[Serious] Is the Past Real?

[The Grand Nudger]

It seems implausible that any form of presentism could support a moral theory based on future consequences. As for eternalism (whether Calvinistic or Einstienian), it has its own moral problems since chosen consequences are fated so-to-speak.

Since there seems to be a debate whether presentism or eternalism is the case, would cruelty be wrong in a presentialist universe and acceptable in an eternalist universe, or vice versa, particularly when the inhabitants of each universe do not know the fundamental structure of their own reality?

Another set of questions where the tense may not be relevant, imo.  Wrong -at some time- but not at another implies that things aren't really wrong anyway.  That timing, rather than something about an act itself or the moral agent or the moral agents society, is the wrongmaker.  Unlikely to match our moral intuitions.

It's not, mind you, because I think we can't come up with examples where we might say a thing was good here and bad there (or neutral at some other point, a wash) but that I don't think that it's going to be the time, accurately and specifically, that we refer to for any difference. More like changes in circumstance, which can happen with time, but don't always happen with time.

[LinuxGal]

Since there seems to be a debate whether presentism or eternalism is the case, would cruelty be wrong in a presentialist universe and acceptable in an eternalist universe, or vice versa, particularly when the inhabitants of each universe do not know the fundamental structure of their own reality?

Another set of questions where the tense may not be relevant, imo.  Wrong -at some time- but not at another implies that things aren't really wrong anyway.  That timing, rather than something about an act itself or the moral agent or the moral agents society, is the wrongmaker.  Unlikely to match our moral intuitions.

It's not, mind you, because I think we can't come up with examples where we might say a thing was good here and bad there (or neutral at some other point, a wash) but that I don't think that it's going to be the time, accurately and specifically, that we refer to for any difference.  More like changes in circumstance, which can happen with time, but don't always happen with time.

We are told the Ten Commandments are the bedrock foundation of morality, and indeed it's always wrong to steal, or to kill, but one of the commandments also says it is wrong to work on a certain day, but not wrong to work on other days, and it's hard to see the basis of that moral imperative if not simply divine whim.

[The Grand Nudger]

Sure, we're told many things, but..I think which of the two kinds of universes or existences (that we're considering) we live in has little if anything to do with right or wrong. That it isn't on the basis of either, or their assumption, that we hang our moral intuitions. Case in point, a morality based on a gods whim is not a morality in which tense or time is the good or bad maker. Where the universe must be either presentist or eternalist. Irrelevant. A god's whim would be all that were relevant. Positing some necessity of one or the other in that case is both linguistically and conceptually bankrupt.

[Silver]

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.

Did you post this in the past, just now, or have you yet to post it?

[emjay]

I'm of the opinion that what we do is recorded in a timeline for forever and If we had a time machine we could go back and see it. Which means my love for my husband will never die. It will always exist and if there is a ghostly afterlife maybe I can go back and bask in that love forever.

Good to see you Luckie... it's been a long time. Lovely sentiment too

[polymath257]

[Seriously] Last night you had a date and then sex with the love of your life. Last night is in the past. You remember it, she remembers it - that makes it real. Anything is real for as long as there's someone left to remember it.

@polymath257 gave a Kudos to this post but not to mine mentioning the B-theory of time?  What gives??

Frankly, both the A and B theories of time seem to miss the point. I think B is much closer to reality, but there *is* a *local* definition of 'past', 'present' and 'future' and they do have legitimate meanings.

[Jehanne]

An example of a single supernova that is occurring on different "days":



One supernova at 3 different times in cosmic history

[LinuxGal]

Yes, I do agree that parsing out what constitutes the present subjectively from within the universe has value.  I am curious about time at the cosmic level. Does the universe, as a whole have multiple states? If space-time is entirely within the universe, then it would seem it could not have multiple states or change.

Everett's relative state formulation of quantum mechanics can't deal with Schrodinger's damn cat. Instead of one world where it's dead and one world where it's alive, there's only one world where it's alive until the experiment is carried out nine times.

[Angrboda]

[Objectivist]

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.

I too am interested in what time is and find it very hard to think about.  I remember when I was a little kid I used to watch Captain Kangaroo in the mornings and I always loved the segment where they played the film backward and the toothpaste would go back into the tube and the egg would unscramble.  I understand sort of why that can't happen in real life.  I have a basic understanding of entropy.   I think the thing to say is that the past was real when it was the present but I don't know if I'm still watching Captain Kangaroo in the past.  

 I know the present is real and that the past was once the present and the future will be the present when it gets here if that makes any sense.