[Serious] Is the Past Real?

[Neo-Scholastic]

In your opinion, is it any more problematic than an eteranalist causality?

I don't really have an opinion. I must confess that I feel a bit out of my depth here.

I am geniuinely interested in your opinion even if you have only pondered theories of time in passing. You think for yourself, which I respect.

The tension btwn eternalism presentism seems similar to the tension between Parmenides and Heraclitus. Eternalism seems very static in the way that Parmenides's philosophy depicts reality. As Yogi Bera might have said... nothing happens when everything happens at once. IMHO it seems odd to talk about causal sequences in an eternal now that encompases all moments of time.

I have noticed those contributors that reference physics (general relativity, in particular) are focusing on the relations between events within the universe. May I suggest to them a more truly universal perpective, i.e. that the universe itself has a history. Taken as a whole what is going on do you thin? Does it go from state A to state B to state C...and so on with each new state annihilating the previous one or is it a Belacqua suggested all possible state (A,B,C...) have equal ontological status and the arrow of time is an illusion?

Jeananne and Helios, I pity you both for your inability to see past for your own contempt. Theologically, eternalism comports better with theism than presentism, the position I have chosen to explore.