Past, PRESENT--future?

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jayjacobus
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Re: Past, PRESENT--future?

Post by jayjacobus »

Age wrote: Tue Sep 10, 2019 3:36 pm The HERE-NOW is just One event in constant-change.
There and then exist by our eyesight and our memory respectively.

Velocity doesn't change the appearance of time. It changes the Effect of time. The change actually happens.
surreptitious57
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Re: Past, PRESENT--future?

Post by surreptitious57 »

Age wrote:
There is NO actual thing as time

There is instead just One event in continual constant change
I do not know what time is anymore as I find it very hard to understand
Timelessness is far too strange a concept for me to get my head around
surreptitious57
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Re: Past, PRESENT--future?

Post by surreptitious57 »

Dontaskme wrote:
We dont move through time . Time moves through us . Us being the eternal now which is just another word for empty space
I do not know what time is anymore as I find it very hard to understand
I find it very hard to understand as I do not know what time is anymore
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RCSaunders
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Re: Past, PRESENT--future?

Post by RCSaunders »

Richardmc wrote: Thu Aug 29, 2019 6:35 pm ... Everything happens now and it is always now. Time passing is dynamic moments of now, now, now---.
Hi Richard,

I think you have asked an interesting question which deserves consideration because it touches on so many things.

First, what do you mean by past? If you mean things that existed or happened in the past, their existence then was real, but are not real now except as history or memories. If you had a pet dog ten years ago that has subsequently passed on, the dog was a real existent in the past, but is not an existent at all, real or otherwise now. So I think one has to be careful about assigning reality to the past. You can say, "I really had a dog ten years ago," but the past is past and no longer real. (Does that make sense to you?)

By the present I assume you mean whatever exists or is happening right now, (not what did exist or was happening). If you think of the present as only what exists and is happening at this instant as being real, however, whatever existed or happened an instant ago is no longer real, and whatever exists or is happening now, will cease to be real in the next instant, which makes reality seem like something the keeps popping in and out of existence. So that cannot really be what is meant by only being real if it is right now. What is really meant by real is whatever exists or is happening right now
irrespective of when it began to exist or happen. So reality is whatever has existed and has happened that continues to exist or happen in the present and will remain real as long as it exists or continues to happen.

Now your contention that, "the future ... has not yet happened, it is not real, other than as a mental concept," is not quite correct or the same as, "reality only happens or has happened." Past, present, and future are all only mental concepts for the temporal relationship between real things that exist and happen. Past, present, and future do not themselves happen, they only describe the relationship between things that exist or happen relative to our present consciousness.

I think what is unique about the future that makes it different from the past or the present is the fact that it cannot be known by experience. To some degree predictions can be made based on the nature of existence itself and how it works, and most things that exist right now or are happening right now will continue for some time, but essentially all propositions about the future are conjecture and cannot be known with certainty until they can be experienced.

The wonderful thing about that is it makes life a grand adventure of perpetual discovery.

RC
Age
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Re: Past, PRESENT--future?

Post by Age »

jayjacobus wrote: Thu Sep 12, 2019 3:58 pm
Age wrote: Tue Sep 10, 2019 3:36 pm The HERE-NOW is just One event in constant-change.
There and then exist by our eyesight and our memory respectively.

Velocity doesn't change the appearance of time. It changes the Effect of time. The change actually happens.
There is NO real thing as 'time' to change.

Have you personally experienced a velocity that changed the effect of time?

The change may be said to happen but the Truth is, that said "change" is just an imagined change only.

Some thing has to be an actual real thing in order for it to be able to be changed. Time is not an actual real thing.

Velocity is relative to the speed of light. Velocity changes the placement of some thing relative to light, or relative the speed of light, but there is no thing as time, which the effect of could be changed.

Light has an effect.

Time does not effect any thing, as time is just the name prescribed to the process that human beings use when 'trying to' "separate" the one and only continuous event of NOW.
Last edited by Age on Fri Sep 13, 2019 12:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
Age
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Re: Past, PRESENT--future?

Post by Age »

surreptitious57 wrote: Thu Sep 12, 2019 8:52 pm
Age wrote:
There is NO actual thing as time

There is instead just One event in continual constant change
I do not know what time is anymore as I find it very hard to understand
Just like most humans beings do. Why 'time' is very hard to understand for human beings is because they constantly bombard each other that time is an real thing, when in fact it is not.
surreptitious57 wrote: Thu Sep 12, 2019 8:52 pmTimelessness is far too strange a concept for me to get my head around
'Timelessness' is not a thing that I have even considered before.

The best way I found to "get one's head around" some thing is to just define that thing. How are you defining the word 'timelessness'?

When you do that then that might help you to "get your head around it".

To me the NOW exists eternally, so that could be seen in a sense as 'timelessness'.
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Dontaskme
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Re: Past, PRESENT--future?

Post by Dontaskme »

surreptitious57 wrote: Thu Sep 12, 2019 9:00 pm
Dontaskme wrote:
We dont move through time . Time moves through us . Us being the eternal now which is just another word for empty space
I do not know what time is anymore as I find it very hard to understand
I find it very hard to understand as I do not know what time is anymore

Time and Space are mental concepts, they don't actually exist.

Space is required to understand time. The space between two objects create the sense of time, for it takes time to travel between two objects - starting from point A it will take time to reach point B

In reality there is no space and time there, the movement from A to B was made within the mind as concepts KNOWN..
THE MIND IS THE UNMOVED MOVER...but no thing is going anywhere, no thing is happening or moving.

No thing in infinity is moving or happening, because infinity cannot move or happen. Wherever you go there you are. You are always the central still silent point of observation, always stationary. You are always the centre of gravity.

.
jayjacobus
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Re: Past, PRESENT--future?

Post by jayjacobus »

Dontaskme wrote: Fri Sep 13, 2019 7:56 am Time and Space are mental concepts, they don't actually exist.

Space is required to understand time. .


That seems contradictory. You can explain away the contradiction, I suppose.
Atum
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Re: Past, PRESENT--future?

Post by Atum »

It's true that the future doesn't exist, but our present and past moments influence which path to walk down in the now now now.
Richardmc
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Re: Past, PRESENT--future?

Post by Richardmc »

Thanks for your thoughtful input, RCSaunders, which addresses the specific statements I made. I'll try to respond as well as my limited communication skills will allow! You ask, what do I mean by past? I mean past is reality that has happened and is now static. Only the present is dynamic. Paradoxically, the present is almost infinitesimal, but it is where everything always happens. I do not say(as you do) that whatever existed or happened an instant ago is no longer real. It is real(but past and static) and is available for us to use in the present. Reality and real time always starts now. Time is a measure between now and then. It is not possible for reality to exist in the future- to me, that is just common sense. Past and present is(are?) the domain of reality. I totally agree with your last paragraph concerning the future. And your last sentence, 'The wonderful thing about that is it makes life a grand adventure of perpetual discovery' has a grand ring about it. Finally, a little aside- presence and consciousness are virtually the same and exist only in the present. The more present or conscious we are, the more we are capable and functional in our lives.
jayjacobus
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Re: Past, PRESENT--future?

Post by jayjacobus »

I'm not sure what your last two sentences say but consciousness is always in the present. If consciousness goes to the future, then the future is now and the present is the static past.
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bahman
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Re: Past, PRESENT--future?

Post by bahman »

Richardmc wrote: Mon Aug 19, 2019 9:00 pm There is a crucial division between the past and present vs. future.Reality only happens or has happened- it does not exist in the future. If it has not yet happened, it is not real, other than as a mental concept. This is also true of time. TIME ALWAYS STARTS NOW. Future time does not exist other than as a concept. Thanks for reading this.
How do you know that the past is real and it is not the collective memory? How do you know that the future does not exist objectively? Think of the future as all possible states available for a system among which we choose only one.
jayjacobus
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Re: Past, PRESENT--future?

Post by jayjacobus »

If I am in Washington, how do I know that NYC is real? If it doesn't exist, how did my memory become to be?
Richardmc
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Re: Past, PRESENT--future?

Post by Richardmc »

Atum wrote: Fri Sep 13, 2019 2:23 pm It's true that the future doesn't exist, but our present and past moments influence which path to walk down in the now now now.
Sorry I didn't initially acknowledge your post, Atum. That is exactly what I am saying. Thanks.
surreptitious57
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Re: Past, PRESENT--future?

Post by surreptitious57 »

Age wrote:
To me the NOW exists eternally so that could be seen in a sense as timelessness
Yes it could but change occurs within the eternal NOW and that comes through motion which is measured in time
Maybe time is just a construct that has been created in order for human beings to regulate the world they live in
So it only exists as a subjective concept rather than as an objective phenomenon but how true this is I cannot say

The best thing is to keep an open mind and so avoid making any assumptions
I think time exists but I cannot be absolutely certain and probably never will
I need to study it more to see if I can understand it better than I currently do
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