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Does the past exist?
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I just deleted some drivel a few moments ago, you know, in the past!
Back on topic please.
I'd be willing to bet that when you deleted it, you were in the present. Not "the present moment in time", but the present tense if you like.
I would have to say that the past does not exist, because all that ever exists is "the now", so that means, what we perceive as the "past" was at one stage "the now", and what we perceive as "the future", will [never really match our perception but will] materialise as "the now".
What we perceive as the past used to exist, but it no longer exists.0 -
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mangaroosh wrote: »just with regard to that [I think they are related], when the past existed it was the present, and when the future comes to be it will also be the present.
When we use the word past, we are talking about reality as it was, but no longer is, and so therefore no longer existing. Therefore the past does not exist.
Similarly, the word future refers to reality as it will be, not what it is now, and so therefore, the future does not exist either, nor will it ever, as it will always be the present.
So, the past never existed, as it always was and always will be the present.
Past and future are only human constructs, they exist only in the mind as a memory of a passed present, and anticipation of the coming present.
Are you making an argument from science or are you making an argument from philosophy?
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Science and Philosophy are closely linked. Both make excellent use of Logic and we should remember what a PhD is too
However, I'd like to leave the English grammar and tense rules out of it and stick to more scientific arguments on time and the perception thereof.0 -
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Perhaps the most interesting fact about the universe in my opinion is that we can look at the past through a telescope as, relative to the size of the universe, light travels slowly. As far as I know this image:
was taken at the start of this decade, yet is actually a snapshot of what a part of the Universe looked like 13 billion years ago. Those Galaxies dont look like that now, assuming they even exist! Similarly, when one sees an event in the sky such as a sun exploding, its likely you are looking at something that happened when the Romans were in Britain. Because we are millions and billions of light years away from these places, we can see what they looked like then. Its quite fascinating.
Wiki source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Ultra_Deep_Field
Incidentally, a Kurt Vonnegut novel is based on the premise that you shouldt care about people dying because they are only dead in this current moment, and they are still alive in moments passed. Another interesting thought.The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just that way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever.0 -
Does the past exist?
Well you posted this in July, I can read it now, so yes, it does / did (depending on your opinion of 'exist'.
If you look at the sky at night, or even during the day, you're looking at things that are from the past - even the sun, 8 minutes ago.
The past MUST exist, because we have records that it exists that we can clearly see and understand. Be it a fossil, a cave writing, or the stars in the sky - all are things from the past that we can see.
What the question should be is this: Does the future exist?Similarly, when one sees an event in the sky such as a sun exploding, its likely you are looking at something that happened when the Romans were in Britain. Because we are millions and billions of light years away from these places, we can see what they looked like then
AFAIK the Romans weren't in Britain billions of years ago
"Further, the satellites are in orbits high above the Earth, where the curvature of spacetime due to the Earth's mass is less than it is at the Earth's surface. A prediction of General Relativity is that clocks closer to a massive object will seem to tick more slowly than those located further away".
I think what this also means is, time is only relative to the observer at a particular location. I cannot measure your time, I can only measure my own.
However, if we both set our amazingly accurate atomic clocks at a synchronous time, and we are separated by a great distance (1 close to a large gravitational field, one of us further away), we will see that when we are brought together again our time pieces are no longer synchronised.
This experiment has been done by synchronising a clock on Earth, and one taken into orbit via a space shuttle, when the astronauts returned, their time piece was faster than the one on Earth.
In fact, GPS satellites have to take this phenomenon into account when deciphering a location on Earth.0 -
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Eliot Rosewater wrote: »Perhaps the most interesting fact about the universe in my opinion is that we can look at the past through a telescope as, relative to the size of the universe, light travels slowly. As far as I know this image:
was taken at the start of this decade, yet is actually a snapshot of what a part of the Universe looked like 13 billion years ago. Those Galaxies dont look like that now, assuming they even exist! Similarly, when one sees an event in the sky such as a sun exploding, its likely you are looking at something that happened when the Romans were in Britain. Because we are millions and billions of light years away from these places, we can see what they looked like then. Its quite fascinating.
Wiki source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Ultra_Deep_Field
Incidentally, a Kurt Vonnegut novel is based on the premise that you shouldt care about people dying because they are only dead in this current moment, and they are still alive in moments passed. Another interesting thought.
It is pretty class in fairness, but it must be remembered that what we are actually looking at, is the rays of light from those objects as they reach us in the present.
Just as the sun's rays take 8mins to reach us, we are not actually seeing the sun, as it was 8mins ago, what we are seeing are the suns rays, that left the sun 8mins previously, as they reach the sun at the present moment.0 -
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I haven't time to read the previous posts, so apologies if someone has already posted a related reply.
I am reading or in fact re-reading a book at the minute called, The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. A lot of you may have heard of it, or maybe even read it. The book isn't a scientific text more of a spiritual guide. I have found the book a fascinating read, if not always easy to understand/accept, hence I am re-reading it.
The author spends quite a bit of time on the concept of the past; is the past of any use to us, does it even exist, etc. Throughout the book the author tells us how he almost never thinks of pasts events or memories, and of how he has little need of the past.
He puts it something like this.
The past or future do not exist, all that exist's is now, there has never been a time(though the existent of time itself is another subject!) when this wasn't so.
Anything that has ever happened, occurred in the now. The future is only a mind projected anticipation of what may occur in the now. If you think of events that happened in the (past!), they occurred in the, then, now. Try to think of a event that happened in the past?, events can only happen in the now. Nothing can occur in the past or future. Events can only happen in the now.
Anyway I've made a terrible job of trying to explain myself. All I can add is that I would recommend this book to anyone, especially the readers of this thread, as it throws up a different way of looking at past events, and in my opinion, free's you from the rusty shackles of the past and time itself.
I feel a warm glow and I find myself smiling to myself, each time I realise that all that exists with regard the past and future is now, this present moment. 0
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