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Time
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transcendental Time, of which our experiential timings are only evanescent manifestations or artificial and unreal limitations. On the other hand, there are psychologists who maintain that “there is a least amount of time which can be sensibly experienced”. The objective counterpart of this psychological fact seems to be presented by the Jaina's when they say that Kāla is not a homogeneous whole but that it is constituted of infinitesimal parts which are not further subdivisible. A Kālāņu is thus a duration which cannot be cut into smaller durations.
ST. AUGUSTINE'S VIEW OF TIME
The Jaina's not only believe in the real existence of the Kālāņu's or the objective counterparts of ultimate limits of perceivable durations but they go further and contend that these Kālāņu's are strictly discrete i.e. separate from each other. Here again there is another question of great psychological interest. We say, ordinarily, Time is one; but within it, we find out the distinctions of past, present and future. Our actual experience, however, does not give us *before or ‘after’; but it always yields 'now'. Psychologically, we have no experience of the past or of the future. St. Augustine, to whose theory of Time we have already referred, puts this fact extremely well by saying that, truly speaking, we have not the three times, a past which is past, a future which is not yet and a present between the two as a transition point. What we have is always a ‘nowa positive, solid and self-sufficient present. St. Augustine pointed out that things of the present Time are of course present. But what we call things of the past are also present things, appearing only in memory. The future things similarly are also present things, peeping through our faculty of expectation. It is thus that our experience gives us 'now's' only. These 'now's' are strictly discrete and not flowing points of transition. Yet these 'now's' appear to build up one unitary and continuous Time and to give rise to temporal distinctions of pasts and futures. The question is: How are these possible?
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