[Serious] Is the Past Real?

[arewethereyet]

On a personal note, I made a promise to my father that can only be fulfilled after he passes. And while I fully intend to honor that promise am I in truth so obligated?

It took years to fulfill my father's last wishes, but it was finally done a couple of years ago.   He didn't ask for much.  It seemed the least we kids could do, though my brother wasn't involved.  My sister and I are content that it's a done deal.  

I suppose it depends on how you feel about keeping promises.

[emjay]

On a personal note, I made a promise to my father that can only be fulfilled after he passes. And while I fully intend to honor that promise am I in truth so obligated?

Mentally we definitely have, or often try to maintain, a connection to the past, no matter how rational or not that may be. For instance there is perhaps no rational reason why we need graves for our passed loved ones, but there is certainly an emotional one... just trying to maintain some sort of link with that past. And to go and talk to a grave of a passed loved one is again perhaps not rational, but it can still be emotionally comforting. So as to the philosophy of it... your questions in this thread and above... that's still something to think on... but I can certainly understand the emotional side of it, and why even if there is no philosophical obligation (not going either way on that), there may still feel like there's an emotional one.

[polymath257]

On a personal note, I made a promise to my father that can only be fulfilled after he passes. And while I fully intend to honor that promise am I in truth so obligated?

That solely depends on your value system. You choose your value system and then figure out what you are obligated to do.

[Mister Agenda]

Breaking promises makes it harder to maintain an image of oneself as a person of integrity...because it shows a lack of integrity. In most people, that leads to guilt. Guilt is unpleasant. Keeping a promise to a dead person helps you avoid guilt and shame in the present. It's not about what you owe to the dead, it's about whether you value keeping promises.

[Jehanne]

On a personal note, I made a promise to my father that can only be fulfilled after he passes. And while I fully intend to honor that promise am I in truth so obligated?

That solely depends on your value system. You choose your value system and then figure out what you are obligated to do.

Which resulted in a long-running family feud:

Wikipedia -- Hatfield–McCoy feud

[The Grand Nudger]

It seems as though some value systems are more or less suited to producing good outcomes. One does wonder how a value system that doesn't include keeping promises would be suitable for the organization of a society. It seriously impacts trade, for example, if agreements cannot be binding. If I purchase a herd of cattle from a man who dies and pay in installments, am I free of my burden if he dies after the first installment..and..if so, might that compel me to engineer his death? Or, in a society where such agreements are not binding (life and death utterly irrelevant), and so we all insist on upfront lump sum payments, what is the size of that burden to the flow of capital and what costs does it incur on society?

[Angrboda]

On a personal note, I made a promise to my father that can only be fulfilled after he passes. And while I fully intend to honor that promise am I in truth so obligated?

Would you feel any differently about your promise if the past didn't exist? I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the whole question. If the only thing that is real is the present moment, then yes, past becomes moot, but then so does the future, as well as the present. It's not like we can, in the present, decide to act a certain way in the future because our doing so doesn't appear to imply anything with regard to what happens in the future. Our decisions might be realized, but then they might not. When we get to that future time, the past in which we made a decision is no longer real and so what effect can it have? I think I'm just not understanding this whole conversation. Words like 'real', 'exists', 'past', 'present', and so on are doing a lot of heavy lifting, but it's not clear what they should be doing.

[Neo-Scholastic]

On a personal note, I made a promise to my father that can only be fulfilled after he passes. And while I fully intend to honor that promise am I in truth so obligated?

That solely depends on your value system. You choose your value system and then figure out what you are obligated to do.

And presumably what one considers real has bearing on one's value system. Not even remotely suggesting that I have any answers. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the ontological status of the past and/or future somehow matters.

[polymath257]

That solely depends on your value system. You choose your value system and then figure out what you are obligated to do.

And presumably what one considers real has bearing on one's value system. Not even remotely suggesting that I have any answers. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the ontological status of the past and/or future somehow matters.

I would say that what you think is real will have an effect on how you apply the value system. I'm not too concerned about killing Sherlock Holmes when I close the book I am reading.

[The Grand Nudger]

That solely depends on your value system. You choose your value system and then figure out what you are obligated to do.

And presumably what one considers real has bearing on one's value system. Not even remotely suggesting that I have any answers. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the ontological status of the past and/or future somehow matters.

But does it matter to whether or not you believe there is a moral obligation to keep a promise?  Such that an answer to those questions has an effect?  Even if we assumed that only the present is real, and that we live our lives, practically, entirely in a present moment - do you presently believe that there is a moral obligation to keep our word?

Break your word now, break your word later, ultimately, the date of when you break your word is immaterial to whether or not that's a bad thing.