RE: Is the Past Real?
October 15, 2022 at 5:58 pm
(This post was last modified: October 15, 2022 at 6:18 pm by Anomalocaris.)
It seems to me the question of “is the past real” is nonsensical. Real compared to what? The present?
There is no qualitative distinction between what we perceive as the present, and the past. All that we perceive as the present are merely information about things which occurred in the past, whether that information is a memory creates some time ago and recalled now, sensation of touching a hot stove that took several tenths of seconds to reach our brain through the nerve endings and spinal cord and become register in our minds, news reports several hours out of date, history texts several centuries out of date, or a supernova whose light look a billion years to reach us only now.
All that is so called present is nothing more than arrival of information about the past.
There is no qualitative distinction between what we perceive as the present, and the past. All that we perceive as the present are merely information about things which occurred in the past, whether that information is a memory creates some time ago and recalled now, sensation of touching a hot stove that took several tenths of seconds to reach our brain through the nerve endings and spinal cord and become register in our minds, news reports several hours out of date, history texts several centuries out of date, or a supernova whose light look a billion years to reach us only now.
All that is so called present is nothing more than arrival of information about the past.
