In the arrow paradox (also: Archer's paradox), Zeno of Elea reflects on the reality of movement.
Zeno says that a flying arrow occupies a specific, precisely defined position at every moment of its trajectory. In a precisely defined position, the arrow is at rest, for it cannot move in one place.
Since the arrow is at rest at every moment, it must be at rest overall.
The flight of the arrow can only be understood within the context of a continuum of time and space. The boundary values of moment and location within this continuum, however, are insufficient as a model for understanding movement. The arrow paradox is an example of how an unsuitable or inadequate model of reality leads to a manifestly false prediction, in this case: that movement is impossible.
“That which moves moves neither in the space in which it is nor in the space in which it is not.” – Zeno of Elea
"Something moves only, not in that it is here in this now and there in another now, but in that it is here in one and the same now and not here, in that it is and is not at the same time in this here. One must grant the old dialecticians the contradictions they point out in movement, but it does not follow from this that movement is not, but rather that movement is the existing contradiction itself." – GWF Hegel
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