Let's distinguish between physics and common sense: an adequate physics might or might not include a temporal dimension along which events occur, and this dimension might or might not possess various of the features that common sense attributes to time. That much is familiar from Einstein: it's not automatic that the commonsense conception of "time" is an accurate one---that it correctly captures some real aspect of the physical world. So we have to be careful when answering questions like "Does time have a preferred forward direction?". If we're exploring common sense the answer has to be "of course!", but if we're doing physics then it's a question of whether there really are important asymmetries in a physically real temporal dimension (which is actually a controversial matter: a fascinating discussion is David Albert's Time and Chance ). Similarly for questions like "Did time have a first (or last) moment?". As a commonsense matter, the answer is "surely not!", but here too physics...

I am unsure exactly why you found this either interesting or baffling. It seems clear that what makes things colored is their tendency to reflect or otherwise emit certain sorts of light. Time doesn't do that, nor could it. As an uncolored phenomenon, time has plenty of company, including space, music, the square root of two, and philosophy. Now, someone might associate time with a color. People do, after all, report strong "cross-modal" associations between smells and sounds, or tastes and colors. Such a person might describe time as cobalt blue, or as tasting like a turnip. But I think we would be wise not to regard their claims as literally true.

Nothing happens to moments; things happen at them. After a moment passes, nothing that happens anymore happens at it. Apast moment might, however, still be remembered and spoken of. Doesthat require that in some sense it "still exists" and is indeedeternal? For surely there is something that we are remembering and speaking of. Or is that a mistake? Could it rather be that while there was something that we are remembering and speaking of, there isn't anything that we are remembering and speaking of? But is it coherent tosay that in addition to all the things that there are, there are also things that that were but are no more? That sure soundsself-contradictory. How about: in addition to all the things that thereare, there are-or-were also the things that were but are nomore? Here, "there are-or-were" functions as a "quantifier" that coversthings that no longer exist. Some philosophers hold that if you use aquantifier like that, you are committed to the view that the...