The past doesn't "exist" any more, nor does the future exist (yet) - and since any "span" of time would have a beginning and an end - i.e., a past and a future, then the "present moment" must be a "point in time" without a beginning and an end - but how could such a timeframe exist? (I.e., the current moment isn't a span of time), and if the current moment has a span of time of "0," then "when" do we exist??
2006-07-07 19:31:18 · 29 answers · asked by Spruce E 1 in Arts & Humanities ➔ Philosophy
If the past is no more, and the future not yet, the present moment is all that ever exists
2006-07-07 19:35:38 · answer #1 · answered by Faye 3 · 1⤊ 1⤋
I must disagree with your statement, "the past doesn't exist anymore." Even in this present time we still feel the effects of past events. Everyone has memories of days gone by, so the past really hasn't ceased to exist since it still influences the present. I can accept the future not existing yet, because it hasn't had any impact on us. Does the present moment really exist? Well, if this present moment didn't exist, then when would I be responding to you proposition, in the past or in the future? How could a moment have no value? That would make it non-existent, wouldn't it? To posit that there is a moment, and then to cease to give it value is to deny your own proposition, correct? Zero, has no intrinsic numeric value, unless in follows a number of greater value. Zero value of a moment, means it has no time value, therefore it never existed in the first place. Thus, you question really is irrelevant, since there is no way to determine the span of the moment when it has no intrinsic value. Therefore, the present moment, as fleeting as it may be must have a span. hmmm, I like this discussion, I am intrigued. I'll probably edit this later on my own.
2006-07-21 15:22:41 · answer #2 · answered by tigranvp2001 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
This is an interesting question from the point of view of physics.
The notions you elaborate in your question are however quite questionable.
All past present and future exist physically. In our local space time they are connected by causal links. The past would thus be formed of all the events that existed as possibilities in the recent future and turn out realized (or reduced) in the present. The present would thus be the "moment or instant" (this depends on the scale of what is defined as local) when such reductions happen.
We have to think in terms of quantum mechanics. The future events exist only virtually as probabilities (as wave packets) which somehow are reduced following a finite but enormous chain of interactions each being responsible of reducing the wave packets.
This is highly speculative, but if one associates an increase of entropy to the reduction of wave packet this could lead locally to a sort of arrow of time. This seems consistent with the fact that once the wave packet is reduced you cannot reform it in its original state (but once again this is highly speculative...I did not studied the question thoroughly).
Globally, you know that he Universe expands. An intriguing consequence of this phenomenon (less well known) is that the region of space causally connected increase irreversibly in time. Now again if we relate an increase of entropy to such phenomenon (consistent with what I described above) then we would have a definite explanation for the arrow of time.
However, like I said this is highly speculative (would need to be discussed with quantum physicists). Note also that in the standard cosmological model the expansion is adiabatic (entropy does not increase). But the standard model does not explain the increase of entropy in the Universe anyway.
To come back at your question we exist in the "present". Not a coincidence since this is where the events take definitive form. We live at the frontier (boundary) between what is possible (future) and real (past). Note that this "present boundary" may not be as thin as you may think because we do have information about the past and the future.
2006-07-07 20:51:16 · answer #3 · answered by setarcos 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yet aren't the past, present and future linked together with each moment passing in time like, the current flow in an electrical circuit. The flow continues as long as there is a supply and resistance. How can any one of them be non-existent , when each has left its mark and one depends on the other for its existence?
2006-07-19 21:20:43 · answer #4 · answered by para 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The present is like a point on a line. The point that separates the past from the future.
2006-07-21 17:45:19 · answer #5 · answered by David S 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The present we refer is the present keeping/viewing
from the past and there is no real present as what ever
we see in this present is the interpretation of the past.
Look for the present from the future domain,
you can see lots and lots of possibilities there,
With out any prejudice! We really exists there!
2006-07-20 03:51:00 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Wow. All these complicated answers. You gots to be a genius and enrolled in Harvard to understand them. I have a simpler explanation.
The past only exists in our minds and records of history, i.e., books, papers, film, etc. The past exists for God, but we are not Gods.
The future exists for God, but again, we are not Gods.
The present can be compared to you riding in a car (you are not driving, I hope) and you are looking through a tiny slit in, say, a piece of cardboard. You see only a flash of something. It is there and in an INSTANT it is gone. What replaces it is just another piece that is also there an instant and it is gone. It, too, is replaced by the next thing and so on.
The present exists for that instant and it is gone, replaced by the next instant.
Imagine the car moving 80 mph. What you see thru that slit is just an instant image and gone as fast as it appeared.
You can't see what is coming and you can't see what is gone. All you can see is that one short instant.
I hope that makes it a little clearer for the mentally challenged and for those who were rejected by Harvard.
2006-07-19 20:07:24 · answer #7 · answered by Thomas C 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
We exist is a continually moving "point in time" as there is no future until you get there and there is no past unless you remember it when it was now!
So all we have is the "present moment"
2006-07-07 19:46:19 · answer #8 · answered by x 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It's an ambiguous question 'cause it depends the definition of a word and the barrier you put to separate past, present and future.
I.E. : my past would be what I've been before and what I am no more.
my present is what I'm living actually until something turns up my life. But until then, for me it'd still be the present.
my future would be what I'll become since my present.
but actually a present can be the fture's past and the future can be a present.
2006-07-20 01:25:04 · answer #9 · answered by kaze 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes the present moment really exists, and reality is real.
So is time. The solution/explanation is a new cosmology,
which BEGINS by accepting that R==cT, where R is the
fixed (from any point) radius of the universe, c is the constant
speed of light in a vacuum, and T is the (FIXED) Age of the
Universe, approx. 20 billion years.
2006-07-15 16:15:01 · answer #10 · answered by David Y 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋