just because we’re acting on information from the past doesn’t mean we arent still in the now. we just get all our data with a little lag. we still interact with the way things are now, even if it takes a little time for us to perceive it. in some ways we’re constantly operating in the dark, relying on our internal predictions about the world to get us through the short little delay before we can see what happened.
Comment on Hmmmm!
Hawke@lemmy.world 6 days ago
False. All our sensory input is slightly delayed, and it takes time for our brain to process it anyway. So the past is the only thing that exists and we are all, always living in it.
applebusch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 days ago
Demdaru@lemmy.world 6 days ago
False. We are only able to perceive what we experience, and by extension, what we experience is what we call “The Present” or “now”. Sensory delay thus plays no role, other than shifting personal “present” a bit forward or backward. What doesn’t change is that we all only exist at the present. What does change is that present == present but present !== present.
Hawke@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Our conceptual understanding of what “the present” means does not align with the facts.
The problem with redefining “the present” to mean “our perceived present” is that any reaction we take is already too late. The stuff we experience as “now” is done and gone. Just like if the sun suddenly went out, we would not notice it for 8 minutes or so, but there would be no possible reaction to it to try to “fix” or otherwise change it. It would have already happened.
timeghost@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Time is relative and inexorably tied to space. What we think of as the speed of light is the speed of causality. What is now for you is not now for Alpha Centauri. They see us in the past as we see them in the past and Tau Ceti sees us both in the past. Yet we are all in the now. All these things are true.
Hawke@lemmy.world 6 days ago
I’d say that none of it is in the now, because it all involves distance and time. All those “nows” are different yes but the “now” at the tip of my nose is different than the “now” inside my eye, is different than the “now” in different parts of my brain. And all of those are different than the “now” that I believe myself to be experiencing. And all of these things are in the past.
DeadDigger@lemmy.zip 6 days ago
But what about atoms that briefly assemble through stochastics in a form that is just your brain with all your memories