Or is there only the past and the future??
2007-06-10 23:13:01 · 22 answers · asked by Anonymous in Arts & Humanities ➔ Philosophy
OK so far we have infinity, which would mean that we would all be experiencing every moment simultaneously; or a fraction of a second. If the answers the latter then how do you determine how long it lasts, some kind of discrete quantum mechanically determined instant I would guess, but how long?
2007-06-10 23:35:57 · update #1
The future or past exist only as mental constructs. Only the present exist. Yet your relative location in relation to the input through your senses, such as a sound from far away, or nearby, will make your awareness of these events slightly out of sync.
Although thus the event always precedes the awareness of it and 'arrive' at different rates (speed) relative to your location from the source, and most things never even get observed or rise to our awareness, what we experience at our conscious level we refer to as the present.
The present is relative to each observer. There is no objective present, as for this to be you have to select a point of reference to which all other perspectives are related, yet that point of view would still be bound by the reality of relativity, unless you postulate a being whom simultaneously experiences all as they happen, a being outside of time, or a being whom is the source of all that is, or rather is all and is aware of its extend and mutations.
We are not such beings though.
2007-06-11 05:32:59 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 2⤋
The present of which you spoke is now in the past.
Literally, the beginning of a spoken sentence is already in the past before we get to the end of the sentence.
Strange world.
There is the present, but it is very brief. If we want it so, the present could be measured in fractions of a millisecond.
The past is fixed back in time. This means we can revisit the past provided we have recorded something at the time. Old photographs, movies, audio etc plus of course books and documents.
As for the future, it seems only to really exist in the mind of mankind. We must make the future in the all to brief present.
2007-06-10 23:29:10 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
What else can I say other than the same thing time and time again. So much so that it has started to sound like a cliché but that makes no difference. The fact remains intact. The fact that time present lasts forever. The moment present never passes into past. Time never changes into future; and this is the reason that we ever have any concept of eternity in existence. Time is ever standing will its characteristics constant as they ever were, and as they ever will be. We change, things change but the rate of change in all things does not. Time is the universal constant as constant as space in the universe, you or me.
The time future is but the time imagined, an imaginative projection of the past, in the moment present. And the time past is what I am, strictly not what I have been. If the past were the time what I have been then my pas I must had forgotten from this moment backwards. But my time past is partially what I am now, and partly my hopes, anticipations and dreams of the future.
http://uk.blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-_f0Tu4kic6e_K8FnfZnOPxde?bid=549&yy=2007&mm=6
2007-06-11 02:19:54 · answer #3 · answered by Shahid 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
That's a nice question. Those who are after the truth want to live fully in the present. The present lasts forever. The past and future are both concepts.
2007-06-10 23:21:18 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
How long does the present last? Until the moment you think about the past!
2007-06-10 23:21:00 · answer #5 · answered by Confuzzled 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
All three are constructs to enable thought. We can only think like this. Not one of the constructs can be defined and the 'now' can only be imagined as the crest of an ever breaking wave from the far oceans and destined for an unknown shore. We are all balanced on that wave. Playing with words helps but it is, inevitably, flawed. Good fun though!
2007-06-11 02:13:53 · answer #6 · answered by John G 5 · 0⤊ 2⤋
There is no present, only the past and the future. What we call the present only represents our perception of our progress along the time line.
2007-06-10 23:28:06 · answer #7 · answered by Bob S 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
The same length of time it takes for the past to become the future.
2007-06-10 23:20:41 · answer #8 · answered by Raging Tranny 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
This is the present. Now, whenever its Now, is the present. Every now becomes part of past and every future will become a Now.
2007-06-10 23:20:43 · answer #9 · answered by Queen 3 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Tim K hits it on the head for me. Now is gone as soon as you say it so if the present is now - there is no present - so technically if we live in the present we dont exist!!!
So why the hell do I worry all the time? Hardly any point if I dont exist!!! Lol!!
2007-06-12 23:20:26 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 2⤋