Do you believe in the present?

[restin]

the present is already the past by the time you experience it as the present

That's probably the big point in meditation, selftraining etc.

 

[Shamanita]

the present is already the past by the time you experience it as the present

indeed! Our consciousness lags behind reality.

 

[greenwizard]

the point of the whole «awareness» is in fact, living in the present moment.


and that is the reason it is hard to achieve

 

[greenwizard]

the point of the whole «awareness» is in fact, living in the present moment.


and that is the reason it is hard to achieve

 

[st.bot.32]

Reminds me of my first mushroom trip.

I was with friends. The present became a distant, warm memory: I felt as if I were an old man, looking back at the Now and my friends through the fog of decades of memory. I felt nostalgia, and realized how precious this moment was. After, I realized how much I had been living my life for the future, and how much my religious upbringing had been responsible for this: always focusing my thoughts on living for some distant future reward, I had been robbing myself of the here and now. Such a bittersweet experience, but so wonderful and healing. One of the best trips of my life.

 

[misfit]

Rudy's on a train to nowhere, halfway down the line
He don't wanna get there, but he needs time
He ain't sophisticated, nor well-educated
After all the hours he wasted, still he needs time.
He needs time - he needs time for livin',
He needs time - for someone just to see him.
He ain't had no lovin'
For no reason or rhyme
And the whole world's above him.
Well it's not as though he's fat-
No there's more to it than that-
See he tried to play it cool-
Wouldn't be nobodys fool.

Rudy thought that all good things comes to those that wait
But recently he could see that it may come too late.

All through your life, all through the years
Nobody loved, nobody cared.
So dim the light, dark are your fears
Try as I might, I can't hold back the tears
How can you live without love, it's not fair?
Someone said give but I just didn't care. I didn't dare, I didn't dare What good advice are you waiting to hear?
Hearing's alright for them that's all there
You'd better gain control now
You'd better show'em all now
You'd better make or break now
You'd better give and take now
You'll have to push and shove now
You'll have to find some love now
You'd better gain control now.
Now he's just come out the movie.
Numb of all the pain,
Sad but in a while he'll soon be
back on his train...

-Supertramp

 

[st.bot.32]

classic tune

 

[maxfreakout]

Rudy Rucker's model of the 4-dimensional block universe explains neatly what time is, it is a spatial dimension just like length, width and depth

i think of life as a large number of frozen-solid statues of myself, arranged in a row along the time axis, each one incrementally different from the two either side of it like an animation. My entire life from birth to death consists of this series of statues.

Each statue perceives itself as being 'the present moment'

so the 'flow' of time is an illusion (so is movement and change), nothing is really flowing or moving or changing, because each me-statue is frozen-solid, and time is therefore not infinitely divisible, since there is a finite number of statues

the entire statue-series exists forever in eternity, so every present moment is actually eternity, there is no such thing as 'THIS' present-moment, really every present moment (ie every me-statue) is the same eternal moment

 

[tryptonaut]

I have seen a documentary once where they conducted an experiment about free will that has a connection with the past/present paradox.

The conclusion of the scientists was that at the time when the brain consciously "decides" to move your hand (that is the moment when you think "I decide") the impulse to move the hand has already been given.
It means that what the conscious mind thinks is the present is already the past - but because it thinks it is the present you also think you consciously decide everything, while actually your unconscious has decided for you before you even noticed... and then it also fools you into thinking you made a conscious decision.

 

[GOD]

I`ve seen several documentrys that explained that to .

 

[greenwizard]

and you can interpret light as a past moment, because by the time a light ray arrives to your eyes, another light ray has arrived to whatever you are looking at, and so what you see is already part of,, the past!






maxfreakout. i conquer with you statue theory , I have considered it myself. but for every moment theres a statue. and moments are infinite. so infinite statues??

 

[maxfreakout]

maxfreakout. i conquer with you statue theory , I have considered it myself. but for every moment theres a statue. and moments are infinite. so infinite statues??

why do you think that "moments are infinite"?

if you posit an infinite number of statues, then you run into Zeno's paradoxes

 

[greenwizard]

I think we can all agree that the present moment is a flow.


time traveling to me, but, still, it just bothers me that we can divide a moment to infinity, and being stuck on a zeno paradox. but even Zeno knew the arrow would get to its destiny

 

[grifter7]

According to quantum theory, the shortest moment of time that can exist is known as Planck time, or 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 second.
Science wins
Also we can't even take in every picture we see infact when we move our eyes too the side everything goes black for a split second cos the movement would make us sick and overwhelm our brains we can't exist in the flow of time we just take snippets of it.

 

[greenwizard]

According to quantum theory, the shortest moment of time that can exist is known as Planck time, or 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 second.
Science wins

wow, you saved the day man

 

[Crimzen]

but what happens when you have an extra zero before the 1? i dont know why that cant be possible


The past has come and gone and no longer exists, so the past is nothing
The present passes too quickly to actually perceive, there is no moment that is the present as once you think its the present its already the past and gone, so the present is nothing
the future is yet to happen and may not ever happen and has never existed, so the future is nothing

therefore time doesnt exist?

 

[Mr.Smith]

.

 

[Meduzz]

Also another limitation could be the "frame rate" of the human perception system, if there is one.

 

[greenwizard]

hum I think human frame rate is very irrelevant.

like I mentioned earlier on the post. the present flux is different ( faster or slower relatively to our perception) in any speed you are travelling trough space.

there was an astronaut who theoretically traveled forward to the future, since he was in space for many time and traveled in a space ship which speed was greater than the rotation speed of earth, if I am not mistaken.


so, time is just a human perception. which can be different and be bent.

 

[Forkbender]

If the present doesn't exist, what divides the past from the future?