes, whereby it is no longer m but is m*, m is destroyed and m* comes into existence. If the doctrine of momentariness is an account that gives a correct description of any object, including all of reality, then no entity persists through time, and I will explain in the next paragraph that all entities that make up reality only exist for a durationless instant. This is the position that was held by Buddha:

How can there be laughter, how can there be pleasure, when the whole world is burning? When you are in deep darkness, will you not ask for a lamp?

Consider this body! A painted puppet with jointed limbs, sometimes suffering and covered with ulcers, full of imaginings, never permanent, for ever changing.[5]

The doctrine of momentariness can be more fully explained if I discuss motion. The Buddhist holds that, as Sāntiraksita puts it, “[t]he essence of reality is motion.”[6] This is supported by the theories of quantum physics, according to which reality consists of particles in motion.[7] If the quantum particles that make up reality are in motion, then all of reality is activity and movement,[8] just as the Buddhist maintains. If the essence of reality is motion, it appears that reality

The idea that there is no stability in the external world and that existence is nothing but a flow of external becoming, is familiar to us from the history of Greek philosophy where in… Heraclitus it marks an episode in its early period, an episode which was soon forgotten in the subsequent development of Greek thought. (Stcherbatsky Vol. 1, 1962 (1930), 82.) (Emphasis added.)

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must in fact consist of constant change. Thus all items of reality, and reality itself, obey the doctrine of momentariness, where the items of reality, exist for a durationless instant, and are destroyed. If this is the case, then all of reality is momentary, regardless of whether or not humans believe they perceive stable, motionless, persisting objects, such as a cup resting on a table in a still room. (In a section below I will discuss an objection to the idea that if quantum particles change then the macroscopic objects made of the particles must also change.) An experience of persistence and stability would merely be a mental error, if the R-theory is a correct theory of time. Observers, which are also momentary, can perceive the moments one after the other, but the non-nirvanic observer is unaware of the emptiness (durationlessness, impermanence) of all things, and instead erroneously perceives objects persisting through time. Brown writes:

The thickness of a moment is conceived as a durationless point… The duration of the moment is bound up with a theory of momentary states of consciousness that are the phenomenal equivalents of atomic point-instants. Consciousness and the duration of conscious experience are thought-constructions of the… similarities of the momentary flashings… [D]uration is added by the mind to the series of changing points… It is not sufficient, however, to argue that duration is a contribution of the mind to entities that are durationless. Such entities depend on the cognitive laws that govern the process of “thought-construction,” and these laws are as yet unknown (Brown 1999:263).

Temporal duration and the identity of objects through time do not exist outside of imagination. They are merely the mental constructions of the non-nirvanic mind. Actual reality involves no real duration, no real time-flow, no events that are side-by-side one another where some events are past, others are future, and one is present. Rather, according to the R-theory of time, temporal duration, change, and identity of objects over time, are fabricated experiences of the specious present,[9] constructed and believed to exist by the non-

[9] Le Poidevin lucidly clarifies what is meant by this phrase:

The term ‘specious present’ was first introduced by the psychologist E.R. Clay, but the best known characterisation of it was due to William James, widely regarded as one of the founders of modern psychology. He lived from 1842 to 1910, and was professor of philosophy at

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nirvanic observer. There are only present moments existing one-after-the-other, flashing in and out of existence: present p₁ is replaced by present p₂, p₂ is replaced by p₃, p₃ by p₄, and so on. Mookerjee explains:

The theory of flux holds that all existents are momentary, existing only for the moment and disappearing…, in which [a]… facsimile of the previous entity crops up. This process of duplication and re-duplication goes on for any length of time and this is the reason why entities are prima facie looked upon as continuous. In reality, however, there have been many entities, one similar to the other, and this similarity in appearance is mistaken for their unchanged identity. This is so far an intelligible position. The real difficulty, however, crops up when a dissimilar entity emerges, as, for instance when the seed-series disappears and a different series in the shape of the sprout springs into being (Mookerjee 1935:39).

What Mookerjee calls the duplication process, and what Yandell and I call the replacement of presents, give rise to the non-nirvanic illusion of the experience of persisting and/or unchanging

Harvard. His definition of the specious present goes as follows: ‘the prototype of all conceived times is the specious present, the short duration of which we are immediately and incessantly sensible’ (James (1890))… Elsewhere in the same work, James asserts ‘We are constantly aware of a certain duration-the specious present-varying from a few seconds to probably not more than a minute, and this duration (with its content perceived as having one part earlier and another part later) is the original intuition of time.’ This surprising variation in the length of the specious present makes one suspect that more than one definition is hidden in James' rather vague characterisation. One could define it, for example, as the extent of short-term memory, in which case it might well vary from person to person, and also from one sense modality to another. Or it might be the interval in which information is experienced as a single unit (say a sentence, or musical phrase)-a rather ambiguous and unsatisfactory definition. A quite different definition is this: the interval of time such that events occurring within that interval are experienced as present. This is how the specious present tends to be treated in recent discussions, though it is inconsistent with James' remark that we can discern earlier and later parts in the specious present. As we remarked at the beginning of this article, if two events are experienced as present, they are surely experienced as simultaneous. (Le Poidevin 2003)

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objects, such as when one looks at a cup resting on a table in a still room and believes it to be unchanging and motionless while existing through a duration. In the present the non-nirvanic observer recollects experiences of the cup from moments which now do not exist. Through memory the non-nirvanic observer compares and combines experiences of the cup at different moments, which have been replaced, in order to create the illusion of a cup that persists through time.  

1.2 Overview of Article

The reader should note that I am a Western analytic philosopher, and for that reason this article may inevitably appear, to some degree, to be from the perspective and writing style of a Western philosopher. But I am also quite familiar with Buddhist philosophy, and I assert that my background in Western analytic metaphysics does not harm my analysis of Buddhist philosophy.

In section 2 I argue that if moments could exist side-by-side one another, like the beads of a pearl necklace, as is held in most philosophies of time in the contemporary Western tradition (the A-theory and the B-theory), then on that account, the moments that are side-by-side cannot be connected to one another, and they cannot be in contact with one another. I will further argue that this may show that presentism (the position that the past and future do not exist) is the correct theory of time. Then I will argue that if presentism is the correct theory, and if there is change (i.e., if the present changes), then it can only be the case that the present replaces, which is the distinct feature of the Buddhist philosophy of time.

In section 3 I discuss how the R-theory of time avoids the Western debates on endurantism and perdurantism. The endurantism and perdurantism debates are specifically aimed at attempting to avoid the doctrine of momentariness and the problem of change: they are attempts to explain the persistence and identity of changing objects through time. I argue that the drive to solve the problem of change and identity over time, and to get around the doctrine of momentariness, is generated by what the widely discussed Western philosopher Michael Loux calls “prephilosophical intuition.”[10] I will describe what Loux means by this, and I will argue that the placing of such importance on prephilosophical

[10] Loux 1998, 324. I will give Loux’s full citation in section 3.

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intuition is unwarranted, and it is science and logic, rather than prephilosophical intuition, that give us successful theories for describing reality. Furthermore, I will argue that science and logic support the R-theory and do not support prephilosophical intuition. For those reasons, which will be given in more detail in section 3, I will find that the R-theory may be a better theory than the non-Buddhist theories that are based on endurantism and perdurantism.

In section 4 I discuss how a group of Western metaphysicians called bare particular theorists may believe they can avoid the doctrine of momentariness and the R-theory. But I will find problems with their account.

In the conclusion I will argue that a novel approach to Buddhist atomism that I will give explains why presents replace.

2. The R-Theory of Time

In this section I will argue that presentism must be the correct theory of time, and I will argue that the correct variety of presentism is one where the present replaces itself. Since such a theory is in accord with the Buddhist philosophy of momentariness, then if my argumentation in this section is correct, it reveals that the Buddhist theory of time is the correct theory of time.

2.1 The R-theory

I will give the Buddhist theory of time two names. The first name is, as mentioned, the R-theory of time (where “R” stands for “replacement”). I use this label in order to put the Buddhist theory of time more in line with the names given to the existing theories of time in the metaphysics of the Western tradition. The theories of time in the Western tradition are the A-theory of time, the B-theory of time, and the Pure A- theory of time.[11]

Oaklander describes the A- and B-theories:

…[T]ime [involves] events strung out along a series united to one another by the relations of earlier than, later and simultaneity… The events in the temporal series are fixed in that they never change their position relative to each other… It has become customary to call the entire series of events spread out along  the time-line from earlier to later, the “B-

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series.” When viewed solely in terms of the B-series, time is thought of as static or unchanging for there is nothing about temporal relations between events that changes...

Time not only has a static aspect, it also has a transitory aspect. In addition to conceiving of time in terms of events standing in temporal relations, we also conceive of time and the events in time as moving or passing from the far future to the near future, from the hear future to the present, and then from present they recede into the more and more distant past… When events are ordered in terms of the notions of past, present, or future they form what is called an “A-series.” It should be noted, of course, that the A- and B-series are not really “two” different series of events, but the same series ordered in two different ways (Oaklander, 1995 : 69).

The phase “pure A-theory” has been largely equated with the term “presentism” in recent years. It is the position that only the present exists. Oaklander discusses it in a passage about the account of the pure A-theory espoused by William Lane Craig, a major philosopher of time in the West:

Craig’s version of the pure A-theory, known as “presentism,” purports to avoid… the problem of change... According to presentism, only the present exists. Thus, it is not the case that, say, O is green and [then] O is red [if, for example, O is a tomato] (Oaklander, 2004 : 27).

(Note how Oaklander points out that Craig endorses presentism because Craig wishes to avoid the problem of change: the problem of explaining how there can be persistence and identity of changing objects through time. Western philosophers typically call this “the problem of change” because it is standard for Western metaphysicians to hold that momentariness is not the correct account of reality, but it is also widely acknowledged that it is unclear how to describe change without momentariness. This demonstrates how persistence and identity of changing objects over time are recognized as being problems that are unsolved, despite what the endurantists and the perdurantists assert to the contrary. I will discuss this in section 3.)

The pure A-theory of the Western metaphysicians is alleged to be a presentist theory. But if it is, it is not the same variety of

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presentism as Buddhist presentism, since the Buddhists’ account involves a momentary replacing present, but the Western metaphysician’s pure A-theory does not.

Typically Western metaphysicians only recognize the A-, B-, and pure A-theories of time, and ignore the Buddhist theory of time. In the following passage, consider how Oaklander writes about “the nature of time”, and how there is no mention of any theories but A- and B-theories. (In the passage, Oaklander does not bring up pure A-theory because Western metaphysician typically consider it a type of A-theory, and thus it is considered to (somehow) be a tensed theory of time—but how this could be is questioned by many.)  

One of the most hotly contested issues in metaphysics today concerns the debate between those who hold the tensed theory or A-theory of time, [and] those who hold the tenseless or B-theory of time... The debate between these three theories concerns the question of whether the ultimate metaphysical nature of time is to be understood in terms of temporal becoming, temporal relations, or both temporal become and temporal relations (Oaklander, 2004 : 27).

As mentioned, the distinction that the R-theory of time has from the A-, B-, and pure A-theories of time, and any other non-Buddhist theories, is that the non-Buddhist theories of time all do not involve a replacing present. Also, unlike the R-theory, the A- and B-theories of time are not presentist theories of time. And another distinction between the Buddhist theory of time and the non-Buddhist theories of time, including the A-, B-, and pure A-theories, is that the non-Buddhist theories typically do not hold that the endurance or perdurance of objects is illusory.

2.2 Replacement Presentism

The second name I give to the Buddhist theory of time is replacement presentism. I use the term “presentism” since, according to Buddhism and the doctrine of momentariness, only the present exists due to the fact that only one moment ever exists. The reason there are no moments before or after the present is because, in a theory of time and change based on momentariness, where moments are destroyed and copies of moments come into being, the destruction of one moment and the creation of another indicates that there can

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only ever be one moment. I argue why this is the case in much more detail in this subsection.

I use the word “replacement” because if there is no persistence, there cannot be two moments side-by-side in time lest there be a possibility that in some pair of moments that are side-by-side somehow the same object shows up in each moment and thus persists. If there were, for example, two moments next to one another, this would mean that a given moment is not destroyed when a following moment comes into being, and instead when one moment comes into being, there is a moment before it that has not been destroyed. This is not the Buddhist position since it could violate the logic of Buddhist momentariness. But if it were instead that case that there is only one moment that ever exists, and two moments can never exist side-by-side, then it can only be the case that one present moment (p₁) is completely replaced by another (p₂). If only one moment ever exists it can only be a present since it is a now, and since there are no moments before or after it to make it a past or future.

If moments exist side-by-side (i.e., if presentism is false), it seems that the non-Buddhist philosopher can justifiably disagree with the Buddhist position that there is no carryover or “temporal overflow” (King, 1963 : 124) of an object from one moment to the next, whereby there could be persistence. It would however be impossible for there to be any possibility of there being persistence of some object from one moment to a following moment if it were found that there are not any moments that can be side-by-side. I will show that moments apparently cannot be connected or in contact in any way, and then I will argue that this conclusion leads to the position that there is only one moment.

If moments exist side-by-side in the non-Buddhistic way just mentioned, they apparently do so in one of two ways:

i)        The moments that are side-by-side one another abut or contact one another, or if they do not abut or contact one another,

ii)       The moments that are side-by-side one another interrelate with one another.

i) may also be a sort of relation; so if that were the case, there would merely be two sorts of relations: a relation of direct abutment or direct contact (point i) above), and a relation of connection without direct abutment or direct contact (point ii) above).

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I will argue that moments cannot interact by i) or ii). If I am correct, this would be a problem for non-Buddhists who espouse rather than reject i) and/or ii). If the Buddhist espouses i) or ii), I maintain that the Buddhist holding that causation of moments occurs by i) or ii) is susceptible to attacks from Western philosophers of time, as discussed in the previous paragraph. Rejection of i) and ii) is not the rejection of causation; rather, it is the rejection of causation by contact or relation. Rather than i) or ii) being the means by which a moment causes another moment, if i) and ii) lead to contradiction, as I will argue they may, it would apparently be the case that a sort of Humean causation must be espoused.

2.2.1 A Humean-Buddhist Account of Time and Causation, and Buddhist Double Reality

On the Humean account of causation, it is considered significant that the empirical witnessing of a real connection or contacting between events never occurs. Rather, there is only the witnessing of events following one another, where the empirical mind never experiences contact between moments, or any real relation or connectedness “stretching” from one moment to the succeeding moment. Hume writes: “When many uniform instances appear, and the same object is always followed by the same event; we then begin to entertain the notion of cause and connexion.” (Enquiry, p. 78)[12] The empirical mind imagines and fabricates the idea that there is a non-empirical relation or connection between moments, where the unobserved relation or connection is distinct from the moments that are experienced empirically. This is much like the position held by Dharmakīrti: “…(in reality) the positive entities, by themselves, are unrelated. It is the imagination (vāsanā) which mixes them (and so they appear as related)" (Jha, 1990 : 13)

Also, although the empirical mind may imagine or believe that moments “touch” or contact, there is however no empirical evidence for such “touching” or contacting, for the following reasons. The empirical mind is locked in the present: the only experiences it ever has are present experiences. Memories only occur in the present, and thus are not an example of the empirical mind possessing evidence of the existence of the past. According to presentism, the past is merely

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moments that no longer exist, but which may be known via present memory, since they moments that have been replaced by a new present moment. I imagine that temporal parts theorists[13] will have an objection to what has just been written. It could be the case that the empirical mind believes that past times exist (i.e., it believes that presentism is false), and that states of one’s empirical mind can thereby exist as past, and thereby witness pastness. But this position would be a non-empirical position, since the strictly empirical mind is always located in a now. For the empirical mind to theorize that it has temporal parts that exist in the past would be to stray into what is beyond the empirically knowable. If in each state of its existence the 

[13] Temporal parts theory, which is an opponent theory of presentism, and which is very widely held in Western analytic metaphysics, can be grasped from a lucid passage from Hawley:

You're performing an amazing trick right now: you're in two places at once. How do you manage to be down there, near the floor, and yet also be a metre or two up in the air? Well, it's not so very amazing: your feet are down there on the floor, and your head is up in the air. Having spatial parts enables you to be in several different places, and to have different properties in different places: you're cold down there on the tiled floor, and also warm up there by the heater, because your feet are cold and your head is warm. Moreover, having parts could let you be in the same place as someone else: if you shared a hand with a conjoined (‘Siamese’) twin, then you could both wear the same glove without jostling for space…

Things and people take up time as well as taking up space: you existed yesterday, and, unless reading this article is a real strain, you will exist tomorrow too. Just as you can have different properties at different places (hot up here, cold down there), you can have different properties at different times (yesterday you hadn't heard of temporal parts, by tomorrow you'll know plenty about them). 

Some philosophers believe that you take up time by having different temporal parts at different times. Your spatial parts are things like your head, your feet and your nose; your temporal parts are things like you-yesterday, you-today and you-tomorrow. If you have different temporal parts, this would explain how you can exist at different times, and it would also explain how you can have different properties at different times (you-yesterday hasn't heard of temporal parts, you-tomorrow is an expert). According to these philosophers, then, persisting through time is pretty much like extending through space: it's all a matter of parts. (Hawley 2004, section 1)

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empirical mind only exists in the present and thus only has evidence for the existence of the present, then it has no evidence that moments before or after the present exist, and thus has no evidence that there is contacting or “touching” between moments, or that there are interconnections between moments. For these reasons, if the empirical mind contains the belief that there can be contacting or interrelating between moments, it is non-empirical imagination, rather than empirical observation.

Comparing Humean and Buddhist causation is of course not new. In an article specifically about the similarities of Humean causation and Buddhist causation, Jacobson writes:

Both Hume and the Buddha insist that it is wrong-headed to call some enduring, ever-identical self more real than our changing states.  Both insist that the experiences themselves are spread upon no substance and upon no substantial self but constitute a process in and for themselves... The Buddhist position is that there is no self-identical self, only "the perpetual flux and movement," the abiding flow, but that each of us is "a numerically new actuality every moment," as Hartshorne (1960 : 298-302) has put it. Hartshorne presents what he calls "the Buddhist-Whiteheadian doctrine" as a "radical pluralism" that takes its stand with our "successive experiences" or "successive actualities," arguing that these are "the primary units of the plurality" constituted by "the momentary experiences or selves." (Jacobson, 1969 : 18-19)

For Hume, however, unlike Leibniz, there can be no thought of events being related to all the other things of the entire universe…  Only the momentary event itself, co-present with others, is what we perceive.  Events contiguous in time and place, Hume observed, can be and are considered in terms of cause and effect, but this is chiefly a way of thinking, a manner of speaking, a cultural habit which leads us to look at one event as cause, the other as effect, and the bond between them as the "supposititious cause."  When we really analyze our experience, all we find is the momentariness of events and the cultural habit or "propensity to feign" supposititious causes, which habit or propensity deadens our sensitivity to

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the sheer momentariness and co-arising (dependent origination) of the events. [14]

In a Humean-Buddhist model of causation, ultimate reality does not involve any connection or contact between moments. Rather, there is only the witnessing of the moments themselves, following one-after-the-other.[15] Causation can be considered a relation or contacting between moments only from the perspective of the non-nirvanic empirical mind. The empirical perspective is opposed to the causation of the transcendental (nirvanic), wherein the durationless present moments themselves are causes. Buddhist philosophy involves both theories of causation: empirical and transcendental.

These two positions on causation correspond to the Buddhist “double reality, the ultimate reality of things by themselves and the psychologically constructed reality (i.e., unreality) of empirical things.”[16] The “double reality,” to use Stcherbatsky’s term, is empirical versus transcendental reality, or unreal versus nirvanic reality: the conceptual versus the real. Since a double reality is considered in Buddhism, Stcherbatsky discusses how there are two sorts of causality that need to be considered. One is what we can call transcendental causality, and the other empirical causality:

…[T]here are two different realities, a direct one and an indirect one. The one is ultimate and pure,—that is the reality of the point-instant. The other is a reality attached to that

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point-instant, it is mixed with an image artificially constructed by the faculty of our productive imagination. That is the reality of the empirical object. Consequently there are also two different causalities, the ultimate one and the empirical one. The one is the efficiency of the point-instant, the other is the efficiency of the empirical object attached to that point-instant… …[T]here is no separate efficiency, no efficiency in superaddition to existence, existence itself is nothing but causal efficiency,… the cause and the thing are different views taken of the same reality… If we identify reality and causal efficiency, we can say that every reality is at the same time a cause. If we separate them, we must say that efficiency is impossible, because it involves us into a proposition which two contradictorily opposed predicates, since one thing then must exist at two different times in two different places, i.e. exist and not exist in the same time and place…

There are thus two causalities, the one real ultimately, the other real contingently or empirically, just as there are two realities, the transcendental reality of an instant and the empirical reality of a thing of limited duration (Stcherbatsky, F. Th. 1962 (1930). Buddhist Logic. Volume 1. Pages 125-127).

The first sort of causation mentioned above, which is associated with the empirical life, can be called contingent, conceptual, or empirical causation, and it involves non-nirvanic imaginary experience of duration and time, where one static time t₁ contacts and/or is related to another static time t₂. Of course this sort of contact or relation is impossible, since, as Dharmakīrti writes: “…[H]ow can… the cause and effect relationship (existing in two things) be possible, because the cause and the effect do not coexist? If it cannot exist in two how can it be called a relation?” (In Jha 1990, 17). I discuss many other problems with empirical causation below.

The second sort of causation mentioned above—real, transcendental, or necessary causation—involves direct awareness of momentary reality. Real (transcendental) causation is discussed by Stcherbatsky:

[Buddhist causation] is marked by the name of Dependent Origination… Reality, as ultimate reality, reduces to point-instants of efficiency, and these point-instants arise…, or

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exist, only so far as they are efficient, that is to say, so far they themselves are causes. Whatsoever exists is a cause, cause and existence are synonyms … Just as real existence is only a point-instant, just so a real cause is only this same point-instant…

Thus the Buddhist theory of Causation is a direct consequence of the theory of Universal Momentariness. A thing cannot be produced by another thing or by a personal will, because other things or persons are momentary existencies. They have no time to produce anything. Not even two moments of duration are allowed them. Just as there is no real motion, because there is no duration, just so there can be no real production, because time is needed for that production… [T]he cause can exist no more when the effect is produced. The effect follows upon the cause, but it is not produced by it. It springs up, so to speak, out of nothing,… [17]

In this article I show that according to the R-theory of time, which involves a Humean-Buddhist theory of causation, empirical causation (relations and/or contact between moments) is mental construction (imagination), and transcendental causation is real. Then I argue that positions i) and ii) are impossible (relations and contact between moments are impossible). In 2.2.2 and 2.2.4 I will argue that moments cannot contact (or “touch”) one another, and in subsections 2.2.3, and 2.25 – 2.2.6 I will argue that, if contacting is not possible among the point-sized moments, then moments however also cannot be interconnected to one another in any way.[18]  

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a moment, is a location in time,[19] then any other moment contacting or abutting p₀, such as p_-1, which is aside p₀, can only also be located at the present, for the following reasons. Moment p₀, the present, is a location in time. If p₀ is a location in time, then it is not located where, for example, p_-1 is, since that would mean p₀ is not identical to itself: p₀ would be a present moment that is located in the past (a present moment that is not the present). In other words, if p₀ and p_-1 are distinct locations in time, then it must be the case that p₀ is not where p_-1 is, and p_-1 is not where p₀ is. But if p₀ and p_-1 have any sort of interplay (such as contacting, attaching or abutting to one another), then they would apparently have to coincide  (fully or partially, depending on the nature of the moments) for reasons explained next. If p_-1 contacts or abuts p₀, then p_-1, would have to “go where p₀ is” in order to contact or abut p₀. p_-1, which is past, must also be present—it would have to be present if it is to contact or abut p₀, if it is to have anything to do with p₀. Also, p₀ would be a present that is located in the past, which is a contradiction.[20] (An objection to this conclusion will be given in 2.2.3 where I consider that p_-1 and p₀ can attach, contact, or abut without coinciding.)

2.2.3 The Impossibility of Moments Interrelating

I will discuss issues to do with moments contacting one another more in the next subsection. But before that, in this subsection I will discuss the other option: instead of contacting, moments that are side-by-side one another in non-presentist reality might be interconnected or interrelated.

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It is often held by philosophers that moments are point-sized (durationless), and accordingly do not have a (temporal) size.[21] Without a size it is unclear how moments can contact or abut one another since they do not have a surface by which to contact any other items. If that is the case, then if there were any moments that are side-by-side one another, making up a time-series, then the problem of how they contact is apparently solved if the moments interrelate in some way. On this account, p_-1 and p₀ are interrelated but not abutted or directly in contact. I will argue for the impossibility of any sort of relation between p_-1 and p₀. The impossibility of relations between distinct items has also been argued by some of the great Buddhist philosophers, such as Dharmakīrti, who was aware of the outcomes of some of the issues that will be put forward in this section: “if two entities are different, how can they be related? And if they are not different, what is the point of talking about a relation?”[22]

If a relation interconnects moments, such as moments p_-1 and p₀, it must coincide with the moments it interconnects. To do this, the relation must make contact with or abut with, the moments it interrelates, lest it not interrelate the moments.[23] I will first assume that the relation between moments p_-1 and p₀ is a simple relation (a relation that does not have any parts). If the simple relation, in

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interrelating p_-1 and p₀, contacts or abuts p_-1 and contacts or abuts p₀, then by its doing so, the relation is both past and present. This is a contradiction because the relation cannot have parts that have different characteristics (being past, being future) since the relation is partless. Since the relation is partless, it is one entity, and thus the entirety of the relation would be describable by the self-refuting statement: “Atom (partless object) that is simultaneously at time p₀ and not at time p_-1.”

Some may argue that the relation between p_-1 and p₀ does not have to be simple, and the relation could have parts (it could be a complex relation). If the relation between p_-1 and p₀ had parts, it could have a part that only coincides with p_-1, and a part that only coincides with p₀, thus avoiding the problems to do with the simple relation described in the previous paragraph. But this is of no avail, for the following reasons. If one part of the relation is at p_-1, and the other is at p₀, then these parts have to also attach to one another in order to form a continuous (unbroken) connection of p_-1 and p₀. But in doing so, the same sort of problems as discussed above in subsection 2.2.1 about the attaching, abutting, or contacting of moments p_-1 and p₀ would ensue in this case with respect to the parts of the complex relation. If the part of the relation at p_-1, call this part of the relation r_past, directly contacts or abuts the part of the relation at p₀, call this other part of the relation r_present, then r_past would have to be where r_present is if r_past is to have any sort of interaction (such as contact, tying, abutment, or attachment) with r_present. In other words, r_past would have to “go where r_present is” in order to attach to r_present since r_present is only where it is, and to interact with it, the interacting item must be where r_present is. If that is the case, however, then, for example, r_past would be where r_present is located (in the present), which is an apparent contradiction, since it would imply that it is a past item is not past.

2.2.4 Moments Contacting without Coinciding

In this subsection I return to the position discussed in 2.2.1, where it was assumed that moments that are side-by-side can touch, contact, or abut. There could be an objection one might draw to the conclusions of 2.2.1 regarding the contacting or abutting of p_-1 and p₀. Imagine that contact between moments is not a relation, but is somehow some sort of non-relational interaction between moments

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(this avoids the problem just discussed in 2.2.2). Also, imagine that it may be the case that p_-1 and p₀ contact without coinciding: p_-1 contacts p₀, but p_-1 and p₀ do not coincide in any way, and thus in attaching or contacting p₀, p_-1 never becomes present in doing so (this avoids the problem brought up in 2.2.1). In other words, p_-1 and p₀ contact one another by attaching or contacting but do not collocate partially or fully in any way in doing so: p_-1 never strays into p₀, and p₀ never strays into p_-1, and their interface is one where it is not the case that an item that can only be past (p_-1) is also present, or an item that can only be present (p₀) is also past. (This objection could also be given in a similar way for r_past and r_present, where r_past and r_present are alleged to contact without coinciding.)

Assuming there can be this sort of contacting, I will proceed to analyze it. The present appears to be durationless (a time point). Consider a passage cited in Stcherbatsky and which is attributed to the Buddha himself:

All (real) forces are instantaneous. (But) how can a thing which has (absolutely) no duration, (nevertheless have the time) to produce something? (This is because what we call) “existence” is nothing but efficiency which is called a “creative cause.”[24]

Contact without coincidence, however, apparently does not work for moments that are point-sized, for reasons given next. If a point-sized (durationless) moment contacts another point-sized moment, and the moments do not coincide with one another, but rather are at a distance from one another (at a temporal distance from one another), they cannot touch or contact since there is a distance between the moments. But if they are not at a distance, then they are the same moment. For the same reasons that points (numbers) on the number line cannot be in contact, and if it is the case that p_-1 and p₀ are point-sized, then what we are calling “contact without coincidence”, does not work for point-sized items. For these reasons, many philosophers have stated that touching must involve a common or overlapping boundary point.

Perhaps there is another alternative for discussing the “contact without coincidence” of moments if one espouses the philosophy of chronons: atoms of time that have an irreducible duration (a temporal

[24] This is quoted in Stcherbatsky, F. Th. 1962 (1930). Buddhist Logic. Volume 1. Page 119.

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size). Chorons, if they exist, avoid the entire issue of, and problems surrounding, point-sized (durationless) items contacting one another. In considering that p_-1 and p₀ are chorons, if it is alleged that p_-1 and p₀ contact or abut one another without coincidence, p₀ and p_-1 cannot abut or contact one another by partial collocation since they do not coincide in any way. Without coinciding, p₀ is in no way located at p_-1, and p_-1 is in no way at p₀.

Call the contact interface of p_-1 and p₀ I_NC (“NC” stands for “no coincidence”). In giving rise to a continuous (unbroken) integration between p_-1 and p₀ that does not involve coincidence, I_NC is merely the non-coinciding interfacing of p_-1 and p₀. I_NC must exist if there is a continuous (unbroken) connection between p_-1 and p₀. There is no gap between p_-1 and p₀ and thus I_NC does not have size (it does not have a temporal thickness), and this appears to imply that I_NC does not have any parts (but I will discuss an objection to this below).

There however appears to be a problem with this account. p_-1 never extends into p₀, and p₀ never extends into p_-1. The interfacing that p_-1 does is only in the past, and the interfacing p₀ does is only in the present. (If p₀ is the present moment, then it cannot “do” something, such as interface with another item, while not being present.) If that is the case, since there is interfacing going on in both past and present, then the interface is both past and present. But this cannot be the case, however, since the interface does not have parts, and thus any statement about it describes all of it. So if I_NC is in the past, I_NC is entirely describable as being past. And if I_NC is in the present, I_NC is entirely describable as being present. But if I_NC is entirely present, and entirely past, it involves contradiction since past ≠ present, and one could assert, for example, that I_NC is past and not past.

If, however, one wished to describe I_NC as having parts, there are several problems with this abstruse account. First, it seems that we can only discuss items that are individual existents having parts. But I_NC may not be anything more than a way of describing p_-1 and p₀, rather than an individual item that is distinct from p_-1 and p₀. It is questionable whether or not I_NC—this interfacing of p_-1 and p₀—has any independent reality in itself, as an entity distinct from, and over-and-above, p_-1 and p₀. It appears that I_NC may merely be a description of the way p_-1 and p₀ are, not about an additional entity different from

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p_-1 and p₀. But, if I_NC was an entity that is distinct from p_-1 and p₀, it would be some sort of bridge that is contacting (or “touching”) both p_-1 and p₀, and for that reason it would be susceptible to the problems that a relation was susceptible to in above subsection 2.2.2 (and the further problems I will discuss in the next subsection).

But I will put aside the issues just raised, and I will instead imagine that p_-1 and p₀ can