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Is the Past Real?
October 14, 2022 at 11:36 pm
Personally, I ponder the nature of time often and yet I really don't have a firm position. My symathies lie with presentism because I feel the past is truly gone and to the extent it exists it is in presents ghosts. Then as time goes on those ghosts fade while the set of possible paths that could have led to this moment increases. Then I think, certainly there is the way things actually happened so in some sense the past exists in some immutable way...from a god's eye view so to speak...regardless of whether from an objective reality (i.e. there are past objects) or an Akashic record.
Anyways, I was just curious what others thought about time.
<insert profound quote here>
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RE: Is the Past Real?
October 14, 2022 at 11:59 pm
If prior copulation had not occurred, I would not have an opinion on this matter. Much of the past is real. People's memories of the past are based on what was real, but colered with feelings, cultural filters, and the spectrum of mental health. In those respects, the past is not real. Even so, that unreal past, spoken by elders, takes life in our thoughts, and in doing so, becomes real. Thus, determining which is or isn't requires careful consideration.
It's a case by case way of thinking, not an ideology to adopt.
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RE: Is the Past Real?
October 15, 2022 at 3:08 am
I'm not sure whether the past is real. I AM sure that it doesn't matter whether the past is real.
Boru
‘I can’t be having with this.’ - Esmeralda Weatherwax
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RE: Is the Past Real?
October 15, 2022 at 8:36 am
Yes. Next stupid question please.
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RE: Is the Past Real?
October 15, 2022 at 9:38 am
Memory seems to require and encode temporal activity, transitions rather than static scenes. That seems to suggest memory depends upon a real past.
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RE: Is the Past Real?
October 15, 2022 at 9:46 am
Of course, memories can be false.
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RE: Is the Past Real?
October 15, 2022 at 10:31 am
(This post was last modified: October 15, 2022 at 11:44 am by Anomalocaris.)
Past is as real as its effects on the present. You can consider it to be unreal if you don’t care for insight into the present it offers through effects on the present you can deduce but as yet have not directly observed.
You can also consider it unreal if you don’t care to deduced what a future born of the present should look based on what the present born of the past actually looks like.
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RE: Is the Past Real?
October 15, 2022 at 11:05 am
(October 15, 2022 at 8:01 am)Jehanne Wrote: (October 15, 2022 at 3:08 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: I'm not sure whether the past is real. I AM sure that it doesn't matter whether the past is real.
Boru
Supernova explosions are routinely observed in distant galaxies billions of light years away. Were those stars real?
Again - it doesn’t matter.
Boru
‘I can’t be having with this.’ - Esmeralda Weatherwax