"True time is four-dimensional."
"But the dimension which we call the fourth in our count is, in the nature of the matter, the first, that is, the giving that determines all. In future, in past, in the present, that giving brings about to each its own presencing, holds them apart thus opened and so hold them towards one another in the nearness by which the three dimensions remain near one another. For this reason we call the first, original, literally incipient extending which the unity of true time consists 'nearing nearness,' 'nearhood', an early word still used by Kant. But it brings future past and present near to one another by distancing them. For it keeps what has been open by denying its advent as present. This nearing of nearness keeps open the approach coming from the future by withholding the present in the approach. Nearing nearness has the character of denial and withholding. It unifies in advance the ways in which what has-been, what is about to be, and the present reach out toward each other."
"Dimension, we repeat is here thought not only as the area of possible measurement, but rather as reaching throughout, as giving and opening up. Only the latter enable us to represent and delimit an area of measurement."
"But the dimension which we call the fourth in our count is, in the nature of the matter, the first, that is, the giving that determines all. In future, in past, in the present, that giving brings about to each its own presencing, holds them apart thus opened and so hold them towards one another in the nearness by which the three dimensions remain near one another. For this reason we call the first, original, literally incipient extending which the unity of true time consists 'nearing nearness,' 'nearhood', an early word still used by Kant. But it brings future past and present near to one another by distancing them. For it keeps what has been open by denying its advent as present. This nearing of nearness keeps open the approach coming from the future by withholding the present in the approach. Nearing nearness has the character of denial and withholding. It unifies in advance the ways in which what has-been, what is about to be, and the present reach out toward each other."
"Dimension, we repeat is here thought not only as the area of possible measurement, but rather as reaching throughout, as giving and opening up. Only the latter enable us to represent and delimit an area of measurement."
(Martin Heidegger, On Time and Being)
