Time - the eternal riddle?
For the purposes of discussion, I shall assume that the past is fixed and known. The future, in contrast is not fixed and not known. The present is that instant where the unknown future solidifies into the fixed and immutable past.
Psychologists and neurologists tell us that it takes about a quarter of a second for our minds to turn raw sense data into something we can understand in the context of the world as we know it. We live not in the present, but just enough in the past to give us the perspective we need to make sense of it.
"History repeats itself" is invariably quoted in the context of repeating past mistakes. I have always thought this misleading. It is only because history repeats itself that we can make sense of the world. We interpret new events according to similar events we have observed in the past. And because history repeats itself, this is a successful strategy.
As the future draws closer to the present, the probabilities of events happening or not happening become clearer. Predicting next month's weather is a guessing game, but predicting the weather for the next ten minutes is a lot less random. Nevertheless, the future can only be understood in terms of the probabilities of events happening or not.
In a process reminiscent of quantum theory, the probability functions governing future events collapse in the moment of the present and become fixed and immutable: the past.
Some belief systems recommend that we try to live in the now. That we suspend the integration of events into our mental world models, and just allow the present to wash over us as it happens. I'm sure this can be approached, if not achieved, but does it have value? Without the integration into our own understandings, limited though that might be, surely we can do nothing but passively observe the future becoming the past? Is our participation in the world a Bad Thing, or is there something I've missed?
Anything new comes from the future, the only place where possibility and potential exist. The present is where it happens, then it's gone. Evanescent; transient; may-fly art. Crumbling as it is created, never to come again. What a glorious tragedy time is!
Pattern-chaser
"Who cares, wins"
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