Time and Change: Is Time absolute or relational?

• I have said more than once, that I hold space to be something purely relative, as time; an order of coexistences, as time is an order of successions.
• Third letter to Samuel Clarke, February 25, 1716

Matt: Socrates. Thanks for the brief on fatalism, tense, an open future, and philosophy of time. I know that each of these topics are unfathomable. But let's keep going on your promise to get into time and change. I do this to get a general sketch, instead of a detailed blueprint. The blueprint can come later. 

Eternity is in love with the productions of time. ~ William Blake

Matt: Socrates! I see you still haven't changed your wardrobe. How are you! It's been a while!

Socrates: A while? What do you mean by 'a while'? 

Matt: That's what I love about you. You get right to the point. This question will probably veer us into the philosophy of time, something I've been really interested in as of late. As George McFly said in Back to the Future when speaking to his love Lorrain, "I'm George. George McFly. I'm your density. I mean, your destiny."

Simulated Boxing Guide for Potential Boxers

A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring.

• Ludwig Wittgenstein (1981) Personal Recollections. Conversation of 1930.

I have an idea. For future blogs I want to write dialogues. There's good reasons to write in this medium. For one, it's a lot of fun! Second, it tends to interest the layman more. Third,  it has a curious knack to penetrate complicated ideas and give them life. I was initially exposed to this style by Plato, of course; but Boston College professor of philosophy Dr. Peter Kreeft made it really intoxicating. It's almost impossible not to be lured into the conversation. Where expository prose often brings to mind a boring lecture; a conversation is dynamic, and has a life of its own. So, as Kreeft often uses Socrates as the skilled questioner of the philosophers in the history of ideas, I'll do the same. But I won't always make Socrates the questioner. It just depends on whose views I'm representing.