• Question: Does present and future exist? I ask for present because anything I see is not the instantly observed because light even takes some time to reach into my pupil, so am I still in the past? And for future because I know I am going to submit this question, it means that the future is definite? And I don’t ask for the past because I remember it, it is key framed, so I can run the video clip backward.

    Asked by waveicle to Adam, Geoff, Rob, Sheila, Suzie on 23 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Adam Tuff

      Adam Tuff answered on 23 Mar 2011:

      Very introspective question! My first thought was presence must exist in some form or another – even if just in ourselves…but where is out conciousness? And what is the lag between input and to our conciousness and our understanding of it? That question I am not armed to answer I don’t think…I’m going to ask this to my colleagues on my coffee break! The definite nature of our future is another question too – it was thought that if you knew everything about everything at one point in time, you can predict it’s motion in the future. However, this goes against chaos theory, which says that in part there must be an element of unpredictability. I think time is definite – but the definition of the present is very subjective. Very philosophical!

    • Photo: Suzie Sheehy

      Suzie Sheehy answered on 23 Mar 2011:

      Woah, to be honest this is quite a philosophical question and one that my brain can’t cope with after not enough sleep last night! Yes the present and future exist in a timeline but the events that happen (in the future) are not pre-determined as far as I know! You can stop yourself from submitting a question. And the present does exist, for a fleeting moment!

    • Photo: Robert Simpson

      Robert Simpson answered on 23 Mar 2011:

      It may be the immediate future and past are easy to predict or even indistinguishable from each other in our minds, but the distant future and past are quite inaccessible to us. Does the present really exist either? What you perceive as reality is merely the interpretation of the world as processed by your senses and brain – spooky, right.

    • Photo: Sheila Kanani

      Sheila Kanani answered on 23 Mar 2011:

      I like this question. I guess it depends how you define present and future, because it is all relative really. Can I think about it a little bit longer?

Comments

  • Photo: waveicle

    waveicle commented on :

    @Suzie, as you said that “You can stop yourself from submitting a question”, but I didn’t because it had to be sumbitted, meaning its definite and we don’t have free will. What do you think of that?

    Any input would be appreciated!