Empirical Results

In this chapter it is shown that time, in the folk sense, is not immune to error. That is, it is demonstrated that there are discoveries that one could make about the world that would lead people to deny that time exists. Along the way, it is argued that there is no single, univocal folk concept of time. The chapter begins by briefly revisiting some of the standard positions in the philosophy of time. This is then used as a framework for developing a suite of hypotheses about the folk concept of time. Empirical data from the Sydney time studies is then summarised with respect to these hypotheses and used to show that there is substantial conceptual variation among the folk with respect to their concepts of time. Finally, a range of discoveries is identified that would lead people to deny that time exists.