Thanks to each of you for your welcome and replies. I am not sure if this is the ideal option, but I will respond to each here.
Tormod: I find myself most often visiting threads in Astronomy & Cosmology, that's probably part of the reason it's posted here. Most of us are philisophers in some sense of the word, but not all can speak to the issues of Thermodynamics, Entropy, and arrow of time like the folks here can (referencing the continuum/flow concepts you raised). With hope, others will see the post here and respond with their opinion and insight from whichever branch of science in which they live.
Infamous: You mentioned the passing from one event to the other. That's exactly the discontinuity to which I referred. Strangely connected yet somehow parsed. As for the smallest possible measure or unit of time... things that make you go hmmm, indeed. Right now is perhaps that smallest unit, but in it's tinyness it is also so vast and all encompassing. Like a dog chasing it's own tail sometimes... I swear.
ldsoftwaresteve: Perhaps the faucet wouldn't leak if there were no time... or maybe it's that there is no time (in the abstract sense) while we are fixing the leak. Who knows, but thanks for the cheer you exhibited in your response. I am not so sure about the "drop in the bucket" concept... what's dropping? in what medium does it drop? what the heck is the bucket a metaphor of? Oyy...
jkellmd: I have done a substantial amount of reading into Buddhism as well. What is at the fore of my current thinking with this is how closely these ancient buddhist texts parallel the 20th century writings about quantum mechanics. The whole thing about not being able to observe a system without changing it, particle/wave complimentary... it's neat stuff. Thanks for the suggestion on the book.
Little Bang: Thanks for the visual. The whole "invention of man" statement you made applies to so much... What strikes me as most difficult is how definitions of time tend so often to be self-referencing. The waveform idea (the scope visual) reminded me of some interesting work on collapsing waveforms and probability functions. Advances in these fields too will hopefully aid in our understanding of time... but part of me does not feel it will do too much to help us arrive at it's essence.
Maybe this post really does belong in philoshophy...
So far, it's something that flows, a place where we should be, slices of events, and a 4th point allowing us to locate such events (you know where something happened, but to locate it you also need to know when). I like where this snowball is rolling...
Thanks again.
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InfiniteNow
