Time's causes

Abstract

What is time? St. Augustine knew: “I know what time is”, he said, “but if someone asks me, I cannot tell him” (Landes, 1983, p. 1). Not much help. It is the business of scientists to tell, and another ancient philosopher tells us how to tell: Aristotle sought to understand phenomena—and communicate that knowledge— by identifying their four "[be]causes", which he called material, final, efficient, and formal. We have interpreted these as questions about what (description/definition and substrate), why (function), how (mechanism), and like (analogs and models). These four causes organize our analysis of time and timing.

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