I wonder how long the present lasts before it becomes the past?
Not very long.
There is an interesting mind experiment. The present is a dimensionless interface between the past and the future, so its linear magnitude is zero, and the present does not therefore exist. The past is only recollections, and the future only expectations, which also have no tangible existence, so nothing exists.
Until the Langoliers eat it.
Long enough for you to write that OP. But no longer.
But a fleeting moment…it is already the past!
Until the next present is opened.
The present lasts forever. It is always the present.
ETA: The past and the future are merely man-made constructs: the past can’t be changed and the future can’t be predicted.
(The future’s uncertain and the end is always near. Baby.)
- The Amazing Criswell
You’re older than you’ve ever been,
And now you’re even older,
And now you’re even older,
And now you’re even older
-They Might Be Giants
I think it depends on which theory of time you subscribe to. If you’re an A-theorist, that means, like several said, that the present is all that exists, it is an instant of zero duration, or effectively so (maybe duration of one unit of Planck time? I’m not a physicist). However, if you’re a B-theorist, present doesn’t have much meaning, as all moments in time are equally real, they’re just coordinates in a 4-dimensional space-time, and similarly, past and future are just relative to whatever given point one is examining. And, so, in that sense, the present always exists.
You are actually living in the past. What your consciousness “sees” as the present is what actually happened about a half second ago.
[Not Gertrude Stein]There is no “now” now.[/Not Gertrude Stein]
Half-remembered quote: “The past is gone. The future is not yet here. We have only the now.”
And, to be contrary: “The past is gone. The present vanishes as it appears. There is only the future.”
I was once given a candy bar for my birthday. I ate it just after lunch. The next morning I pooped. It took, therefore, about 18 hours for the present to become the passed.
YTMV (Your Timing May Vary)
Considering the physical lag between the time our sense organs receive information and the time we comprehend that information…we are always living in the past.
Apparently some Dopers are living about 3 hours in the past.
“There’s no present. There’s only the immediate future and the recent past.”
“There is no present or future; only the past, happening over and over again, right now.” (Eugene O’Neill)
The present is that moment in which time fails to keep everything from happening at once.
The present doesn’t exist. It is an illusion.