Q: Do the past and future exist? If they do, is the future determined and what does that mean for quantum randomness?

Physicist: This is a difficult question to even ask, because the word “exist” carries with it some “time-based assumptions”.  For example, if you ask “does the Colossus of Rhodes exist?” the correct answer should be “it did, but it doesn’t now.

The problem with the way the word “exists” is used is that it implies “now”.  So, in that sense: no, the past and future don’t exist (by definition).  But big issues start coming into play when you consider that in relativity (which has given us a much more solid and nuanced understanding of time and space) what “now” is depends on how you’re physically moving.  There’s a post here that goes into exactly why.

Time points up and space points left/right.

“Here and now” is the center of this picture.  Everything in the bottom blue triangle is definitely in the past, and everything in the top red triangle is definitely in the future.  But things in the purple triangles can be either in the past or future or present, depending on how fast you’re moving.  The dashed lines are examples of different “nows”.  In this diagram time points up and space points left/right.

Here’s what’s interesting with that: if we can say that the present and all those things that are happening now exist (regardless of who’s “now” we’re using), then we can show that the past and future exist in the exact same sense.

By moving fast, and in different directions, Alice and Bob have different "nows".

By moving fast, and in different directions, Alice and Bob have different “nows”.  In this diagram Bob’s now includes Alice at some particular moment, but for Alice that moment happens at the same time (same “now”) as a time in Bob’s future.  Like in the last diagram, time is up and space is left/right.

Again, if we define things that are can be found “right now” as existing, and we don’t care whose notion of “right now”we use, then the future and past exist in exactly the same way that the present exists.

It seems as though what’s going on in the present is somehow important and “more real” than what happened in the past.  But consider this; we never interact with other things in the present.  Because no effect can travel faster than light the best we can hope for is to interact with the recent past of other things.  For example, since light travels about 1 foot per nanosecond, the screen you’re seeing now is really the screen as it was a nanosecond or two ago.  Hard to notice.  In relativity everything (all the laws, cause and effect, that sort of thing) is “local”, which means that the only thing that matters to what’s happening here and now is everything in the “past light cone” of here and now.  That’s the blue bottom triangle of the top picture.

What’s happening now in other places is totally disconnected.  For example, Alpha Centauri is about 4 light years away, and while things are certainly happening there “right now”, it won’t matter to us at all for another four years.  Even though those events are happening now, they’re exactly as indeterminate and hard to guess as the things that will happen in the future.  The point is that “now” does extend throughout the universe, but that doesn’t physically mean anything, or have an actual effect on anything.

So if things in the past and future exist in the exact same way that things in the present exist, then doesn’t that mean that they’re fixed?  If my future is the past for someone else who’s around right now (and necessarily moving very fast like in the last diagram), then does that somehow determine the future?  The answer to that question is: it doesn’t matter, but for two interesting reasons.

First, if you consider someone else who’s around “now”, then they’re not in your past light cone and they’re not in your’s (in the top diagram the “nows” are always in the purple regions).  That means that, for example, some of Bob’s future will be in Alice’s past, but neither of them can know what that future holds until they wait a while.  Bob has to wait until he’s “in the future”, and Alice has to wait for the signal delay before she can know anything.  Either way, the events of Bob’s future are unknowable regardless of who (in Bob’s present) is asking.  The future is a lock and the only key is patience.


Answer gravy: The second reason it doesn’t matter if the future exists involves a quick jump into quantum mechanics (and arguably should have involved a jump into a new, separate post).  There could be an issue with the future existing (and thus being predetermined) because that flies in the face of quantum randomness which basically says (and this is glossing over a lot) that the result of an experiment doesn’t exist until after that experiment is done.  This is embodied by Bell’s theorem, which is a little difficult to grasp.  So Schrödinger’s Cat is both alive and dead until its box is opened.  But if, in the future, the box has already been opened and the Cat is found to be alive, then the Cat was always alive.  Things like superposition and all of the usual awesomeness of quantum mechanics go away.

But, before you stress out and start researching to try to really understand the problem in that last paragraph: don’t.  Turns out there isn’t an issue.  Even if the future does exist, it doesn’t mean that events are set in stone in any useful or important way.  In the (poorly named) Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, every thing that can happen does, and those many ways for things to happen are described by a (fantastically complicated) quantum wave function.  That wave function is set in stone by an extant future, but that doesn’t tell you exactly what will happen.  In the case of Schrödinger’s Cat, the Cat is in a super-position of both alive and dead before the box is opened, and afterward it’s still alive and dead but the observer is “caught up” in the super-position.

The super-position of states after the box is opened: Schrdoinger sad about his dead cat

The super-position of states after the box is opened: Schrödinger sad about his dead cat and Schrödinger happy about his still living cat.

Before the box is opened we can say that, in the future, we will definitely be in a particular super-position of both happy (because of the cute living cat) and horrified (because of the gross dead cat).  However, that doesn’t actually predict which result you’ll experience.  Technically you’ll experience both.

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52 Responses to Q: Do the past and future exist? If they do, is the future determined and what does that mean for quantum randomness?

  1. Tomer says:

    I seem to remember you saying in another post (correct me if I’m wrong, I can’t remember where you said it) that after Schrodinger opens the box and exists in both the state of seeing a living and a dead cat, his “energy” is equivalent to his state prior to opening the box. By that I mean that he didn’t duplicate (which would double his mass/energy), or rather both states always existed but were identical up to that point, right?

    Also, going from what you said here that everything that can happen does, does this then require that there are only a finite number of possible outcomes – if there were infinite, each state would either contain zero energy or their sum would be infinite, no?.

  2. Larry Dale says:

    I see the problem differently. If we choose Time (past or future) as nothing more than a progression from one moment to the next (as in a calendar) then this is only good enough for records, meetings and so on and it doesn’t have any real ‘substance’. So in that respect past and future exist only on a piece of paper.
    However, I see this ‘progression’ as the one dimension of Time that we can Perceive but there are other dimensions of Time that we cannot. Very similar to the way we can only perceive 3D while (a possible) space 4th D is not pereived by us.
    If Time was made up of other dimensions too then it might be possible to decide whether the past and future did exist in the sense that Time has kept its ‘own record’. This might also include a future depending on what choices are made and so in that way would be ‘deterministic’.
    One might see this as an ‘aether’ that is made up of Time itself because Time is the one process that does really pervade everything, but I am not suggesting a resurrection of the ‘aether’ of yesteryear which is totally different.
    Can I back this up? Well, only partly but equations seem to follow magnetic counterparts except that of a ‘cube’ type rather spherical since rectangles connect without any space between whereas spheres (unless they overlap) have a single point of contact.

  3. The Cool Dude says:

    If the Many Worlds interpretation comes with the implication that anything that can happen will, then wouldn’t it easily qualify as the reason for any existence at all?

    Since if anything that can happen will, and the only reason something shouldn’t exist is if something says it shouldn’t exist, and if nothing exists, then nothing is there to stop something from existing, and since anything can exist, anything does does, leading to the existence of all possible universes, but most importantly, at least anything at all.

    Am I close?

  4. Michael says:

    if the many worlds interpretation is proven correct, and if we can jump into the future does that mean that their is a possibility that you are not a part of that future anymore??

  5. Well, Phyllis, I’m glad that someone else benefits for reading these books. Although I have had strange experiences and written 3 books about them, I don’t let the experiences overtake my study or my objectiveness or other views. We live in a time that is full of wonder and I’m sure by the middle of this century 3 scientific theories will abound;the current QM/GR, String Theory and maybe Aether theory will make a comeback. As a layman I find them all worth study and difficult to understand why some cannot find something in one of these to interest them.
    Having said that, it is not always easy for the researcher to put their views in common language especially where the maths are involved, sometimes at the ‘cutting edge’.
    I am a Martial Artist but instead of separating topics I try to combine them so that I can understand what makes me what I am. Ha, make in another ‘timeline’ you don’t have any ‘let down’.

  6. William says:

    I’m not sure anything Phyllis just said makes sense, but then again when you’re dealing with Quantum Mechanics if it makes sense that is probably a good indicator that it is wrong so they might be right, it’s presently impossible to know.

  7. Nice way to put it William and maybe that’s why some are trying Aether theory again. The updated versions of AT suggest that a return to ‘common sense’ understanding using vortex analogies etc. However, looking at some deeper issues AT does raise some serious questions which are every bit as ‘non-common sense’ as QM.

  8. Phyllis, it was William that wrote ‘I’m not sure anything Phyllis just said makes sense…’, not I. I am not really in a position to say that about anyone because of what happened to me is difficult enough for even ME to believe!
    I wrote 3 books which are available on Amazon.com either under author ‘Larry Dale’ or ‘Mi Entity Exeperience’. All three have the ‘look inside’ tag. I am in the process of writing others but I have no idea when I will finish them.
    My first book is more infromative about the event while the second explores the possible mathematical synchronicites. The third is is an extension of the first and a bit ‘light hearted’.
    Because of this and other past experiences I now see things differently but your interpretation od life seems much more complicated than mine. For example, below is part of what posted on another forum site;
    ‘…I tend to agree. On a very, very simplistic note I have always thought (and mentioned on other posts) that what comes out of these experiments depends on what is ‘put in’. Take pair production for example where a high energy gamma ray can produce e+ & e- (and the e+ may be only short lived). But it seems to me that if g.r. can produce e then that suggests that e is a certain level of ‘packaged’ g.r. So all ‘particles’ might be different levels of ‘packaged’ g.r. photons and ‘new’ short lived particles might just be the consequence of supplying the right amount of energy to produce them.
    e- & p+ appear to be very stable so it would be interesting to find out just what levels of ‘packaged’ g.r. produces stability then other levels would be unstable. However, this rather suggests that the gluons and quarks of the p+ are also ‘packaged’ g.r….’
    So my ideas go a bit beyond quarks etc and no doubt you have read my post on this forum about Time. Actually, I do go one step further than this but it is really a logical extension of what I have mentioned.
    What you describe is like a mixture of QM, Aether Wave Theory and Biocentrism whereas my thoughts lay somewhere between GR, QM and perhaps String Theory.
    Hope you have a nice day.

  9. Adam_Smith says:

    Special relativity pretty clearly describes a four dimensional “block universe” in which events separated by time are all as equally real as are objects separated by space. There is no special objective “present” just as there is no special objective “here”. I think only the “many worlds” interpretation of QM is consistent with special relativity. (The discord between general relativity, which involves gravity, and QM is a separate problem). I don’t think “The Physicist” had much choice but to resort to “many worlds” to reconcile QM with special relativity.

  10. james says:

    The problem is trying reduce reality to marks of a pencil on paper.

    No one in physics wants to actually think about the ramifications of what they are saying..they are just repeating the company line of “what I write down on paper is the real world”

    2 seconds of logical thought can show that if Nows dont line up on paper– then all of history has already run through once. That is incoherent. This incoherence leads one to postulate a “moving now” that cant be explained.

    If history has already run once–who ran through it the first time? and why are we running through it a second time–being forced to relive what we already did along this moving now in which we walk into the steps we already took before. It staring at a tree and refusing the comprehend the forest. You cant reduce reality to its common denominator..break it apart and define the real world–all that comes out is absurdity. Time slices are what you get when you stop time and put it on paper–its not what you get in real life–such is the complete mismatch with logic

    Again, I think scientist are the worst at explaining their findings. The same goes with freewill–these topics are all related. Your conclusions dont match reality and for some inexplicable reason you still stick with what you jotted down on paper. Time doesn’t work on paper–it cant be reduced to slice of film. They try and tell us time is an illusion and in the next breath explain how the Big Bang transpired–when the first statement contradicts that the second even happened. I think this confusion should be front and center and not the illogical conclusions. They are the real story

  11. Again one has to define what ‘exists’ means. Does ‘exists’ mean that part of reality and time that we can perceive at some given instant? But then we have to define ‘reality’ and unfortunately the two might not go hand in hand as it were.
    For example, do Unicorns exist (here on earth that is) and the most common asnwer would be ‘no!’ Are they part of our reality? ‘Yes, they are.’
    So the first implies some property being denied of Unicorns, that is, a live animal, while the second affirms something else; the English Coat of Arms has a Lion and a Unicorn and this is just as real as any other item we make, be it cars, tables etc.
    Unicorns don’t have a history but the Coat of Arms does.
    Now think this being applied to Schrödinger’s Cat. The cat was either alive or dead when placed in the box. Depending on what is happening or not happening to the cat will determine what the future state of the cat will be. If poison is released in the box to say that the cat is in superposition denies the reality of chemical substances which are every bit qm and then one has to say the poison is also in superpositon, that is both poisonous and non-poisonous at the same time. The important point here that this is ‘testable’ and I suggest that we get a scientist who believes in this particular superposition to be the ‘cat’…any takers? No? I didn’t think so.
    But that is not my real point anyway. If Schrödinger’s Cat is no more a real experiment than my Unicorn then perhaps it belongs in the same category.
    Bells theorem on the other hand doesn’t have any such problem and while it’s mathematical structure might be complicated it can be easily demonstrated with basic Set theory, Alice and Bob and their 3 different slit choices.

  12. No Phyllis your spider web analogy is too restricting it’s only 2D. You are writing like an aggravated AWT and AWT by it’s own adimission is full of holes…30% actually. Pity Jesus didn’t tell us about quantum entanglement before…would have saved a lot of trouble. And NASA scientists can make mistakes, have good and bad opinions just like the rest of us. So don’t don’t commit the fallacy of authority. In fact why don’t you read some Plato and Aristotle and flush some of those cob (spiders) webs out.

  13. The Cool Dude says:

    You two sure do seem to be having a heated debate about a lot of metaphorical and religiously centered ideas, so I’d like to remind everyone that everything can be thought of from many, maybe even infinitely many different perspectives. If you can’t subjectively prove any one perspective correct or incorrect, within a set of many perspectives, then the difference between each perspective simply becomes a matter of what thematically fits with any one persons world-view.

    Themes, when dealing with extremely complicated issues such as the nature of literally everything, are extremely important to a persons ease of mind, as it allows them to summarize many complicated ideas into one larger idea, and it generally makes them feel good, as though the world, in their eyes, is unified under one central idea, and has a purpose.

    Although it can feel really good to show someone you’re more correct, it would be inadvisable to try to force your perspective on someone when speaking of the purely abstract and inapplicable, because if they don’t experience the same phenomena as you do, your perspective and thematic view won’t fit for them, and adapting to it will be difficult for them, perhaps even pointless, as it would for most people, in addition to the fact that doing so has no practical value to you.

    In expansion to that, it can also be good if a person never settles on one particular view point. Continually expanding your understanding of more subjects, ideas and themes makes for a well rounded person, mentally speaking.

  14. Larry Dale says:

    This, my last comment to you is;
    Then perhaps you ought to read my 3 books…you can find them on amazon.com under my name.
    Bye

  15. Larry Dale says:

    Sorry, my last comment was directed towards Phyllis not to The Cool Dude.
    It does seem to me that Phyllis is stuck in some kind track. As for me various viewpoints have aspects in their favour, even religion. I was once a ‘believer in the faith’ until the Bishop laid his hands on my head to Confirm me High Church of England. That’s when I began to doubt. Now I don’t believe in an ‘almighty’ but it’s up to every person tp make up their own mind on this question. Just as many people have had UFO experiences so many people have other experiences that convince them an ‘almighty’ does exist.
    I have many DVD’s about the Bible stories and I do enjoy them but to me they mean the battle to survive in what were very harsh times. Perhaps God was a Alien but then one would have to account for the stories from Sumer (that predate the Bible).
    As I say, each of us must decide for themselves.

  16. Phyllis McLemore says:

    Larry Dale,

    I went to google and read what I could read of one of your books. I kept on trying to tell you that there are so many books that explain these happenings that perhaps you could go read one too. Then you could see you are not alone. I don’t know how to explain to you any better what I have experienced.
    Since I can find no one that reads the same books that I do or has the same experiences, I am going to stop writing on this site.

  17. Larry Dale says:

    Phyllis, Have you read any books by David Icke? His theories run a similar but opposite course to those you mention. He suggests that such ‘higher’ dimensional beings are malevolent because they get energy from our pain and discomforts. His theory is that such beings deliberately cause havoc.
    I did a lot of investigating of UFO reports many years ago (BUFORA, this organisation now no longer functions as it did back then which is a pity. It was both objective and scientific in its approach) and gained a lot of experience about different people and their theories, from scientists to the ‘ordinary’ person. What I’m trying to say is that I am well aware of many theories ranging from a ‘single electron multiverse’, Ghost dimensions to multi-physical extra dimensions. Some theories about the ancient past too.

  18. eyelive4everNOW says:

    “If you can’t subjectively prove”.
    Seems all of you are tired of my writings. Who do I write now? I have tried so many places.
    Subjective to me means my experience. Objective means to look at something from outside of it, as if you really could. The thing is, quantum mechanics says that nothing can be looked at without changing it. So there is no objectivity because we are ONE with the experience within the spider web. The reason that is true is because the frequency domain that we vibrate within is constantly vibrating with people’s thoughts that are constantly vibrating/moving in wave packets within the domain resonating within the domain. Just to look at a thought is to change it, to stop the wave of the thought until it becomes a wave packet. This wave packet is what becomes measured, but then it moves on along the wave. Trillions of quanta cannot be stopped from moving and pulsating except to be measured. That is the probability theory. The wave packet is probably here but maybe it is over there now. What physicists have won awards with this wave theory? Are they stuck too? Or did they prove with subjectivity their beliefs?

    In this world it seems like quanta stop moving, such as in concrete and rock, but a physicist knows at the center of the atoms of the rock are quanta which are constantly vibrating and pulsating outwards the vibration/picture of what they are. Within the rock is the spider web, too, which is being vibrated within God’s consciousness. My understanding is that God is creativity itself. It is the largest spider web of all encompassing all other spider webs which form a holographic environment which we live within so immersed like in the ocean.

    If I have to be stuck in some kind of track like you are, then thank goodness it is a track of infinity. Thank goodness I have healed myself and others with the stuckness of my beliefs. Healing is a fast vibration. Look up measuring healing abilities online or in books. Hunt is a degreed professor that measures parts of the body and mind. She says that our brains and heart vibrate 250 cycles per second. She says our healing abilities are up to 800 cycles per second . She says the thoughts of a mystic vibrate up to 200,000 cycles per second. Has she subjectively proven anything to anybody? She has a degree. She has machines. Brennan has proven there is no such thing as death. If she dies but doesn’t come back right away does that mean death exists? Or maybe she believes what these energy beings tell her about the nature of reality as being non solid. Her work as a physicist and healer has demonstrated that healing can be instantaneous because we already are healing machines, perfectly vibrating energy beings that are already all that God is. She has proven her work with books that has led to building colleges. Is that subjective enough?

    Everyday somebody is measuring something somewhere because everything is measurable. that is because everything vibrates as wave packets which seem to be stuck here as solidity, but are actually pulsating pictures that the quanta form. How is a rock to be a “solid” rock if all those fast moving quanta picture the image of a chair? Who is thinking the picture so that the quanta form themselves to the image of a rock or anything? Why do the waves within the quanta want to picture a pulsating rock? Some say a God being wants to experience the life of a rock so God creates it with the imagery of a rock.

    How come you do not read of the writings of physicists who win Nobel awards? Aren’t they subjectively proving their ideas? If not, how did they win awards? Are their views stuck? They will tell you that the movement of these quanta are magical and eternal and mysterious. Are they stuck in their ideas? Are they subjective enough to prove to anybody the complex wave nature of everything? Apparently not because there are still wars and prisons and children that don’t get rescued.

    If I have to be stuck, at least I am stuck with believing that this is only one reality among many, thank goodness. This reality is very slow, very dense from people’s thoughts that think this is the only reality. This constant stress that comes from believing in the solidity of death condenses waves of energy until they seem so solid that leaving the body seems like the end. The fear creates this solidity. We should already know, but this world is lost. How can a powerful frequency energy light being like a human be done with life just like that? Especially with all those fast moving elegant quanta and eternal electrons, etc within them? That are ONE with all other indestructible quanta because they all vibrate within the oneness of the frequency domain that is more like the ocean than a spider web? At the level of the quanta is ONEness, the oneness of the strong force that binds the nucleus together. Why a strong force? Whose strong force? why is there a strong force or a weak force? Of course Nobel prize winners have had to ask.

    How come you call me stuck when you are the one that believes in death and disease? Einstein did not believe in death. How come you can call me stuck when you don’t mention books you have read explaining all of this for yourself? There are books that explain everything about our purposes for being here and I am not talking about the stuckness of a bible. If the bible worked to bring love then there would be no wars and prisons and courts and racism and greediness. If we all knew that we vibrated all that God is all the time, then nobody would hurt anyone else. Why can’t the miracles of the non solid ion and the atom and the cell and DNA be enough to convince people finally that they are magical spiritual beings vibrating all that God is NOW? Full of all the energy of this God so much that separation can never be attained? Why is there such strong resistance to feeling loved from a greater more intelligence force? Because not all prayers are answered? I think so. Prayer being a picture–maybe people think they want what is in their prayers but is it the best for all concerned? We are literally all ONE, so prayers must be for the good of all. The energy beings that live in another reality that try to help us say that our prayers/thoughts/beliefs must take in to account everyone’s wishes. that is why I have felt and seen magic and miracles. Read that in a book, too.

    But this world is stuck big time—-with its beliefs in solidity–Darwinism. The stuckness of Darwinism did not take into account the complexity of the cell and the atom. On You Tube is a documentary called “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”. Or I should say it is a short piece of it that shows the complexity of a cell. Molecular biologists see the complexity and think that there must be some kind of huge intelligence we come from somewhere to be vibrating such marvelous details. Did a God create the cell and then magically inject it into our bodies when we were not looking? Why do people want to continue to believe that there is no God when the atoms and cells within them are so complex and magical and full of high energy quanta? Because of Darwinism. A belief in time and solidity. Believe me, I used to not know this too.

    Stuckness? If I was stuck I would be a serial killer because I did not bond with people as a child. People did not rescue me, so if I was stuck being a victim I would probably be taking a whole lot of pills for schizophrenia and bi polar, etc. I might be so drugged up that I shoot my veins with heroin, etc. I may have killed myself by now because that is what females do, if I was stuck. True I believe that there are many other realities I could go to. But this one is such a challenge with all its drama. I have something to do in this one. When I am really healthy I am open to wishing the best for others. when this happens I feel energy that helps others. Subjective enough for you? I feel energy that no one talks about except in books written by and about healers. Fast energy heals. Is that pointless? So many people are clueless about the magic of their body, but I can teach them that if they were solid and germs and solidity were true then how could they be healed so fast?

    But no, my stuckness is different that other’s stuckness. I have continued to read book after book to try to explain to myself why no one rescued me as a child, which is the ultimate height of stuckness for a society that says it believes in God on its money and behind judges in courts. I say thank goodness the voices I heard and have heard since then are compassionate and loving. And thank goodness after all that I was not rescued because I have read different kinds of books written by healers and physicists that explains what this society still rejects. The rejection of this general society towards seeing the magnificence of our cells, our atoms, our subatomic particles within everyone and life itself is the ultimate in stuckness. It leads to children not being rescued because they are not seen as special. It leads to prisons and wars and dis-ease. Yes dis ease. Dis-ease is quantum, too. Dis ease is stuckness of thoughts within the body. Thoughts are powerful energy and vibrate pictures that may have enough intensity to form enough condensed waves within a body that then a doctor looks at and says “look, you have a tumor, cancer, AIDs, etc. Let me give you a pill and hook you up to chemo. That will surely blast your thoughts out of your system.” But does a person continue to still have the same thoughts that bring back their stuckness maybe in a different way? How does chemo and pills change a person’s thoughts? A person’s thoughts of being stuck is what vibrates their dis ease within their body in the first place. But don’t listen to me. Dorsey and Brennan and Weiss are just three doctors that teach our stuckness of thoughts is what is creating the dis-ease.

    Which is why I am no where near as stuck as someone who calls me stuck. I want to heal this world’s thoughts about solidity because solidity is not seen as all that special, as if God’s vibrations are NOT actually creating it. And if solidity is not all that special why not kill it? As in creating huge expensive militaries at the expense of everyone’s peace and food stamps and housing and trees and climate? The militaries that people think they have to build is a belief in no God, no magical pulsating quanta, no fabulous wave packets resonating within trillions of worlds of holographic spider like webs.

    Seeing no supreme intelligence vibrating as our atoms and cells and DNA is the ultimate in stuckness. And I say all this over and over and over because no one rescued me as a child. Curing this apathy of extreme negligence is my drug.

    Your faith stopped when a Bishop put his hands on you and confirmed you as High Church of England? What does that mean? Did he tell you that God is within you vibrating as all of your ions and quarks and atoms and cells? Did he tell you that quantum entanglement is proof of our ONEness, that when photons meet up they change their sign so that they don’t repel each other? Isn’t this proof of God’s love vibrating as us? Pray for people all the time. Pretend that miracles exist and all you have to do is wait for them to pop up in the next person, the next thought, the next experience. Wishing the best for others causing our quanta to be excited as in goosebumps. Excited quanta move a whole lot faster.

  19. Larry Dale says:

    eyelive4everNOW, Oh boy have YOU got it wrong Ha! Especailly about me. As a many years Martial Artist I appreciate all manner of things. But I’ll say no more and let chant your heart out to your entangled vibrating holographic spider goosebumps.

  20. eyelive4everNOW says:

    Larry Dale,

    Are you aware of Seth books, or any book written by energy beings living in another reality? they are called channeled beings. You need to read Seth books. I have never read in any other books a better explanation of why life is the way it is—in a benevolent way. Quantum mechanics is explained so well in these books that I believe your life would change dramatically. The way people think on this earth is not the way it is. People have completely forgotten that they are already spirit vibrating in the moment, choosing to be here every moment. It is evident that our electrons and other fast moving quanta are spirit and that our bodies are being created with them, but who teaches that? Barbara Brennan does. You would be on cloud nine if you were to read her books. She is a physicist that tells us we are all magnificent, powerful beings of light right now. She says we are eternal and pulsating in the moment. Electrons and quanta vibrate in the moment, not yesterday or tomorrow. History is a set of images that are constantly changing. No use writing history into a book because it has already changed when you write it. That is how lost this world is. It thinks that history needs to be written and is solid and non changing. Have you read that?

    Are you saying that you are open to anything I have to say? I need to jump up and down with someone about this, about the joy of being an eternal being right now. I need to express my joy when I have felt energy flow through me to heal, but I have no one. I have had a very hard time from not bonding with people as a child. Seems weird that I would want to save them, to teach them, but the people that did not rescue me need to be taught the most of all. The people in pain, that start wars and cause greediness are the ones that are the most lost, the ones that need the most teaching.

    Wow!!! Malevolent energy beings that are higher in vibration? If a being is trying to hurt another, then their vibrations are slower, more dense with a lot less light. Malevolent means lost. I don’t understand lower and higher because vibrations are waves and are slower and faster, intense and more intense such as in amps. Angels and other energy beings are not higher, but they vibrate so fast that they seem higher rather than faster. Like when we leave our bodies at night or at “death”. First we fly around the room looking down on where we just were. So we become higher because we are not in these bodies anymore. We literally fly and this is our true nature. Read any books about out of body experiences? I have read books about people who have experienced “aliens” floating through walls and taking them with them through the wall!!! It is all about the speed of the vibration. Vibrate faster and you can go through a wall. Aliens vibrate faster and only come to us when we attract them, remember or not. Read that in a book, too.

    These malevolent beings could be smarter dense beings than the ones on earth. In fact, since they are not on earth in these kind of bodies, then they may seem higher and smarter because they are getting around a lot faster than us. They don’t have to think through the slow brains that we have. They are floating around us popping up here and there; and if they are unhappy they want us to be unhappy, too. And people here are so lost that it is easy to sway them, to harm them, as in the schizophrenia voices that some people say told them to go kill. It seems beings that are dark and lost are not only on earth. You would think that these flying dark beings could see that they are light beings that are loved “since they are flying!!!”, but there must be realities just as dense as this one where lostness is all there is and they are flying in it. It is astounding to think of. Have you read the book “Visitors from Within”? by Lyssa Royal and Keith Priest? Or “Many Lifetimes” published in 1967-1968 by Dr. Denys Kelsey (a member of the Royal College of Physicians) and his wife Joan Grant?

    If “ghosts” could see that they are loved after all and vibrating all that God is already, then they would move towards the light. Just look at the series “Ghost Whisperer”. It is based on a true story. I have read all kinds of books where there are people working with ghosts because they have to be taught, too. “Go to the light” ghosts. Of course they are beings, too, but are not in these bodies like on earth. They are real and have concerns. The thing about the importance of reading Seth books is to know there could be a trillion realities within each other and there are beings in every one of them, some of them lost in different ways. But it is always a lostness of remembering that we are all being created in the moment from the vibrations that are within the mind of a God that is all about creativity and love only.

    There are a lot of people that read books about energy beings that want the best for us. How come all I think about is doing the best for people and they still don’t want to read these books? I carry the book “Hands of Light” with me everywhere hoping to find someone to talk to about it. Rarely does anyone know what I am talking about when I say that they are beings of light right now pulsating in the moment—and it is physics!!! I am becoming louder and longer in speech in an effort to overcome the brainwashing people are going through. Love can change darkness to light immediately because love and light are already here vibrating as us. We are already perfect and innocent. Ever read “A Course in Miracles”? “I am Spirit. Whole and innocent. All is forgiven and released.”

    I didn’t see prayer change my mother, but I do have a dim memory of her finally talking about Edgar Cayce. She heard voices, too, but she said that they talked to her about things she was doing during the day in a negative tone. Or maybe, since she was so negative thinking, that what they said to her became negative to her. When she raged at me, sometimes all I was doing was talking to myself and she thought I was saying bad things about her. She raged because she thought I did not love her.

    In a Darwinian world, survival of the fittest causes people to compete and competition causes people to say bad things about other people. I have read that the mind of this God people talk about that creates everything is not about competition. We are supposed to be about helping each other to create light and love. There is no competition in heaven. In this world called heaven everybody can see that they live forever and anything anybody wants just pops up in front of them. There are no needs in this heavenly light world we come from because we can see we are a strand of this light when we are there. Heaven is an ocean of compassion. We are supposed to be creating this same kind of heaven on earth. But the denser vibrations that form the earth cause magic and miracles to not be so fast. We should be remembering all the time that we can have what we want just by thinking about it. What we want should be popping up in front of us immediately. But, because this is what we remember from being in this heaven world, if what we want here doesn’t pop up immediately then we think that there is no God after all. And then competition sets in to get what is not popping up. If we remembered that imagery is creating us, then it would be imagery that creates what we want in front of us. No competition needed.

    Have you seen the series “Ancient Aliens”? Have you seen the carvings of the light bulb way down in the dark held by Egyptians in their hands? Have you seen the carvings of the beings without arms, the beings with different kinds of heads, the lack of images of babies on the walls? I think that these people knew that ideas/imagery are how beings are made. We are literally ideas forming these bodies out of quanta and I think that these Egyptians knew that and created all of these beings from their intense imagery. They had no babies because they created people from their imagery. Ever see a pregnant person on a pyramid wall? On the walls are carvings of the different stages these beings go through to fulfillment, but no aging pictures. They all seem the same age, even the smaller beings. It is as if the smaller beings are not children, but just smaller created beings.

    If imagery can heal a body, then it can create a being. If a being is being created from imagery, then imagery can attract other beings, negative or positive. My mother thought negatively, so she attracted to her negative, dark beings that talked to her in her head. Apparently I was not negative because I attracted beings that cared about me. And that is what physics is–the attraction of positive and negative charges.

    I talk and talk and talk and try to give what people ask for. Most of the time they ask for money because I talk to a lot of money poor street people. After all, they are really thinking darkly because they are taught that they are solid and that is all there is. Right now I live in city housing where there has been a lot of “crime”. The people here in the south of Texas still vibrate racism. I am “white” so the “black” folk think immediately that I am prejudice. They are still lost in a world of slavery and it is like I am the one that did it to them. It doesn’t even matter that I tell them they are already vibrating all that God is. God to them is somewhere else not watching or listening or caring. If God cared would there be slavery to begin with? So they watch these shows on TV where the big CEOs don’t go to jail for depressing the world with its greediness and they want to have some greediness too. But they go to jail instead of being able to hide behind banks and money. How do you change a belief system like that?

    I wanted so badly to change the system in my 20’s when I read most of these books. Now this society says that I am 59. That is when I first felt all of that energy coming into my body. No matter what words I used they were just not enough. So I think that is why I attracted so much energy to take up the slack. Thing is, when people feel all of that energy coming from me they are astounded. I am overwhelmed at the force of the energy and it is great to see somebody’s pain go away, but then I am so set apart from them I don’t even talk the same language. No matter what I say to teach them, they still don’t understand. Electrons and quanta within the body of a God that wants to help us? Magic and miracles are the imagery of our lives? we are magic itself? Nobody teaches that in school. That is craziness, they say. Voices from other dimensions? That is schizophrenia they say. Let us give you a pill. Physics? Who teaches that electrons and quanta travel and vibrate so fast that our whole world is made of imagery? Our whole world just one set of vibrations within a trillion sets of vibrations?

    Ever read Edgar Cayce books or Seth books or how about the book “Psychic Healers” by St. Clair? I have read so many books about healing and the people that do it that I have been concentrated more on finding the light. This is a super hard thing to do because people on this earth have become so lost that they want to teach this lostness as if it is the only realness. Wow!!! I still cry that my mother was so lost. Once I saw her in my mind burning in her house. It seems like her whole head was huge and was coming up through the floor and flames were surrounding her screaming face. All because she did not feel loved by anybody. Where was God?, she said, over and over and over a trillion times when I was a child. Seems “trillions” is my favorite number for now.

    I read a long time ago that our multidimensional atmosphere (God) is creative and expansive and that is ALL it is about. I have read a lot of books about people that have had near death experiences. Most of them say that the reality that they go to is a trillion times happier and joyful and full of light than this reality. They say that when they are there it is so clear to them that this joy is the real reality and the reality on earth is a projection that is of denser light and joy and happiness. I have read that this earth is one of the densest realities because of the people’s beliefs that live on it.

    So to think positive, joyful thoughts is going in the direction that is easiest and happiest for all because God’s body goes in that direction. Go with the flow. So there are dark beings that want us to be unhappy, but they can’t be as creative. In fact, darkness is a sign that creativity has been lost.

  21. eyelive4everNOW says:

    I don’t see what is wrong with you writing to my email at eyelive4ever@yahoo.com
    Anybody got any objections?

  22. eyelive4everNOW says:

    Larry Dale and everybody else,

    I can’t see where I am wrong because I don’t see that I judged you. I am just trying to let somebody in the world know me. I just want to talk about my favorite books with someone that is so enlightened that they, too, know they are pulsating beings of light and energy vibrating right now in the moment. That lets everything go. When I think like that my tension is released on the wave of my thoughts so that I can relax and be happy.

    What I am doing is remembering what I want to remember everyday, when I write. Meditation. Prayer. Every day I want to wake up and remember that this is all a literal dream and is temporary. I need this to be literal. I need the word illusion to be literal. I need to be where my parents and best friends are, and that is in another world that vibrates a lot faster than this one. I need to feel a huge amount of compassion and love and acceptance that I am not getting on this earth.

    I believe that when I leave my body I will literally float to the ceiling and then look down on what a body I was occupying. How heavy it is compared to what I really am. I vibrate in this body and as this body and out of this body. But this body is not what I am. It is a vehicle I have created for my experiences. I just wish I could have gone so far as to vibrate fast enough to leave with my body. How is that for a goal? I have read and believe that this is the only real goal.

    In the book “AN Ascension Handbook” by Stubbs I have read that we are here in a game. What else does a magnificent powerful being of light and energy do with their time in infinity? The game is to figure out that we are vast beings of light that can come and go at will. Didn’t Jesus say that we come from the light, we are the light? We don’t see our vastness of light because we are vibrating at the top of the wave we are creating with our thoughts. We are the top 10%; we are the precipice of our own beings, at the top of our mountain of waves looking outward, so dense and compacted with waves that we forget to see that the other 90% of us is this vast being of light that expands outward all around us. This 90% we don’t see because it is vibrating so fast within us. It is the 90% of our brains that we don’t use.

    I am not saying I know everything. I am repeating lines from books that I love so much that I want to become what they say. I haven’t seen the vastness of me or anyone else. I haven’t seen another world because apparently I don’t want to know so much for myself. I need to have a near death experience of some kind so that I can see and feel my vastness and infinity. Without this my power is reduced.

    How long will it take to figure that out? especially if a person does not have to bond with the voices in their head? If voices are seen as illusional and not real how will people learn that they really are within parallel realities which are the many mansions in the bible?

    We shouldn’t be building houses to live in. What is the fun of that if you know you live forever? The game is over when a person figures out they don’t have to stay here anymore.

    My game is over. I could continue to paint while my legs continue to swell, all the while wishing I was on a bike again feeling powerful and strong. I could write a book. How many people think that their parents are vibrating in another reality? Would you want to read such a book? You keep on wanting to stop writing me now. If I was writing a book my legs would continue to swell.

    I haven’t been able to find a best friend on this earth and this emotion of lonliness causes me always to want to go. I thought suicide the whole time I was a kid. Now I believe it is lonliness for the home I come from full of compassion.

    Since everybody is a being of light and energy pulsating infinity in the moment WOW!!! then there is nobody to save. There is nothing to fix. Everybody is doing what they want to do. I haven’t seen a grant to go the college built by Barbara Brennan so that I can become professional. I wish I could either travel with best friends on a catamaran around the world selling my art and teaching healing OR I wish to build a building that is so open there are no doors. Angels hang out in this building and it is so bright that my art of energy beings that love us on the walls are shadows in comparison.

    Imagine living everyday in a crystal building seeing others walk and fly through, their vibrations speeding up until they see themselves whole again. Pain all goes away and hopelessness doesn’t hurt me to the core. This same job can be found in another world. There are plenty of worlds I would be appreciated in. Close to this one are lost souls that don’t know to go into the light. I could go hang out with them. With trillions of worlds going on I could fly and still be helpful to someone. No flying going on here, though. way too dense.

    What am I wrong about? Do you know that you are a being of light? Have you felt energy flow into you and out of you with people’s emotions? Have you meditated and felt an energy being walk into your body and then say something to you? Have you wished for your pain to stop for so many freaking years that at least once you wish to leave your body and you hear these words “There is something better ahead”.? So you don’t kill yourself. A compassionate voice speaks to me. I have to believe that they love me. Either that, or they are a crocodile person that wishes me to keep on living here in pain. Maybe the something better ahead is not on earth. Of course not. The something better ahead is to see myself flying always getting what I want when I want it, like crystal castles.

    Have you wished/prayed for a person in so much pain and then felt in 5 minutes a bit of energy leaving your abdomen and then did you feel that energy go directly to the person in pain? I have felt the direction of this energy. I see the water snake in the movie “The Abyss” when I think of this energy. To me this is subjective proof of the ocean of energy we live in. Another person might say this is subjective proof of craziness. Okay. So I am crazy. I have been called worse.

    How can I want to continue to stay here when it seems all of my doors have closed? I need to move today or tomorrow and I have to choose a motel with no swimming pool or a pop up camper in somebody’s driveway. With no best friend that thinks like I do, these are not open doors. I want to travel on a catamaran with a huge garden and solar panels and windmills. Now that would be paradise on earth. Stopping at ports along the way bartering with my art and vegetables. I love the boats people live on in Vietnam and Denmark, etc. Vegetables could live from the river waters like hydroponics. These are my blissful dreams and open doors. Maybe I have to create a crystal catamaran with a crystal garden and water.

    Do you see that I would be helpful to anybody in any way that would cause me to stay on earth? With the way I think now?

  23. Larry Dale says:

    eyelive4everNOW, If you want people to know, write a book. Certainly your postings are enough to fill one.
    Have a nice day

  24. eyelive4everNOW says:

    Hi!!!! Larry Dale,

    Would you read a book I wrote if it were titled “How Energy Beings Became my Parents”?

  25. Larry Dale says:

    I am interested to hear many points of view, other people’s theories, opinions and experiences.

  26. Riaz says:

    I have somewhat different point of view on the existence of past and future, both are real and may not be for us but for some observer somewhere in the universe. I feel when the big bang happened, all events up to eternity, or up to the end of everything, that exists, were decided, may be unconsciously. For me future is written in stone, nobody can change that for himself or for somebody else. Now the question which is mostly asked is that if we do something or do nothing, we shall get our share of things which is already written in the future, or reward and punishment both are unnecessary. This is not the case. If you look into the matter closely, free will theory will be completely destroyed. There is no free will type of thing anywhere in the universe. All previous events give rise to future events. Now an example, Bill Gates is very rich, why you or I cant get so rich as he. Answer is simple. Bill Gates genetic make up was decided eons before, his environment, his circumstances, his practicality is unique for him. If you take a step and are successful, that step is a part of your destination. If another step gets you down, that step was also a part of your destiny. It is wrong if you thing that you have taken these steps out of your free will.
    I don’t know, if I could make that clear or not, mostly because English is not my mother tongue, and if there are some grammatical mistakes, please excuse me for that.

  27. Shubham Pal says:

    I think that energy is not constant. If it is then mass is also constant

  28. Yoron says:

    Depends on definitions. ‘Now’ definitely exist even if it is consciously passed by the time you think of it. My past has definitely existed to get me to my ‘now’. The future does not exist, until it is a now, which can be related to my ‘observation’ of a continuum. Locally defined there are no ambiguities for anyone. A Lorentz transform will place your definition of a arrow, in a logical relation to any other observers arrow. Without this, there is no logic and you’re totally free to define a arrow any way you like. But as long as we find a logical relation between ‘observers’, as well as an easily definable local arrow, equivalent to ‘c’ locally, agreeable on for us all. Time most certainly exist. And so will ‘repeatable experiments’ as one of the requirements for that one is a ‘agreeable on local definition of a arrow’. Take away that, and you can put away whatever physics you use. Because without a agreement and definition of a repeatable experiment no physics exist,at best only metaphysics.

  29. Yoron says:

    When people argue that ‘time’ is an illusion, you also need to ask yourself how they define it? A ‘commonly same universe’ perhaps? In which we find all sorts of ‘arrows’? A Lorentz transformation is an expression from that ‘commonly same universe’, and that transformation exist only in a mathematical space. Locally there are no ambiguities I know of, only when described ‘globally’, as from some ‘container model’. It’s like ‘gravity’. We are born under it and it feels as a force, and we find it to act as a force, So, why doesn’t Einstein agree with that? Same with this ‘container model’ of our commonly same universe. We’re born under it, we agree on it. But if you really use experiments, and define what they tell you, as your local truth then Lorentz contractions and time dilations must become real to you, locally defined. That is, your measurements defines your reality, and it always does it locally. No other way I know of to measure.

  30. Kowalski says:

    This has been a fascinating read. The question that brought me to this site was ‘does infinity disprove the existence of the present’. So here is the little semantics game that I like to throw at people (especially when they are high!).

    We can all generally agree that we can only exist in the present. It is not possible to exist in the future or the past. But any measurement of time, no matter how small, can be infinitely bisected into 2 smaller parts – the past and the future. This seems to prove that the present simply cannot exist, only the past and the future. If it is true that we can only exist in the present then all this seems to prove that we don’t exist at all! Or we have to reach the equally brain melting conclusion that we exist in the past and the future at the same time.

    I am not by any means a serious student of the nature of time and space but the above example of apparently clear logic raises the point that sometimes the best answer in the room is ‘ I don’t know’.

    Thanks again to all for an interesting site.

  31. Xerenarcy says:

    IMO, time, like space, should be symmetrical in every respect imaginable. physics needs symmetry or conservation laws don’t work. there is nothing inherently preventing from us taking the entire physical picture, reversing time, and letting loose. at small scales anyway… for a moment ignoring quantum behavior too… this is the other end of the stick saying that if you knew the positions and instantaneous momentum of everything in the universe, you could simulate it backwards in time (in the newtonian sense anyway).

    quantum randomness actually leads me to abandon the idea of an arrow of time altogether. especially if MWI is likely to be true, which more and more it seems to be.

    consider that we have antiparticles as a requirement of the standard model. antiparticles have all the physical quantities / quantum numbers reversed with the exception of energy which remains positive. it could be argued (and to my knowledge people do) that antiparticles are time-reversed versions of regular particles. by occams razor, it is more likely that one property (time) is reversed than almost all other properties being reversed (charges, chirality, spin, etc) known about a given particle. indeed, feynman diagrams can be re-oriented to swap space and time coordinates and you can still derive a real, physical process from the diagram, and all we’re concerned with is flipping the time direction.

    and then things get interesting.

    we don’t have an equal number of matter and antimatter. on top of this we can’t account for this difference using only the minor symmetry breaking effects (Wu experiment for one, beta-meson B+ vs B- decays and so on), because they’re still too small a difference to explain this, and if antimatter did exist after the big bang in any substantial quantity, would we not have observed (granted redshifted) an abundance of gamma rays indicating matter-antimatter annihilation?

    from this i’m led to believe that the lack of antimatter and a preferred direction of time may have a common answer – the missing antimatter and missing reverse-time physics (in that we tend not to see two time directions at the same time, while being biased always to think of ‘our’ direction as forward) could be right here right now, flowing in reverse time as a component of regular matter.

    what this eventually can lead to is an idea that all particles are in a constant state of being created and annihilated, oscillating between forward and reverse time directions. then the reason we don’t see antimatter becomes clear – if matter is made up of matter AND antimatter, half of it moving in forward time half in reverse, what happens is they ‘orbit’ around a common center, with (at least) one of the degrees of freedom being time itself. this way you always have a forward moving half and a retrograde half of a particle, but the ‘particle half’ you’re able to interact with, half the time is the antimatter portion going in reverse time (relative to its perspective of time) and the other half is the usual matter.

    from the perspective of an observer limited to one time direction, they would see a particle in a state of flux, separating into two and recombining back into one – something i believe is taken into consideration for path integrals, and indeed they are called loops if memory serves.

    the complicated phase relationship in this ‘orbit of two particle halves’ then, is what gives rise to matter and antimatter.

    the only supporting argument i have for this, is to answer where antimatter and matter went after the big bang… in the same way that an electron ‘orbits’ a proton (hydrogen) by literally sitting superimposed on it, and kept in place due to the energy required to escape from a minimum determined by the uncertainty principle, i’m going to claim that antimatter and matter, early on, formed this sort of relationship along all available degrees of freedom, time included.

  32. Paul Moore says:

    Back to the future, not the movie, the original question. Any consideration to time being the only one dimensional reality? It has movement in a single direction like a drawn line on paper. That is not to say it is straight, simply directional. If you look back at where it has just come from you can’t see it. It exists in memory but no visually outside of memory. No width, no depth, just truckin’ forward. Available for experiencing by all regardless of vibration rate.

  33. Matt Detwiler says:

    This original question is difficult to answer with the inadequate language we have to describe Time and it’s properties. However, we can begin to gain some insight if we reduce everything to it’s simplest form. Get a piece of paper, in the left margin write “Past”. Then draw a line across the paper stopping before the right margin. In the right margin write “Future”. In the middle of the line, make a black dot and label it “Present”. By the time you finished making the black dot the actual present moved 186,000 mi/sec into the past.
    Let me explain. We can agree that we were all born infants and “now” we are not, therefore we can define the “Past” as a state “which has existed”. As human beings we can all agree that someday we will all die but currently we are alive, so let’s define the “Future” as a state “which has yet to exist”. It is the “Present” which we tend not to agree on. Ask yourself, could we really perceive anything that moves faster than “Time”? What is the fastest thing we know of? Light, and relativity would tell us that the speed of light is constant and independent of the observers speed or direction. Could it be that the speed we measure light at is actually the speed of “Time” and that as light moves past that speed it passes the threshold of our ability to perceive it? Then the speed of “Time” or better, “Becoming” places the “Present” at the crest of the wave of Entropy. If you were to stop “Time” everything would remain in the same quantum state on the left side of the paper while the right side would appear as a froth of possibilities yet unrealized. Probabilities would determine that the “Future” is all but set. However, the “all but” means we do have free will to a point. The real problem is that we “Exist” in the constant moment of “Becoming” while our thoughts “Exist” on the right side of the black dot. The moment passes us so fast that our reactions, decision and understanding occur long after the actual moment we wish to label as the “Present” has past. This is equally true if we choose a moment that is still in the future. We can not act fast enough, no matter how much planning, to ever capture that moment in a way that would tell us anything about it. We have evolved this way. It is quite possible that other forms of life around us have slightly different ranges of experience of the “Present”. It comes down to “States”. “States” that have come and gone and “States” that have yet to be. It is an “either or” reality and neither actually “Exist’s” currently, and while we “Exist” in the infinite succession of “Present’s” one at a time, our consciousness “Exist’s” in the “Future” dwelling on a moment that has come and gone without our realizing it. You could say we live in the past or that time passes us by. If we can stop thinking spacialy when we think about the fourth dimension or what we call “Time”, Quantum Physics may begin to make a lot more sense. However currently we don’t even take into account the speed at which we travel, on a spinning planet, circling a sun in a revolving solar system on the arm of a spinning galaxy… What would we perceive of the universe if we were ever to find zero velocity?

  34. LarryD says:

    @Matt Detwiler, what you write is understood but there are other alternatives. From the quantum level there are laws which determine what (probably) will happen next so if we continue up to the macro reality might the future already be deterministically mapped out. Might the past also continue as an ‘imprint’ on the ‘fabric’ of Time which we might find a way to access. However, such ideas would require that Time is property in its own right with laws that govern its progress.

  35. Gary Batchelor says:

    I just stumbled on this discussion. I have been grappling with the tension between the reality of free choice and the factuality of the future for some time now.
    I’m fairly convinced that I successfully use my own tastes and preferences to chart my own movement through time – am I in the mood for green Thai curry or yellow? Should I fix the broken chair or take my wife to a movie. In truth, the outcome of that decision WILL BE governed by conditions that already exist. My mind will weigh the competing priorities, but my decision will be the result of events and conditions already indelibly etched in the factual past.
    This suggests that my choices and decisions are not truly free will, but that I am constrained by external forces. Perhaps it doesn’t matter, because I still FEEL like I am dictating my own future (though my experiences will inevitably be intersected by the actions of others’ futures, too).
    The past is FACT. I cannot go back and amend it. Let’s look at the future by asking this question: “Is there anything I can do to prevent myself from being where I will be tomorrow at 3 pm?” NO, OF COURSE NOT. “Ah,” you say, “but you can alter your choice about where you will be!” That is true, but my decision to alter my destination would unavoidably be the result of a string of events and conditions that are already in place and underway.
    The only sensible synthesis of these two competing concepts is the conclusion that no matter how concretely inexorable the events of the future are, my own choices and reflexes are an inextricable component of those events and conditions. I was ALWAYS going to choose what I was going to choose.
    In the Mormon religion there is a strong theology that asserts that God knows all things which are to come. Many ask, “How could God precisely foresee future events without FORCING them all to happen?” I know that I am NOT forced, because my arms and legs are not marionetted throughout the day. I choose my own steps, but the factuality of the future provides God with a perfect “archive” of data that can be mined – a future full of pre-known events and choices that INCLUDES even the choices and interventions that God already knows HE will be making.
    I just don’t think that the factuality of the future conflicts in any way with free choice, but we have to remember that free choice is localized, and that we are in league with all the other creatures and forces of our universe. If a drunk driver crashes into my car on the freeway, I am subjected to forces I cannot control. It is my duty after the collision to continue to make the best of my life despite the setback.
    As I swim through life in a crowded pool, my own choices WILL intersect with choices made by other swimmers, so my “free-agency” will never be completely unencroached.
    All of this begs only one remaining question – “Is the Divine Designer benevolent?”
    I say “Absolutely!” because all the beauty of our existence could not have developed unguided, and, if the Designer is benevolent, the horrors and injustices of our brief “mortal” experience will be rectified and healed one day.

  36. tutaj says:

    Good site you have here.. It’s hard to find excellent writing like
    yours these days. I truly appreciate people like you!
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  37. Don says:

    the future has to exist because the speed of light is such that there needs to be a future for it to travel ‘in to’. Does that statements sound really dumb? I am just trying to visualise this for the first time, at a great age I may add!

  38. Daphne says:

    From a random thought process I had while cycling a few days ago the element of time came up ; if I where to picture time what would the image be? Triangle , square or circle or perhaps just a straight endless line. After reading all the comments on this blog the conclusion that arises is as in all debates , even “Time” is subjective as a view,according to each individual ‘s approach and outlook in regards to life. I mentioned cycling because I was focusing on the now point in my movement , realizing that with every pedal turn I was either past or future there was no now….unless the actual fact that I was out on a Sunday morning ridining my bicycle was the now and all movement and
    speed was past and future . Then again the according to the sunlight , by the time each
    ray of light reached me regardless of any movement I was making , was already past
    time action in the universe. Needless to say I totally confused myself 🙂

  39. Mary Brown says:

    When we make a choice, we feel that we are equally free to select among options. In a sense, we are: if it’s an option, it’s available: nothing in the outside world prevents us from choosing it. The choice we make is an expression of who we are at that instant and every external factor that bears on us. So we make our selection. But because it is an expression of all that is within us and without, we could not have chosen differently than we did. Other options were available, yes. But what would have propelled us or allowed us to choose them was missing.

  40. Chris says:

    The cat does not exist unless we perceive it. The future and past do not exist until we are in it. Only the moment exists. So enjoy it and stop reading such silly stuff! Haha.. i realize i read it too

  41. Jose says:

    I’m reading this stuff because I’m really concerned in knowing the truth about this issue.
    If Alice can really see Bob’s future, if she can see the cat dead or alive before Bob opens the box, the future is fixed, and there is not free will at all, and hard determinism is also true.
    (By the way, I think that the many worlds -multiverse- interpretation doesn’t come into play, because Alice and Bob are in the same world -universe-.)
    I believe that must be something wrong with the interpretation that Alice will know Bob’s future before Bob.
    First thing: how can you link the Alice’s now to the Bob’s now to assure that Alice is watching Bob “present” before Bob actually experience it???
    Is there any experiment that can be performed to demostrate that in practice???
    I think that these are important questions. In paper everything works as expected (most of the times).
    If there is, then you can see the future (perhaps you can win the lottery, but only if moving to great velocity).

    Anyone willing to answer? thanks in advance.

  42. Prashant sharma says:

    I think that we do not go to future because the things which we never do then how we go to future. First of all we can’t say that we are in present. For others who are in past for them we are in future and who are in future for them we are in past

  43. Shresth.. says:

    Does Our Future Fixed?😕

    Yes Y not..!
    Think That you run to your right side in 2 sec … if future is not fixed you get invisible..because if 2 sec before you can run in left side then in future you get invisible…This proves That future is fixed..☺😊

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  45. antonio carlos motta says:

    In really, i think that past and future exist not.judt tje continue flow of our consviounes generate a time illusions of time.tjere is just the now.THE REAL or ILLUSIONS TIME.

  46. Vladimir Stosic says:

    Usually we have a tendency to predict the future on past events. This prediction is done in the present. Since the present is infinitely small this makes the past and future inexistent. So the future from the past is a momentary illusion but hard to admit else we would not exist. Or do we?

  47. I wonder if the past and future exist, is there a me from 5 minutes ago still reading your article working his way till now? did a me in the future already do what I will do tomorrow and i am working my way up to him. and does this not mean we are eternal beings that are doomed to repeat our lives over and over again and again?

    please give me comments on an article I had written about this a while ago:
    http://amigojapan.github.io/?q=Hypothesis_of_4D_time

  48. ENGLISH BOB says:

    Now is already in the past. Because it takes about half a second to realise now has happend. That is way you can never beat the starting gun, at the start of a race. If the starting blocks are sat up accurately, than anyone putting too much pressure on them, befor one third of a second as passed. Must have jumped the gun . Because it takes half a second to hear the …….BANG !

  49. David Attenbourgh says:

    So, is it proved that past, present and future all exists in one block and we experiment our present only how we move??

  50. Leo says:

    Where is the beginning of the end that comes at the end of the beginning?

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