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There has been a little debate on the subject of "the present", and I'd like to try and clear that up (since I myself am a bit confused), if possible.
There are some here, who believe that there is no such thing as the present, because there is no smallest incriment of time (or there is a smallest incriment, but our brains move way too slowly to actually concieve of it).
However, my counter is that if there were no present, then we would all be in the future, and that is illogical. In fact, the very sentence "I am in the future" is semantically and logically retarded (since "I am" refers to your present state, and reference to the future would require a statement of the form "I will be").
Now, that just shows that there must be a present, it doesn't explain what it is because, frankly, I'm not really sure.
My current idea (off the top of my head) would be that the present is a complete memory of the revisions of experienced phenomena (which is what consciousness is) in the brain. IOW, all that the "present" really is is our memory (no matter how recent) of phenomenological experiences that happened in the past.
Of course, this idea is probably way off - I have already found one flaw (namely, memories of the past must take place in the present, and so you still have no actual definition of the "present") - so I need some help on this.
Any/all participation will be appreciated (note: not "is" appreciated ).
There are some here, who believe that there is no such thing as the present, because there is no smallest incriment of time (or there is a smallest incriment, but our brains move way too slowly to actually concieve of it).
However, my counter is that if there were no present, then we would all be in the future, and that is illogical. In fact, the very sentence "I am in the future" is semantically and logically retarded (since "I am" refers to your present state, and reference to the future would require a statement of the form "I will be").
Now, that just shows that there must be a present, it doesn't explain what it is because, frankly, I'm not really sure.
My current idea (off the top of my head) would be that the present is a complete memory of the revisions of experienced phenomena (which is what consciousness is) in the brain. IOW, all that the "present" really is is our memory (no matter how recent) of phenomenological experiences that happened in the past.
Of course, this idea is probably way off - I have already found one flaw (namely, memories of the past must take place in the present, and so you still have no actual definition of the "present") - so I need some help on this.
Any/all participation will be appreciated (note: not "is" appreciated ).