Here's a puzzle that I want you all to consider:
(at least, I find it puzzling, or at least worthy of consideration and much thought...)
I've read Brian Greene's two books, and looked around a bit more, and from what I've read (feel free to help me out here and research this yourself; I'm open to correction) quantum physicists seem to mostly believe that the past is real, as real as the present is. That's what the math indicates, and they don't seem to have too much of a problem with it.
Can I humbly ask you to digest that for a minute?
Can that be true? Can you accept that to be true? What does it mean if that is true?
If the past is as real as the present, even if we can never go back in time and visit the past, it means that in our personal pasts, all the things we remember about our pasts (plus all the things we don't remember) are still "out there" hanging in space as it were, being REAL.
If the past is real, as real as the present is, then our personal pasts are still real.
Pick a memory, say your favorite one, if one such exists.
Somewhere "out there" you are living that moment. Now. (Your "now," in that moment)
That first kiss? You're still kissing it.
I'm being serious here.
Think about it.
What this means is that, if you could remember the past *perfectly,* then you would not be able to differentiate that perfect memory of the past, from the present. It would all blend.
The fault lies not in reality, but in our memories. If our memories were perfect, we would experience both the past and the present, as the *now.*
This is what the statement "The past is still real, as real as the present" means. These are the implications.
If the past is all real, all still real, all still as real as the present is, then take the total mass of this universe, and multiply it by every moment, every microsecond, every Planck Time micromeasure of time, and *all of that, taken together, exists NOW.*
If the past is all real, as real as the present, if you really think about it, and then think some more, and then really, REALLY think about it...
The only logical conclusion is that all of reality is thought. Consciousness. For nothing that we consider *real* could possibly be so malleable, versatile, and re-creatable over and over again, from microsecond to microsecond, as to produce a reality in which all moments, all micro-moments, every single thing that ever has happened, co-exists somehow in some universal "now." Only undifferentiated pure consciousness could possibly accomplish something like that.
Saint Brian has spoken.
(at least, I find it puzzling, or at least worthy of consideration and much thought...)
I've read Brian Greene's two books, and looked around a bit more, and from what I've read (feel free to help me out here and research this yourself; I'm open to correction) quantum physicists seem to mostly believe that the past is real, as real as the present is. That's what the math indicates, and they don't seem to have too much of a problem with it.
Can I humbly ask you to digest that for a minute?
Can that be true? Can you accept that to be true? What does it mean if that is true?
If the past is as real as the present, even if we can never go back in time and visit the past, it means that in our personal pasts, all the things we remember about our pasts (plus all the things we don't remember) are still "out there" hanging in space as it were, being REAL.
If the past is real, as real as the present is, then our personal pasts are still real.
Pick a memory, say your favorite one, if one such exists.
Somewhere "out there" you are living that moment. Now. (Your "now," in that moment)
That first kiss? You're still kissing it.
I'm being serious here.
Think about it.
What this means is that, if you could remember the past *perfectly,* then you would not be able to differentiate that perfect memory of the past, from the present. It would all blend.
The fault lies not in reality, but in our memories. If our memories were perfect, we would experience both the past and the present, as the *now.*
This is what the statement "The past is still real, as real as the present" means. These are the implications.
If the past is all real, all still real, all still as real as the present is, then take the total mass of this universe, and multiply it by every moment, every microsecond, every Planck Time micromeasure of time, and *all of that, taken together, exists NOW.*
If the past is all real, as real as the present, if you really think about it, and then think some more, and then really, REALLY think about it...
The only logical conclusion is that all of reality is thought. Consciousness. For nothing that we consider *real* could possibly be so malleable, versatile, and re-creatable over and over again, from microsecond to microsecond, as to produce a reality in which all moments, all micro-moments, every single thing that ever has happened, co-exists somehow in some universal "now." Only undifferentiated pure consciousness could possibly accomplish something like that.
Saint Brian has spoken.
