I just read about Zeno‘s paradox of the arrow about how if an the flight of an arrow is made up of many distinct points at which the arrow is at rest. Imagine if you could freeze time when the arrow was moving, then restart time and freeze it again a split second later. The arrow would appear to have moved forward by a small amount, though at all of these “frozen” moments the arrow’s really at rest. So is the arrow not at rest, even when it’s moving?

But perhaps what’s wrong with this argument is that life is never at rest, and that though theoretically if you could stop time at discrete points it’d be true the arrow would be at rest, the very fact that time could be stopped could just be an illusion we humans have in our heads? Thinking that life flows like film?

Categories: Philosophy

Donn Lee

I love to read and write. Professionally, data science, technology, and sales ops are my thing. In my non-professional life, I aspire quite simply to be a good person, and encourage others to do the same. For those who care, I test as INFJ in the MBTI.