# Does the past exist? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 16, 2009, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-past-exist/506595 "2009-08-16T02:14:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-past-exist/506595/21 "2009-08-17T20:40:39Z")
… ---
**Author:** ![adhay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@adhay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhay)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-past-exist/506595/22 "2009-08-17T20:59:11Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > … Trust me on this. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-past-exist/506595/23 "2009-08-17T22:55:39Z")
Yes the past exists, In so much as the past, present, and future all exist and have the same potential in every nanosecond and every protochronographic and holographic subsection that we can divide quantum and macroscopic space into… where time, in it’s coalescence and finest, most, minute subsection, or on the scale of galaxies, is still an eternity. Time is holographic and just a property of that massive energy potential called the big bang. What time is kept behind that gate of creation is interdimensional and would be hard to discern, but there are clues. Time only exists as a construct on human scale, extradimensionally it doesn’t have the same properties. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-past-exist/506595/24 "2009-08-17T22:58:17Z")
(rewrote post) ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-past-exist/506595/25 "2009-08-17T23:09:49Z")
> [@](#): > > What, then, is time? If no one ask of me, I know; if I wish to explain to him who asks, I know not. > > Yet I say with confidence, that I know that if nothing passed away, there would not be past time; and if nothing were coming, there would not be future time; and if nothing were, there would not be present time. > > Those two times, therefore, past and future, how are they, when even the past now is not; and the future is not as yet? But should the present be always present, and should it not pass into time past, time truly it could not be, but eternity. > > If, then, time present–if it be time–only comes into existence because it passes into time past, how do we say that even this is, whose cause of being is that it shall not be–namely, so that we cannot truly say that time is, unless because it tends not to be?.. > > And yet we say that “time is long and time is short;” nor do we speak of this save of time past and future. A long time past, for example, we call a hundred years ago; in like manner a long time to come, a hundred years hence. But a short time past we call, say, ten days ago: and a short time to come, ten days hence. > > But in what sense is that long or short which is not? For the past is not now, and the future is not yet. Therefore let us not say, “It is long;” but let us say of the past, “It hath been long,” and of the future, “It will be long.”… > > If any portion of time be conceived which cannot now be divided into even the minutest particles of moments, this only is that which may be called present; which, however, flies so rapidly from future to past, that it cannot be extended by any delay. For if it be extended, it is divided into the past and future; but the present hath no space. Where, therefore, is the time which we may call long? Is it nature? Indeed we do not say, “It is long,” because it is not yet, so as to be long; but we say, “It will be long.” When, then, will it be? For if even then, since as yet it is future, it will not be long, because what may be long is not as yet; but it shall be long, when from the future, which as yet is not, it shall already have begun to be, and will have become present, so that there could be that which may be long; then doth the present time cry out in the words above that it cannot be long… > > But we measure times passing when we measure them by perceiving them; but past times, which now are not, or future times, which as yet are not, who can measure them? Unless, perchance, any one will dare to say, that that can be measured which is not. When, therefore, time is passing, it can be perceived and measured; but when it has passed, it cannot, since it is not. Augustine, _Confessions_ (397-398 AD), Book 3, chapter 14ff. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-past-exist/506595/26 "2009-08-17T23:33:04Z")
Essentially what the OP is asking is where does the past go? Does all of existance exist almost like slides in a projector and we only experience the current slide? Well, the problem is that if it does exist like that, it stands to reason that the future exists as well and we just haven’t reached it yet. That begs the question as to whethere there is one single timeline (raising all sorts of questions about free will and self determination) or does every possible configuration of every moment of reality exist somewhere? Which brings us back to the question of if the past exists, then where? > [@devilsknew](#): > > Yes the past exists, In so much as the past, present, and future all exist and have the same potential in every nanosecond and every protochronographic and holographic subsection that we can divide quantum and macroscopic space into… where time, in it’s coalescence and finest, most, minute subsection, or on the scale of galaxies, is still an eternity. Time is holographic and just a property of that massive energy potential called the big bang. What time is kept behind that gate of creation is interdimensional and would be hard to discern, but there are clues. Time only exists as a construct on human scale, extradimensionally it doesn’t have the same properties. This almost sounds as if you didn’t just make it up while high.:dubious: ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-past-exist/506595/27 "2009-08-17T23:45:16Z")
Time= Light/Gravity That’s a formula of human perception, not necessarily physical. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-past-exist/506595/28 "2009-08-17T23:53:11Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > This almost sounds as if you didn’t just make it up while high.:dubious: 420 was hours ago. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-past-exist/506595/29 "2009-08-17T23:56:18Z")
…or was it years ago? ---
**Author:** ![Discipline](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/82dd89/32.png) [@Discipline](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Discipline)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2009, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-past-exist/506595/30 "2009-08-18T00:08:14Z")
> [@devilsknew](#): > > …or was it years ago? Fuck it. It’s always 420 somewhere, dude. Put that in your past and smoke it. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2009, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-past-exist/506595/31 "2009-08-18T01:33:29Z")
¡Band Name! _Long Long Ago-Go_ (or just _Long Ago-Go_… or perhaps, _Time Ago-Go_ / _Times Ago-Go_.) ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2009, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-past-exist/506595/32 "2009-08-18T15:28:36Z")
I scrolled to the end and read the entries backwards. Did I travel into the past? And why do I have the urge to re-read Thief of Time? ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2009, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-past-exist/506595/33 "2009-08-18T16:22:28Z")
I’m reading [The Cronoliths](http://www.amazon.com/Chronoliths-Robert-Charles-Wilson/dp/0812545249/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250612487&sr=8-1) right now, and the author puts forth the idea of spacetime being like liquid water. The past is frozen and immutable, the future is fluid and amorphous. The present is where everything is crystalizing. Riding a thermal line of entropy. In order to go back to the past, you’d somehow have to thaw the universe, thereby reversing every single interaction that has already occured. Fun to think about, but pretty ridiculous. Most likely the concepts of past, present and future are illusions of our perceptions. In fact, defining the “present” becomes really head-scratching, as the present has no duration in time, only a snapshot of space. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-past-exist/506595.md?page=1)