Time related brain teaser =)

[Francisck]

A long time ago I heard or read something like this:

This instant, "now" (the present) is the border between something that doesn't exist yet (the future) and something that doesn't exist any longer (the past). Does "now" really exist? How can anything exist if "now" doesn't exist?

My initial reaction is that this is just a play with words, conflating various concepts.

What do you think?

[johnfromoz]

The past did exist when it was the "now" of a millisecond, minute or millenium ago.

It's rather like saying (and I never did this ) that a coin you placed on the railway track and is now too hot to pick up doesn't exist, because the kinetic energy of the train that heated it up is "past" and no longer exists. You may blister your hand if you believe that! And if you stick around pondering it, the next train from the future will impart its inertia to you.

Just like matter and energy may change forms, "nows" exist, they become "thens", and "nexts" turn into "nows".

I swear I haven't had a drink at all yet. But I will shortly.

[hank00001]

Well I guess the way I see it is that now is a continual thing, like a point moving along a continual never ending line. The past keeps increasing and the future, well who knows, it may be decreasing or my be infinite. What ever it is I dont think I will see the end of the future no matter what the Mayan calender says.

[Kitty]

Actually, now is all that does exist. And as with everything else in the universe, now is constantly changing.

To answer this question, we have to first define what "time" is. Let's start with Albert Einstein, who said, “The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once" and "Space and time are not conditions in which we live; they are simply modes in which we think."

Time is a human construct, not an absolute.