Does the past exist?

Ok, so in my English class I've been reading the book "1984". You know, the one where the people live in a dystopia and the place is filled with thought police that catch you if you think the wrong thoughts, and that they send you to a room where you face your worst fear? Grusome stuff, believe, but there's an intersesting part that I believe is good enough to fit into Elitist Debate, and that is the topic of: Does the past exist?

Every philosopher has probably thought about this at least once in their lives, and it has been something that has been troubling philosopher's mind for as long as one can remember. There are two groups of people, if you like, who believe different things. The ones who believe it does exist, and the ones who believe it doesn't and can be easily altered.

An argument for the people who believe that it doesn't exist is that it takes no shape or form. Sure, the past can be kept in documents, but it goes without saying that they can be falisifed. And the past can be kept in human memory, but that can easily be brainwashed. So there is no real "existance" for the past. Sounds valid, right?

However, an argument for the other side goes by the definition of the past. The definition of the past is that it is something that happened before the present. Even if all records state that something never happened, it still did happen, somewhere in the space-time continuum, and that it cannot be altered, and that it does exist, even if only as a tiny event in the space-time continuum. Furthermore, even if no one remembers that event, it still happened, and still "exists".

So yeah, share your thoughts on this topic. Does the past really "exist"? How can we define "existance"? Do you have any other wacked-up theories you want to share? Go shoot.

Well. I see this turning into a dumb debate. Obvious flaw with the argument that past doesn't 'exist'. It doesn't 'exist' it 'existed'. The term "Past" is just a general term describing things that already occurred whether that shit is accurately described or not. Stupid. Without past, there is no future which is saying we're not changing - cause obviously I was never 10 years old before. Clearly I've always been 22, and some change, years old and not a day younger or older at any given second ever. Time has stopped. Yep. This debate is dumb.

Actually that last statement is rather flawed Grafikal, and debating Time can actually be a very interesting thing.
You are only you now, and you were never 10 years ago because like you said, the "past" is just something to describe something that has occurred at a certain time in existence. Time is now, and never was 1 second ago. Milliseconds, seconds, minutes, hours, days and years are just terms used to "plot" events on a linear time-line and to make sense of it all. Nothing exists in ten minutes because ten minutes is arbitrary; 600 seconds into the "future" is nothing more than "now," when it "occurs," and the same for 600 seconds in the "past." I think of time as just something that is always changing but never moving, rather than forward and backwards.  Trees have rings that show growth, and growth is associated with the "time," but in reality the "future" never comes, it's always just "now," and the "past" is just a sign of something that has changed at one point in the "present." We use "past" to help us make sense of what it all means, and it does a pretty good job, but I don't think it exists in the way we're traditionally taught.

I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. I guess we'll see..."soon enough." Har har har...geddit?

My point was that you can't say there wasn't a past.

If there's no past there is no future. If something changes, it had to move in time from a moment to a new moment which was the future of the past. Obviously fucking time is not stopped. Arguments against past is fail.

The present(now) exists.

In the future, the present(now) is the past.

Therefore, the past exists

Or rather, did exist. ;o (I guess that's the point we're arguing here )

Anyone ever watch the Japanese movie Rashomon? It's a story about a samurai who is found dead in the forest, and the authorities question the few people who were witness to it. The flashback shows the samurai and his wife were traveling along a road when a lone bandit manages to tie up the samurai and proceeds to rape the wife. But then there are three different accounts of what happened next.

In the bandit's version of the story, the wife pleads that the bandit and the samurai duel, to spare her of the guilt of having known two men. The bandit releases the samurai, gives him a sword, and the two of them fight honorably and skillfully. In the end, the bandit gains the upper-hand and slays the samurai, but the wife runs away after her husband's death.

In the wife's version of the story, the bandit flees from the scene after raping her. The wife begs the samurai for forgiveness, but he merely glares at her, not moving an inch. She quickly cuts him loose with a knife and asks that he kill her to rid her of her shame, but again he does nothing but glare. Eventually, the look her husband gives her drives her so insane that she murders him with the knife and faints.

The authorities manage to call upon the dead samurai himself via a spirit medium, and in his version of the story, the bandit asked the wife to go away with him. She agrees, but only if the bandit would kill her husband to ease her of her guilt. The bandit is put off by this sudden request and rejects her. She runs off, and the bandit frees the samurai on his own. The samurai is so overcome with grief from all that had happened that he takes a dagger and kills himself.

There is then a surprise fourth testimony from a secret witness. After the wife was raped, the bandit asked the wife to go away with him, but she instead releases her husband and leaves it up to the men to decide who she stays with. At first they do not wish to do so, but after the wife prods and mocks them deliriously, the engage in a rather pathetic fight to which the bandit is the victor out of sheer luck. The wife flees in horror when the samurai is killed, and the bandit runs off with the valuables alone. The witness had apparently come across the scene while looking for wood, but had kept his story secret because he himself had stolen the dagger from the scene before reporting to the police about the body.

Although there are four different accounts of how the samurai died, the fact remains that at one point the samurai was slain. There is one set truth, one set past and one true way that this happened (which in likeliness is that of the fourth witness' story), but we as mere humans may not be able to determine what it is. Regardless of our ability to remember it, however, the true events did happen.

Therefore, the past does exist in this sense.



However, there is a slightly more controversial point that could be brought up in the favor of people who believe that the past does not exist. You see, the past is time before the present. Time is a conceptual method of measuring duration and intervals, but it does not actually physically exist. People and objects exist as matter/solids/gases, lights and sounds exist as particles and waves, even ideas and emotions exist as chemical and electrical pulses within the brain. But does time itself exist? Only as an idea, a concept. The present is an idea/knowledge of the world around you at currently. Time past then is a memory of that. Please note that I'm using the word idea loosely here.

You're looking at your screen, and the the knowledge, the idea, of the present is entered into the brain. However, once it's been entered, it becomes a memory. More knowledge and ideas can be derived from this memory, but it is a memory none-the-less. If the past is time before the present, and time is an idea that becomes a memory the instant after recognition, then past ideas do not exist. Only memories of them.


To sum up, you can remember time past, but it does exist anymore. It did exist, but it does not exist now.





I applaud anyone who was brave enough to read through all of that. <.<

You made me want to see the movie.

Grafikal: No, you're thinking of time in as a linear object, which moves from the point of creation to time's end. It is not that way, and I"m inclined to agree with Zylos' little tidbit at the end about how it's all an idea. It all happened "now," when it happened, but it never happened in the past. We have memories much like how trees have rings, but they never occurred in the past. Time did not stop, no you're right, but my point is that we're only existing "now" and we only ever did exist now. There's no "past" and there's no "future;" just memories of things that have changed and theories of what could.
Just an observation, but if the past never existed then how could the world be created? There was that interval of time without past but with future just as the world was created, and isn't that a paradox?

You made me want to see the movie.

Seconded...I love movies like that. There's a movie called Surveillance that came out a couple of years ago, and I only watched like the first half hour, but it was a similar plot. It was good, but I never finished watching for some reason, and the very beginning is disgustingly gory.

You made me want to see the movie.

http://www.zappinternet.com/video/BoGsYiyQid/Rashomon-1950

It's an old black and white movie entirely in Japanese (but with English subtitles). It's not a movie fit for most people's tastes, but I enjoyed it for its interesting story. If you don't mind watching a forgotten foreign classic, I'd say give it a try.

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I just watched Wings of Desire, so I'm in the foreign film mode.

Zylos kinda got to it first, but I had a similar idea. The past, by definition, no longer is- it was, but is no longer. All that remains of it are its echoes- memories and consequences.

Now consider rejecting the argument entirely outside of this discussion. I mean great philosophical exercise and all, but it's like Eleanor Roosevelt said (and later paraphrased by Master Oogway in Kung-Fu Panda), "the past is history, tomorrow is a mystery. But today is a gift. That is why it is called the present."

Just sayin'.

Oh, and Zylos, you have excellent taste in film, IMO.

I'm reading 1984 in school, too. P:

I didn't have the time to read all the posts, but my stance is that because I can remember the past, it exists. Whether the past I remember is true or not, because it's in my mind as a thought, its existence is proven.

@Grafikal: You can't say that there wasn't a past, but you can say that an event (and I apologize for my bad wording in my OP, my bad) in the past past never "existed". Like I could just say that Napoleon won the Napoleanic war, and that would basically destroy that event, and create a new one in it's place.

@Zylos: You have a great taste in movies.

@SirJackRex: About your paradox thingy, perhaps if the past never existed, then the world was created just now? Just a thought.

@Grafikal: You can't say that there wasn't a past, but you can say that an event (and I apologize for my bad wording in my OP, my bad) in the past past never "existed". Like I could just say that Napoleon won the Napoleanic war, and that would basically destroy that event, and create a new one in it's place.

@Zylos: You have a great taste in movies.

@SirJackRex: About your paradox thingy, perhaps if the past never existed, then the world was created just now? Just a thought.

I never a single time ever said that there wasn't a past. If you read anything I wrote, I said that the past has to have existed.

Grafikal: No, you're thinking of time in as a linear object, which moves from the point of creation to time's end. It is not that way, and I"m inclined to agree with Zylos' little tidbit at the end about how it's all an idea. It all happened "now," when it happened, but it never happened in the past. We have memories much like how trees have rings, but they never occurred in the past. Time did not stop, no you're right, but my point is that we're only existing "now" and we only ever did exist now. There's no "past" and there's no "future;" just memories of things that have changed and theories of what could.
Just an observation, but if the past never existed then how could the world be created? There was that interval of time without past but with future just as the world was created, and isn't that a paradox?

I'm not saying that time is linear. I'm saying we live moment to moment, whether that moment is higher or lower than the one before it. That's not a line. Also, I agree that the past and future do not exist/ed in a tangible form. That's a whole new dimension. Literally. We can't perceive that dimension. I'm saying that by our logic that "past" is the name we give something that has occurred in the present. "Future" is the name we give something that has not yet occurred in the present, and by those definitions, the past has to exist and the future has to exist or time is literally stopped. However, we all know that time has not stopped. If you're reading this, you're not stuck in time. You're experiencing past and future faster than the speed of light - literally.

You see, I'm more inclined to say that the "present" does not exist, and that there is only past and future. You can say we are living in the present, but how would you describe the present? You can't without a flaw unless you describe the present in the sense that time has stopped. You can say that the present is a moment, but it isn't a moment. A moment is a length of time. A moment has a beginning and end. The present cannot occur at both the beginning and end of a moment. Think of it like 2 dimensions. Only height and width. If you were to turn a literal 2 dimensional object on it's side so that we would assume to see it's "depth" it would not exist, for it only has 2 dimensions. The "present" is theoretically a moment and can only be proven if time stops. If time froze and there is absolutely no time passing, then your are stuck in the "present". Another example is how you ask a kid when the present is. They would say , "Now", or if you ask a real kid you'd probably get a response like, "It's riiiiiiiiiighhhhhttttttttt.......NOW!". However, the truth is that in the time it took for the kid to finish saying 'now', the 'n' and 'o' and majority of the 'w' sounds are all in the past and what he hasn't yet said is the future (however obviously near the future is there). I hope what I explained is clear enough.

I never a single time ever said that there wasn't a past. If you read anything I wrote, I said that the past has to have existed.

I know you said that the past has to have existed, but I was asking if you could destroy that past and re-create a new one, to the extent that that past (the true one) never existed. However, I'm guessing you were thinking that I was just addressing the past in general, not the specific "truth" of the past, and whether that can exist. Again, I apologize for my terrible wording.

another philosophical thought process that comes to mind is the theory that the entire world was created five seconds ago, and all our memories are simply lies that we made up in our own heads. This can also be branched off to say that all other people that we know of and talk to daily are also made up in our own minds and that this entire plane of existence is simply a madman's dream.

And, if that is true, we can infer that the past doesn't exist (just like the past doesn't exist in dreams even though we know something happened in the dream before the dream took place in our imagination)

I could say that nothing happened at all, basically, before the day I was born. It's just me, making everything up, and having my imaginary denizens of my world corroborate the theories, or even try to refute them, in an attempt to get a sense of balance in my crazy imagination.

Which pill did you take, Sashikinaroji? The red pill or the blue pill?

The Meyer Pill... It basically consists of your stoner friend Dustin teaching you all about philosophy while you're in homeroom, most of the time, against your will...

My theory pretty much coincides (or at least, I think it does) with what Zylos is saying.

Has anybody seen the film Premonition? It's about a woman (Sandra Bullock) who experiences the events of a week in a different order (starts on sunday, then goes to thursday, and eventually she does a week like this). At some point during the week, her husband dies, she has sex with her husband, and her daughter runs through two glass doors and is horribly scarred. And although that her two daughters experience the events (well, two of the three I mentioned) in what we would call a natural order, the mother experiences it in a different order - but nobody doubts that it never happened.

The point I'm trying to prove (albeit rather badly), is that no matter what order people perceive the past in, it still happened. Even if it's just our body's memories of significant events that happened that we may record in one way or another, I believe that in some form, the past existed.

another philosophical thought process that comes to mind is the theory that the entire world was created five seconds ago, and all our memories are simply lies that we made up in our own heads. This can also be branched off to say that all other people that we know of and talk to daily are also made up in our own minds and that this entire plane of existence is simply a madman's dream.

This one is so ridiculous and so awesome at the same time.

5 seconds ago is still the past.

I know that five seconds is still the past, I'm just using that term as a way of saying that it was, indeed created... And for that matter, what I was more trying to get at is that anything before our lives may not have happened, and that "Past" could not have existed, mainly because we have not experienced it firsthand.

That being said, other than what we are doing in the millisecond that is "The Present" we cannot be sure that we ever perceive anything... 

Well, I think it's crazy to say the present doesn't exist, no matter how long it takes to say or hear "now." If you're reading this, you can only be reading it in the present. I believe the "present" to be a perpetual state of "now." If the future exists in the smallest possible frame of time from now, then by the time you get to the future it's already the present, and so on and so forth. Likewise for the past, by the time you comprehend "now," it's already the gone but that doesn't change the fact that the "present" is still what we live in. We may not be able to notice is in any easy sense, but it's still here. We can't possible live in either the future or the past, because they don't exist alongside us. I think we may be arguing the same thing or very similar things, and probably because our initial posts weren't clear enough in our beliefs.

I think I become a little scrabbled in belief when it comes to past/future as objects that can be interacted with, like traveling to the past/future. However, if you're existing in the past it's still the present for everything around you. I think of time/space as a massive checker board with every space being an "now" in time/space and is the present when you exist in it.

An interesting series of movies is Wong Kar-Wai's Days of Being Wild, In the Mood for Love, and 2046. They're all loosely connected (I think maybe the first two are directly connected), but the series deals with trying to live in the past, the present and the future. I've only seen part of the first one and all of the second one, but they were very good. I think you need to see the entire series to get the gist of it, or at least that's what I was told. Also, you should see them because Tony Leung is in the second and third, and he's like the greatest actor ever. :3

@cozziekuns: Actually I was kidding, and my point was that at the very beginning of time itself there was no past and therefore no future.

Well, I think it's crazy to say the present doesn't exist, no matter how long it takes to say or hear "now." If you're reading this, you can only be reading it in the present. I believe the "present" to be a perpetual state of "now."

It is. My point is that the present is a marker in time that represents the present. It isn't actually a moment of time by any means. Like the scubber in the timeline of flash, after effects, final cut pro, audacity, etc. The scrubber is a marker in time as you play something. That marker plays sound at the present moment that the scrubber rolls over it - however, the scrubber is never a value until time stops. You can stop time on a song or a video which is why we can perceive a representation of present. We can't however actually stop time as in everyone's time instead of just the timeline of a song or video.

If the future exists in the smallest possible frame of time from now, then by the time you get to the future it's already the present, and so on and so forth.

By the time you get to the future, it's the past, lol. It doesn't matter how fast you get there, if there are 2 different states, one is the future and one is the past. "Present" is a marker for time that cannot be represented unless time is stopped. See my example above as to how we can perceive the present.

Likewise for the past, by the time you comprehend "now," it's already the gone but that doesn't change the fact that the "present" is still what we live in. We may not be able to notice is in any easy sense, but it's still here. We can't possible live in either the future or the past, because they don't exist alongside us. I think we may be arguing the same thing or very similar things, and probably because our initial posts weren't clear enough in our beliefs.

I agree that we cannot live in the future and in the past. Like I've been saying, the "present" is a marker in time that is constantly moving. We do live in the "present" but (for a lack of a better word) it's a moment with no beginning and end, because like I said, at the end of a moment, the beginning is in the past. That is true of absolutely any increment of time no matter how long or short. Only when time stops is when you can pinpoint the exact "present". This is why I say that "theoretically" the present doesn't exist. We know that it does and we know how to perceive it, but we can never stop time to measure it like we can a timeline of a program.

Think of Donnie Dark (if you've seen that movie). Remember when he starts seeing time? Like how those watery tubes would jut out from people's chests basically leading their way? That's because that watery tube is that person's specific future. That person is going to walk the path that that watery tube has created. Think of it like this: If you could stop time, you'd see a person in two frames essentially jumping from past to future. It would appear not moving, but instead blurry. This is true when you watch some movies. If you pause something in the middle of some action, it will appear blurry or shaky between to frames, but when you play it through it appears perfectly fluid and crisp. A lot of players now remedy this by skipping 2 frames together and jumping between them to create a crisper object on screen.

@cozziekuns: Actually I was kidding, and my point was that at the very beginning of time itself there was no past and therefore no future.

This is interesting. I wouldn't say you're wrong, but I wouldn't say you're right either. We can't say that time ever was created, or ever had a starting point. From our logic, everything has to have a beginning however long ago it has started. That's the extend of anything in this dimensions. It's only crazy when we leave out dimension and enter others. I can't honestly describe how something just is without a start or how that's possible. It's probably outside of this dimension's physics. Time is the 4th dimension and we can only perceive up to the 3rd. So we couldn't properly describe that. I understood your point though lol.

Oh, okay. I see exactly what you're saying, and it makes perfect sense! Video pause is a very good comparison, and I love Donnie Darko. :3

What you mean by "unless time has stopped" is very interesting, and (obviously) I had never though of that before. Thanks man, this has changed my perspective a bit.