The Line of Time, and the Future

Criticisms of the Linear image of Time tend to under-appreciate the respects in which it does effectively illustrate the nature of Temporality. For example, the process of the drawing of a line demonstrates Duration. Furthermore, like the Past, once drawn, a line is preserved as a prelude to the most recent moment of drawing. But, perhaps most graphic is how the drawing of a line exhibits the nature of the Future. That the drawing of a line always goes no further than the most recent moment accurately shows that the Future does not, and never does, exist. Rather, any reference to it is always via a process of projection that itself always terminates at the most recent moment. Theories that assert the current existence of the Future illegitimately confuse it with the current existence of a thought of the Future. Hence, regardless of his ambitions for it, the immediate flaw in Nietzsche's image of 'The Moment', presented in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, is its depiction of a 'Future' extending beyond the moment and what has lead to that moment. The drawing of a line is more accurate--Time never extends beyond the most recent moment.