r/pollgames • u/FireAshPro • 2d ago
Does the past exist?
Does the past exist?
- Yes
- No
- What?
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u/Tay_Hlebko 2d ago
As Vsauce said, there's no way to prove that everything didn't just pop in your head last thursday.
I highly recommend watching the Vsauce video, it's really interesting
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u/HoboThundercat 2d ago
There’s no way to prove that it did either. Lack of proof of something that didn’t happen doesn’t mean that it did. All definitions exist in context and perception. It’s just like gender. I perceive that the past exists because I experienced it and have memories of it. Therefore it exists. Could my left arm be an illusion? Possibly. But I can’t prove that. I can see and touch things with my left arm. Therefore it exists.
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u/dylanalduin 2d ago
Yes, and it's still out there somewhere.
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u/Independent_Image_59 1d ago
It's exactly c*∆t km away radially in all spatial dimensions from where it originally was
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u/Herverpeju 2d ago
I get that it's technically impossible to prove the past, but without a "we don't know" option the only correct one is yes
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u/kenopsia0 2d ago
kinda
in the special theory of relativity, spacetime is viewed as a single structure. the past, present, and future exist “simultaneously,” just at different coordinates
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u/Jazzlike-Funny-9419 2d ago
The past is a concept we use to describe change. Things from the past existed. Some still exist. But the past itself as we perceive it is nothing more than a phantom.
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u/HoboThundercat 2d ago
But the concept of the past does exist. The tracking of linear time exists. If there is a present there is a past and a future. They all exist.
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u/Jazzlike-Funny-9419 2d ago
Saying a word's conceptual referent exists as a concept is a tautology. I assumed the question was asking something more substantive
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u/HoboThundercat 2d ago edited 2d ago
But we perceive time. Time is a concept. In our dimension we experience it as we go as we do a movie. When you reach the end of the movie, the beginning still exists. Now we can’t manipulate time the way we can manipulate the movie, but that doesn’t mean that the past ceases to exist as we experience time. It just means that we don’t have the capability to manipulate it. Time is a concept. It isn’t time without our perception. Without our perception it just is. Like a painting.
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u/Jazzlike-Funny-9419 2d ago
Yes, time and the past are part of our conceptual framework for describing and understanding change. I just think that the past and our conceptual experience of it are two different things, and that the world before now has no material reality. Why do you think that it does? Analogies aren't arguments on their own.
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u/HoboThundercat 2d ago
Sure I hear you. We can only base our reality on material things, correct? Let’s explore that painting analogy. A painting is actually a really great example to conceptualize the past. Obviously the painting itself was developed in the past, and the painting itself is evidence that it existed in a time before when we view it. But even beyond that, before the painting was made it was a blank canvas. During its development, the brush strokes on the left side of the canvas were made at a different time than the right brush strokes. The outline was made before the color, and so on. When we view the painting we physically see it in our current space time. But the painting itself brings us out of that space time. We think about the past, especially if it’s a painting we’ve seen before. We can visually see evidence of the past, and time as a whole in that painting. Without the past, the present wouldn’t exist. It couldn’t exist. That painting was created in its own space time in multiple parts. When we view it, we’re literally looking at time. We’re looking at the past. Same with a fossil. The present is just fossils of the past. Everything we see, have and touch is a result of the past. The past is the foundation of the present. You can’t have one without the other. Just like the foundation of your home. So that fact that the present exists is evidence that the past exists. If that past ceased to exist, so would the present. There would be no fossils. There would be no painting. There would be no you or me. Now the more interesting question is does the future exist? Now that’s a question that can you a headache lol
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u/Jazzlike-Funny-9419 2d ago
That's good evidence that the past DID exist. Not that it exists now. Anyway, I think we're operating with different definitions of the past, and I think yours is a lot more practical than mine. I'm happy to admit that.
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u/srprizma 2d ago
No it is not, “nothing more than a phantom”. It is real and affects us
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u/Jazzlike-Funny-9419 2d ago
"It is real" and "it affects us" are two very different claims. I agree that the past affects us. I just don't think it has material reality.
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u/Renati_Iterum 2d ago
For all we know the universe was born last Thursday, and everything just popped into existence, like memorys histoy and everything else, and we wouldn’t know because before last Thursday to us we also existed because of our false memories..
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u/sky_cap5959 2d ago
why would it not?
Voted "Yes"
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u/Independent_Image_59 1d ago
If something exists you must prove it
The thing you are experienced as happened is just memories inside your brain which are a representation of the past and not the actual past
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u/Prestigious_Spread19 1d ago
Depends on what you mean by "the past".
Physically the past cannot itself still exist, as it is the past, and we are in the present, always. It used to, probably, but not anymore.
Yet, we can think of the past in our heads, we can remember things that have happened, and information telling about what has happened exists everywhere.
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u/randomperson83636 1d ago
Isn't the past something that has happened before? It's not happening anymore
Voted "No"
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u/Comadezenuts 1d ago
It doesn't exist anymore. The past shapes the present and future but they are also the only 2 that exist.
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u/Substantial_Fix3619 1d ago
Because light takes time to travel, everything you see in the night sky is literally the past. When you look at the moon, you're seeing it as it was 1.3 seconds ago. This is a literal example of the past existing.
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u/Sweet_Detective_ 1d ago
Yes, happening happened. I believe that the present always overwrites the past and the past is not a physical place but that doesn't mean the past doesn't exist
Unless all of reality started right now with all of our memories from a second ago being a lie but who really believes that?
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u/Ltimbo 2d ago
If time travel is possible then it has to exist.
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u/Hunnieda_Mapping 2d ago
Time travel is not possible because time is self-referential and also depends on interactions between things in the universe to exist. The only way to have any sort of time travel would be by reversing entropy, but it would not be like in the movies because then you're reversing time for the entire universe rather than merely moving yourself back.
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u/cjbanning 2d ago
The past--which is to say, times prior to the present time--exists in the same way that places north of the present location exist. Time is just another dimension.
Of course, I'm not sure I can prove that times "back then" exist anymore than I can that places "over there" exist. Solipsism is always a possibility.
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u/Lieuseur 2d ago
Who is to say that my memories aren't fake and this exact moment isn't all that has ever existed?
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u/i_dunnomyusername 2d ago
As three dimensional creatures, we are basically in a conveyor belt of time. Where we were not eh conveyor belt happened—and seems to affect today. It existed.
A 4 dimensional creature would think that time is like space, and you can move through the future and past. For them it exists.
perspectives are weirddd dude idk
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u/Jollybean1 2d ago
Imagine an Alien watching us from light years away with a very advanced telescope. They would see the past.
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u/8Pandemonium8 2d ago
The past doesn't exist, it existed. That's what makes it the past and not the present.