Is time stationary, and we move along it? Or are we stationary, and time moves past us?(Askphilosophers.org)
Response from Peter Lipton
“On one view, time is a lot like another dimension lying alonside the three dimensions of space. On this view time doesn’t move: all times are equally real at all times, just as all parts of space are equally real from all places. But do we move along time? Well, we are in different places at different times, and of course we are at different times at different times.
According to another view of time, the present is privileged. As George Santayana once said, ‘the present is like the fire running along the fuse of time’. On this view, it looks like we are moving along time, and so is the present.”
If time is the fourth dimension, time does not move just like the other three dimensions. Do we move along time ? Just as we move in space in all the three dimensions (i.e.moving horizontally in space), we also move in the space-time situations (my room,where I am present, encapsulated in the time of now) .I move sitting in the same room into a different space-time situation in the next second. I may also be moving into a different space-time situation by changing into a different space .
The other view where our present moves in time like a spark running along the fuse of time as George Santayana said ,is a graphic description of how the present burns itself in a quick running movement towards the future. There we are moving inexorably through a series of time-space situations to a future which is end of all space-time situations as far as the experiencer himself is concerned.
