What is the present?
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Ok so the debate yesterday on how replicating a cat would produce a dead cat got me to thinking about the present. What is it? The past and future are easy enough concepts to grasp, but I cannot get my mind around the present. Even though we bandy the concept around all the time, without thinking much about it I assume. To my understanding as soon as you define a timespan as the present, it becomes the past. Also how small or large is that timespan? A second, a minute a pico-second? A moment? Dictionary.com defines it as: pres·ent1 (prznt) n. A moment or period in time perceptible as intermediate between past and future; now So it is the period between our past and our future. Not much help really is it? And if you do not feel like talking about past, present and future... "The challenge of statesmanship is to have the vision to dream of a better, safer world and the courage, persistence and patience to turn that dream into reality." - Ronald Reagan Doesn't it seem as though the political system denies the ability to turn a dream into a reality? 4 years and then you are out unless you have done good and you are re-elected. But to do real good you need time, of which 4 years is not enough. regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and to be loved in return - Moulin Rouge Alison Pentland wrote: I now have an image of you in front of the mirror in the morning, wearing your knickers, socks and shoes trying to decided if they match!
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Ok so the debate yesterday on how replicating a cat would produce a dead cat got me to thinking about the present. What is it? The past and future are easy enough concepts to grasp, but I cannot get my mind around the present. Even though we bandy the concept around all the time, without thinking much about it I assume. To my understanding as soon as you define a timespan as the present, it becomes the past. Also how small or large is that timespan? A second, a minute a pico-second? A moment? Dictionary.com defines it as: pres·ent1 (prznt) n. A moment or period in time perceptible as intermediate between past and future; now So it is the period between our past and our future. Not much help really is it? And if you do not feel like talking about past, present and future... "The challenge of statesmanship is to have the vision to dream of a better, safer world and the courage, persistence and patience to turn that dream into reality." - Ronald Reagan Doesn't it seem as though the political system denies the ability to turn a dream into a reality? 4 years and then you are out unless you have done good and you are re-elected. But to do real good you need time, of which 4 years is not enough. regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and to be loved in return - Moulin Rouge Alison Pentland wrote: I now have an image of you in front of the mirror in the morning, wearing your knickers, socks and shoes trying to decided if they match!
dictionary.com is wrong !! Using 'present' as a noun is a synonym of 'gift'. You can not have a indefinate noun, eg 'a present' without it being a gift. [although you can use it as a definate noun] Normally for temporal usage present in an adjective. This is just another example of not being able to trust what you read. Regardz Colin J Davies
Sonork ID 100.9197:Colin
More about me :-)
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Ok so the debate yesterday on how replicating a cat would produce a dead cat got me to thinking about the present. What is it? The past and future are easy enough concepts to grasp, but I cannot get my mind around the present. Even though we bandy the concept around all the time, without thinking much about it I assume. To my understanding as soon as you define a timespan as the present, it becomes the past. Also how small or large is that timespan? A second, a minute a pico-second? A moment? Dictionary.com defines it as: pres·ent1 (prznt) n. A moment or period in time perceptible as intermediate between past and future; now So it is the period between our past and our future. Not much help really is it? And if you do not feel like talking about past, present and future... "The challenge of statesmanship is to have the vision to dream of a better, safer world and the courage, persistence and patience to turn that dream into reality." - Ronald Reagan Doesn't it seem as though the political system denies the ability to turn a dream into a reality? 4 years and then you are out unless you have done good and you are re-elected. But to do real good you need time, of which 4 years is not enough. regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and to be loved in return - Moulin Rouge Alison Pentland wrote: I now have an image of you in front of the mirror in the morning, wearing your knickers, socks and shoes trying to decided if they match!
The span of time where things we are focused on right now do not change (at least not in a way affecting us). "focused on right now" : the "right now" is a time span identified by the human brains smallest time slice it can assign to a concious thought.
To comply with a request by Mike Mullikin, the US will be given a break from all my statements for the duration of one week, up to and including July 17th, 2002, 19:05 MESZ
[sighist] -
The span of time where things we are focused on right now do not change (at least not in a way affecting us). "focused on right now" : the "right now" is a time span identified by the human brains smallest time slice it can assign to a concious thought.
To comply with a request by Mike Mullikin, the US will be given a break from all my statements for the duration of one week, up to and including July 17th, 2002, 19:05 MESZ
[sighist]peterchen wrote: is a time span identified by the human brains smallest time slice it can assign to a concious thought. So it is totally and utterly a human created and defined thing? It has no basis in reality outside of our minds and is not shared by planets, suns, atoms and pink elephants? Now, if it is the smallest time slice that can be assigned by a conscious thought: Do different people have different lengths of the "present?" i.e. Does a person who can think just that bit faster than me, have a smaller time slices of the present? Do they live in the past and future more than me? ;) peterchen wrote: To comply with a request by Mike Mullikin, the US will be given a break from all my statements for the duration of one week, up to and including July 17th, 2002, 19:05 MESZ Damn, I must have missed that public announcement. Better not post a link I just found... :rolleyes: regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and to be loved in return - Moulin Rouge Alison Pentland wrote: I now have an image of you in front of the mirror in the morning, wearing your knickers, socks and shoes trying to decided if they match!
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peterchen wrote: is a time span identified by the human brains smallest time slice it can assign to a concious thought. So it is totally and utterly a human created and defined thing? It has no basis in reality outside of our minds and is not shared by planets, suns, atoms and pink elephants? Now, if it is the smallest time slice that can be assigned by a conscious thought: Do different people have different lengths of the "present?" i.e. Does a person who can think just that bit faster than me, have a smaller time slices of the present? Do they live in the past and future more than me? ;) peterchen wrote: To comply with a request by Mike Mullikin, the US will be given a break from all my statements for the duration of one week, up to and including July 17th, 2002, 19:05 MESZ Damn, I must have missed that public announcement. Better not post a link I just found... :rolleyes: regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and to be loved in return - Moulin Rouge Alison Pentland wrote: I now have an image of you in front of the mirror in the morning, wearing your knickers, socks and shoes trying to decided if they match!
But I think we should consider the "present" not as only a time slice but as a condition...i.e. the "present" consists of what is going on now (for instance, at the present I'm typing this reply) and what is the environment (the lights are on), for instance... Just a thought...
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Ok so the debate yesterday on how replicating a cat would produce a dead cat got me to thinking about the present. What is it? The past and future are easy enough concepts to grasp, but I cannot get my mind around the present. Even though we bandy the concept around all the time, without thinking much about it I assume. To my understanding as soon as you define a timespan as the present, it becomes the past. Also how small or large is that timespan? A second, a minute a pico-second? A moment? Dictionary.com defines it as: pres·ent1 (prznt) n. A moment or period in time perceptible as intermediate between past and future; now So it is the period between our past and our future. Not much help really is it? And if you do not feel like talking about past, present and future... "The challenge of statesmanship is to have the vision to dream of a better, safer world and the courage, persistence and patience to turn that dream into reality." - Ronald Reagan Doesn't it seem as though the political system denies the ability to turn a dream into a reality? 4 years and then you are out unless you have done good and you are re-elected. But to do real good you need time, of which 4 years is not enough. regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and to be loved in return - Moulin Rouge Alison Pentland wrote: I now have an image of you in front of the mirror in the morning, wearing your knickers, socks and shoes trying to decided if they match!
Given that what we perceive as "the present" is actually delayed by the length of time it takes the brain to process the nerve impulses, the present is actually the recent past. As you move further away from an event, the speed of light causes "the present" to move further into the past. :wtf: :omg:
"I drink, therefore I am." René Descartes
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peterchen wrote: is a time span identified by the human brains smallest time slice it can assign to a concious thought. So it is totally and utterly a human created and defined thing? It has no basis in reality outside of our minds and is not shared by planets, suns, atoms and pink elephants? Now, if it is the smallest time slice that can be assigned by a conscious thought: Do different people have different lengths of the "present?" i.e. Does a person who can think just that bit faster than me, have a smaller time slices of the present? Do they live in the past and future more than me? ;) peterchen wrote: To comply with a request by Mike Mullikin, the US will be given a break from all my statements for the duration of one week, up to and including July 17th, 2002, 19:05 MESZ Damn, I must have missed that public announcement. Better not post a link I just found... :rolleyes: regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and to be loved in return - Moulin Rouge Alison Pentland wrote: I now have an image of you in front of the mirror in the morning, wearing your knickers, socks and shoes trying to decided if they match!
to make it clearer: my definition of present is "as long as nothing changes". Nothing important for what we are currently* thinking about. The present is subjective, and of course state-dependent. If I think about my meal, future starts after dinner. If I think about the middle ages, "present" spans a few hundred years. *) the "time slice" defines the "current" in the last sentence (so that it doesn't look like I try to explain "present" with "current"). it doesn#t affect the "human present", only how quick it can change. It's a "mechanical" thing, kind of "the current clock cycle of our concious", much smaller than the human "present".
To comply with a request by Mike Mullikin, the US will be given a break from all my statements for the duration of one week, up to and including July 17th, 2002, 19:05 MESZ
[sighist] -
But I think we should consider the "present" not as only a time slice but as a condition...i.e. the "present" consists of what is going on now (for instance, at the present I'm typing this reply) and what is the environment (the lights are on), for instance... Just a thought...
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peterchen wrote: is a time span identified by the human brains smallest time slice it can assign to a concious thought. So it is totally and utterly a human created and defined thing? It has no basis in reality outside of our minds and is not shared by planets, suns, atoms and pink elephants? Now, if it is the smallest time slice that can be assigned by a conscious thought: Do different people have different lengths of the "present?" i.e. Does a person who can think just that bit faster than me, have a smaller time slices of the present? Do they live in the past and future more than me? ;) peterchen wrote: To comply with a request by Mike Mullikin, the US will be given a break from all my statements for the duration of one week, up to and including July 17th, 2002, 19:05 MESZ Damn, I must have missed that public announcement. Better not post a link I just found... :rolleyes: regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and to be loved in return - Moulin Rouge Alison Pentland wrote: I now have an image of you in front of the mirror in the morning, wearing your knickers, socks and shoes trying to decided if they match!
This is surreal, I have just finished reading 'Thief Of Time' by Terry Pratchett and the main character there could slice time smaller than anyone else. I don't think that the present is an concious length of time, the present must tend towards zero time, since anything that has happened will be in the past as soon as it has happened. Paresh Solanki Murphy’s Law (Mathematics): “If mathematically you end up with the incorrect answer, try multiplying by the page number”."
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This is surreal, I have just finished reading 'Thief Of Time' by Terry Pratchett and the main character there could slice time smaller than anyone else. I don't think that the present is an concious length of time, the present must tend towards zero time, since anything that has happened will be in the past as soon as it has happened. Paresh Solanki Murphy’s Law (Mathematics): “If mathematically you end up with the incorrect answer, try multiplying by the page number”."
Paresh Solanki wrote: This is surreal, I have just finished reading 'Thief Of Time' by Terry Pratchett and the main character there could slice time smaller than anyone else. Really? LOL, what a coincidence. I have just finished reading The Truth by the same and am going to go get Thief of Time this Saturday :-D Paresh Solanki wrote: I don't think that the present is an concious length of time, the present must tend towards zero time, since anything that has happened will be in the past as soon as it has happened. So we wrap the present around whatever it is we are doing or thinking about. e.g. I am eating and that is my present. It wraps up from when I started opening my lunch box to when I finish the last mouthful, at which point it gets filed under "my past." So this discussion is in the present. Once we have reached some kind of "it has happened" point it becomes the past. It is all so human, far too created and unreal. I was hoping someone would have show that the present is also embedded in the universe, that particles have some impression of the present. Alas no. Paresh Solanki wrote: the present must tend towards zero time That is what I was thinking, that the present is just a neat concept we evolved to help us think, but that in reality there is no present, just past and future. I saw a book the other day where a scientist trys to explain the concept of nothing. He talks about zero time, null values and the concept of a space of, well, nothing. Hard to get your head around stuff like that when everything we are is something and even thinking about nothing makes it something. regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and to be loved in return - Moulin Rouge Alison Pentland wrote: I now have an image of you in front of the mirror in the morning, wearing your knickers, socks and shoes trying to decided if they match!
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Paresh Solanki wrote: This is surreal, I have just finished reading 'Thief Of Time' by Terry Pratchett and the main character there could slice time smaller than anyone else. Really? LOL, what a coincidence. I have just finished reading The Truth by the same and am going to go get Thief of Time this Saturday :-D Paresh Solanki wrote: I don't think that the present is an concious length of time, the present must tend towards zero time, since anything that has happened will be in the past as soon as it has happened. So we wrap the present around whatever it is we are doing or thinking about. e.g. I am eating and that is my present. It wraps up from when I started opening my lunch box to when I finish the last mouthful, at which point it gets filed under "my past." So this discussion is in the present. Once we have reached some kind of "it has happened" point it becomes the past. It is all so human, far too created and unreal. I was hoping someone would have show that the present is also embedded in the universe, that particles have some impression of the present. Alas no. Paresh Solanki wrote: the present must tend towards zero time That is what I was thinking, that the present is just a neat concept we evolved to help us think, but that in reality there is no present, just past and future. I saw a book the other day where a scientist trys to explain the concept of nothing. He talks about zero time, null values and the concept of a space of, well, nothing. Hard to get your head around stuff like that when everything we are is something and even thinking about nothing makes it something. regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and to be loved in return - Moulin Rouge Alison Pentland wrote: I now have an image of you in front of the mirror in the morning, wearing your knickers, socks and shoes trying to decided if they match!
Paul Watson wrote: Really? LOL, what a coincidence. I have just finished reading The Truth by the same and am going to go get Thief of Time this Saturday Cool. Get it, I really enjoyed the story and it has an interesting twist I found the Vampire doing flash photography hilarious in The Truth, I cracked up each time he took a photo. :-D Future and past do appear to be human concepts, but then we have experiments that show goldfish have a 20 second memory and lab mice can remember paths through mazes and (pavlovs) dogs can be trained to remember certain stimulii will result in a future reward. This tends to imply that some animals at least have a concept of past and future, so is it just a human concept, or just some phenomenon that we have put into words. Paresh Solanki Murphy’s Law (Mathematics): “If mathematically you end up with the incorrect answer, try multiplying by the page number”."
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Paul Watson wrote: Really? LOL, what a coincidence. I have just finished reading The Truth by the same and am going to go get Thief of Time this Saturday Cool. Get it, I really enjoyed the story and it has an interesting twist I found the Vampire doing flash photography hilarious in The Truth, I cracked up each time he took a photo. :-D Future and past do appear to be human concepts, but then we have experiments that show goldfish have a 20 second memory and lab mice can remember paths through mazes and (pavlovs) dogs can be trained to remember certain stimulii will result in a future reward. This tends to imply that some animals at least have a concept of past and future, so is it just a human concept, or just some phenomenon that we have put into words. Paresh Solanki Murphy’s Law (Mathematics): “If mathematically you end up with the incorrect answer, try multiplying by the page number”."
Paresh Solanki wrote: I cracked up each time he took a photo. -ing hilarious Mr. Pin. :laugh: Paresh Solanki wrote: or just some phenomenon that we have put into words. A neccesary phenomenon of evolution to survive? We have evolved this concept of time, past, future, present etc. to better understand and use our universe. That animals also display "understanding" of the present is no shock to me as I still believe we are as animal as the next (but lets not go there shall we.) But I wonder if it is also part of our universe at the physic, space/time level. I wonder how we can even tell if a particle is bound by "the present." Arrrgghh, too much thinking. Back to work now... :-D regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and to be loved in return - Moulin Rouge Alison Pentland wrote: I now have an image of you in front of the mirror in the morning, wearing your knickers, socks and shoes trying to decided if they match!
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Ok so the debate yesterday on how replicating a cat would produce a dead cat got me to thinking about the present. What is it? The past and future are easy enough concepts to grasp, but I cannot get my mind around the present. Even though we bandy the concept around all the time, without thinking much about it I assume. To my understanding as soon as you define a timespan as the present, it becomes the past. Also how small or large is that timespan? A second, a minute a pico-second? A moment? Dictionary.com defines it as: pres·ent1 (prznt) n. A moment or period in time perceptible as intermediate between past and future; now So it is the period between our past and our future. Not much help really is it? And if you do not feel like talking about past, present and future... "The challenge of statesmanship is to have the vision to dream of a better, safer world and the courage, persistence and patience to turn that dream into reality." - Ronald Reagan Doesn't it seem as though the political system denies the ability to turn a dream into a reality? 4 years and then you are out unless you have done good and you are re-elected. But to do real good you need time, of which 4 years is not enough. regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and to be loved in return - Moulin Rouge Alison Pentland wrote: I now have an image of you in front of the mirror in the morning, wearing your knickers, socks and shoes trying to decided if they match!
I think the proper way to consider it is that we move through the dimension of time at the speed of light. "Now" is about as meaningful as "here" is when you are moving down a highway in a car. In a moving car you are never really "here". "Here" and "now" are continuously redefined - hence the concept of motion, through space or time. Given the limitation of having only two functional neurons, my understanding of this is all quite basic. However, I do believe that the only way you could ever experience a stable "now" is if you were to accelerate to the speed of light along a dimension other than the dimension of time. In that way, your travel through time would stop and you would be at a permanent "now", just as if you stopped all movement through the three known dimensions of space to experience the concept of "here". "Humans: The final chapter in the evolution of rats"
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Ok so the debate yesterday on how replicating a cat would produce a dead cat got me to thinking about the present. What is it? The past and future are easy enough concepts to grasp, but I cannot get my mind around the present. Even though we bandy the concept around all the time, without thinking much about it I assume. To my understanding as soon as you define a timespan as the present, it becomes the past. Also how small or large is that timespan? A second, a minute a pico-second? A moment? Dictionary.com defines it as: pres·ent1 (prznt) n. A moment or period in time perceptible as intermediate between past and future; now So it is the period between our past and our future. Not much help really is it? And if you do not feel like talking about past, present and future... "The challenge of statesmanship is to have the vision to dream of a better, safer world and the courage, persistence and patience to turn that dream into reality." - Ronald Reagan Doesn't it seem as though the political system denies the ability to turn a dream into a reality? 4 years and then you are out unless you have done good and you are re-elected. But to do real good you need time, of which 4 years is not enough. regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and to be loved in return - Moulin Rouge Alison Pentland wrote: I now have an image of you in front of the mirror in the morning, wearing your knickers, socks and shoes trying to decided if they match!
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This is surreal, I have just finished reading 'Thief Of Time' by Terry Pratchett and the main character there could slice time smaller than anyone else. I don't think that the present is an concious length of time, the present must tend towards zero time, since anything that has happened will be in the past as soon as it has happened. Paresh Solanki Murphy’s Law (Mathematics): “If mathematically you end up with the incorrect answer, try multiplying by the page number”."
Paresh Solanki wrote: This is surreal, I have just finished reading 'Thief Of Time' by Terry Pratchett This is surreeeaaal, I'm half way through 'Thief of Time' right now ! And I've just finished 'The Truth'. :omg: I love Terry Pratchett, especially Corporal Nobbs & Sargeant Colon of the watch, and the witch Granny Weatherwax, her 'headology' approach to life is great :-D. Paresh Solanki wrote: I don't think that the present is an concious length of time, the present must tend towards zero time I think you've got it dead right here. 'The Present' is infinitely small. :) Ali
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Paresh Solanki wrote: This is surreal, I have just finished reading 'Thief Of Time' by Terry Pratchett and the main character there could slice time smaller than anyone else. Really? LOL, what a coincidence. I have just finished reading The Truth by the same and am going to go get Thief of Time this Saturday :-D Paresh Solanki wrote: I don't think that the present is an concious length of time, the present must tend towards zero time, since anything that has happened will be in the past as soon as it has happened. So we wrap the present around whatever it is we are doing or thinking about. e.g. I am eating and that is my present. It wraps up from when I started opening my lunch box to when I finish the last mouthful, at which point it gets filed under "my past." So this discussion is in the present. Once we have reached some kind of "it has happened" point it becomes the past. It is all so human, far too created and unreal. I was hoping someone would have show that the present is also embedded in the universe, that particles have some impression of the present. Alas no. Paresh Solanki wrote: the present must tend towards zero time That is what I was thinking, that the present is just a neat concept we evolved to help us think, but that in reality there is no present, just past and future. I saw a book the other day where a scientist trys to explain the concept of nothing. He talks about zero time, null values and the concept of a space of, well, nothing. Hard to get your head around stuff like that when everything we are is something and even thinking about nothing makes it something. regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and to be loved in return - Moulin Rouge Alison Pentland wrote: I now have an image of you in front of the mirror in the morning, wearing your knickers, socks and shoes trying to decided if they match!
Just had to point out that I'm half way through 'Thief if Time' right now ! And I've just finished 'The Truth'. :omg: :omg: :omg: Oh yeah, nice sig too :-O Ali
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Ok so the debate yesterday on how replicating a cat would produce a dead cat got me to thinking about the present. What is it? The past and future are easy enough concepts to grasp, but I cannot get my mind around the present. Even though we bandy the concept around all the time, without thinking much about it I assume. To my understanding as soon as you define a timespan as the present, it becomes the past. Also how small or large is that timespan? A second, a minute a pico-second? A moment? Dictionary.com defines it as: pres·ent1 (prznt) n. A moment or period in time perceptible as intermediate between past and future; now So it is the period between our past and our future. Not much help really is it? And if you do not feel like talking about past, present and future... "The challenge of statesmanship is to have the vision to dream of a better, safer world and the courage, persistence and patience to turn that dream into reality." - Ronald Reagan Doesn't it seem as though the political system denies the ability to turn a dream into a reality? 4 years and then you are out unless you have done good and you are re-elected. But to do real good you need time, of which 4 years is not enough. regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and to be loved in return - Moulin Rouge Alison Pentland wrote: I now have an image of you in front of the mirror in the morning, wearing your knickers, socks and shoes trying to decided if they match!
The present is that which gives you the memories of the past that you look forward to reminiscing about in the future. The present is either a nothing-kth - the indivisible point when the future becomes the past, or the the present is your entire life. We don't live in the past, or the present (at least we shouldn't) - we live in the here and now. The present is a continuum of change where we watch, from our vantage point of 'I' the world changing and growing and ageing around us. cheers, Chris Maunder
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Paresh Solanki wrote: This is surreal, I have just finished reading 'Thief Of Time' by Terry Pratchett This is surreeeaaal, I'm half way through 'Thief of Time' right now ! And I've just finished 'The Truth'. :omg: I love Terry Pratchett, especially Corporal Nobbs & Sargeant Colon of the watch, and the witch Granny Weatherwax, her 'headology' approach to life is great :-D. Paresh Solanki wrote: I don't think that the present is an concious length of time, the present must tend towards zero time I think you've got it dead right here. 'The Present' is infinitely small. :) Ali
Alison Pentland wrote: 'The Present' is infinitely small. Ahh, well there is the nugget of my problem. When they declared the Atom the building block of everything they thought they were right. Then someone showed that in fact an Atom is made up of smaller building blocks. At that point they thought that was as far as it went and that they had reached the ultimate "particle." Then someone discovered quarks and it's ilk. From that history I came to believe that everything is made up of something else, and that it never really stops. A quark is also made up of something surely? And whatever makes up a quark, is also made up of something else. And so on and so on. So infinitely small seems like a cop-out to me. As soon as you reach what we think is the smallest measure of the present, I am pretty sure we will find something smaller a year or two down the line. And if the present is infinitley small, that as we inspect it, it recedes further from us, what use is it to us? Ahh to have a mind and no answers! :-D Alison Pentland wrote: And I've just finished 'The Truth' -ing funny book. And I am going to pick up Thief of Time this Saturday. What a small world we live in! regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and to be loved in return - Moulin Rouge Alison Pentland wrote: I now have an image of you in front of the mirror in the morning, wearing your knickers, socks and shoes trying to decided if they match!
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I think the proper way to consider it is that we move through the dimension of time at the speed of light. "Now" is about as meaningful as "here" is when you are moving down a highway in a car. In a moving car you are never really "here". "Here" and "now" are continuously redefined - hence the concept of motion, through space or time. Given the limitation of having only two functional neurons, my understanding of this is all quite basic. However, I do believe that the only way you could ever experience a stable "now" is if you were to accelerate to the speed of light along a dimension other than the dimension of time. In that way, your travel through time would stop and you would be at a permanent "now", just as if you stopped all movement through the three known dimensions of space to experience the concept of "here". "Humans: The final chapter in the evolution of rats"
Reverend Stan wrote: In that way, your travel through time would stop and you would be at a permanent "now", But only relative to everything else, right? You yourself would still be experiencing time passage and therefore a past and future, wouldn't you? Is time really not just the view of the difference between one point and the next? Einstein was a great philospher! :-D And you, Reverand Stan, astound me as always. From this post you should tag on a Prof. to your name :) Reverend Stan wrote: In a moving car you are never really "here". "Here" and "now" are continuously redefined - hence the concept of motion, through space or time. Somehow the bullet-time sequences in The Matrix come to mind as I read that. Just imagining your viewpoint of a car suddenly stopping and swivelling around it, trying to define where "here" is for it and where it is at present (which changes for you as you swivel around it, but not for the car?) regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and to be loved in return - Moulin Rouge Alison Pentland wrote: I now have an image of you in front of the mirror in the morning, wearing your knickers, socks and shoes trying to decided if they match!
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The present is that which gives you the memories of the past that you look forward to reminiscing about in the future. The present is either a nothing-kth - the indivisible point when the future becomes the past, or the the present is your entire life. We don't live in the past, or the present (at least we shouldn't) - we live in the here and now. The present is a continuum of change where we watch, from our vantage point of 'I' the world changing and growing and ageing around us. cheers, Chris Maunder
Chris Maunder wrote: or the the present is your entire life So it is all relative or rather individual points of view? No two can share the same present? Chris Maunder wrote: The present is a continuum of change where we watch, from our vantage point of 'I' the world changing and growing and ageing around us. Sounds very lonely, doesn't it. regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and to be loved in return - Moulin Rouge Alison Pentland wrote: I now have an image of you in front of the mirror in the morning, wearing your knickers, socks and shoes trying to decided if they match!
