[Serious] Is the Past Real?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

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 not directly observe.   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.

It’s simply the gnome-in-the-garden problem from another angle:

There is a ceramic gnome in my garden. Possible explanations for its presence include 1) I placed it there, 2) someone else placed it there, 3) it has always been there, 4) it is a self-creating gnome that reestablishes itself instant by instant, 5) and so on. Which of these explanations is ‘real’ doesn’t alter the presence of the gnome.

It doesn’t matter.

Boru

[Jehanne]

Supernova explosions are routinely observed in distant galaxies billions of light years away.  Were those stars real?

Again - it doesn’t matter.

Boru

Unless the burst (say, from a hypernova) sterilizes the Earth, or, a black hole is careening through space and passes through our Solar System. Many thousands of human beings will due from cancer this year, the sole result of a chance encounter with a cosmic ray that originated in a supernova that occurred long, long ago in a galaxy that was far, far away.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Again - it doesn’t matter.

Boru

Unless the burst (say, from a hypernova) sterilizes the Earth, or, a black hole is careening through space and passes through our Solar System.  Many thousands of human beings will due from cancer this year, the sole result of a chance encounter with a cosmic ray that originated in a supernova that occurred long, long ago in a galaxy that was far, far away.

The outcome is the same whether or not those scenarios are the result of something that happened in a ‘real’ past.

If the we-are-living-in-a-SIM-universe crowd are right (another proposition the truth or falsity of which doesn’t matter), then it’s perfectly plausible that our entire existence is re-created instant by instant and that the terms ‘past’ and ‘future’ are meaningless.

Boru

[Anomalocaris]

I guess to some people that fact that the past is infinitely more real than god himself does not make it real enough.

I can actually respect that point of view.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

*shrug* FWIW, I suspect that the past is real, I just don’t see that it makes any difference one way or the other.

Boru

[Jehanne]

Unless the burst (say, from a hypernova) sterilizes the Earth, or, a black hole is careening through space and passes through our Solar System.  Many thousands of human beings will due from cancer this year, the sole result of a chance encounter with a cosmic ray that originated in a supernova that occurred long, long ago in a galaxy that was far, far away.

The outcome is the same whether or not those scenarios are the result of something that happened in a ‘real’ past.

If the we-are-living-in-a-SIM-universe crowd are right (another proposition the truth or falsity of which doesn’t matter), then it’s perfectly plausible that our entire existence is re-created instant by instant and that the terms ‘past’ and ‘future’ are meaningless.

Boru

Last Thursdayism may, in fact, be real (at least until Wednesday), but scientific models have made (and, continue to make) testable predictions about past events.  The hypothesis that we live in some sort of simulation, hologram or "God did it" has not yet led to any testable, falsifiable predictions.

[Jehanne]

Past events are real, at least as of last Sunday, October 9th:

APOD -- October 15, 2022

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

The outcome is the same whether or not those scenarios are the result of something that happened in a ‘real’ past.

If the we-are-living-in-a-SIM-universe crowd are right (another proposition the truth or falsity of which doesn’t matter), then it’s perfectly plausible that our entire existence is re-created instant by instant and that the terms ‘past’ and ‘future’ are meaningless.

Boru

Last Thursdayism may, in fact, be real (at least until Wednesday), but scientific models have made (and, continue to make) testable predictions about past events.  The hypothesis that we live in some sort of simulation, hologram or "God did it" has not yet led to any testable, falsifiable predictions.

Fine by me, since I’m not supporting either last Thursdayism or a simulation hypothesis.

Boru

[Gwaithmir]

About three weeks ago I suffered a Vietnam flashback, the first I've had in over a decade. The past is terrifyingly real to me. 

[emjay]

It's an interesting question, that seems like it may (or may not... if I'm missing the intended point, which is often the case, sadly) relate to some of the sorts of questions that play on my mind sometimes, namely trying to quantify the value of my life, or life in general. Something very hard to do when life is a process; a series of moments, each fading into the next. These thoughts aren't very coherent I admit, but they do nonetheless play on my mind and tie me in knots when I think about them. Just how to place value on... or evaluate/analyse... previous moments, when only the present moment is real (or is subjectively real), and will only be so until briefly until it becomes the past. Those previous moments can be said to be formative, or causal to different degrees, in producing the present moment, whether for better or for worse, but beyond that I have difficulty trying to find a useful way of thinking about them, but not for want of trying. Sorry if this is a bit rambly and/or incoherent... that's just how this subject is in my head.