Quote:
Originally Posted by dipayankar  Graybeard.. why is that from the mythical midposition, we only move forward and not backward?? |
Well Dip .... You always ask the hard questions ... LOL
I have heard many arguments and ideas about this:
1.. Entropy ... This basically says that we are more attuned towards order than disorder. As we came from order (lo-entropy) we are able to perceive backwards but not forwards (hi entropy)
I suppose this is an explanation but I don't like it much.
2.. Brian Greene claims that we can be programmed. In other words if Graybeard Software was deleted and I was reprogrammed with Dipayankar software all your past and experiences would be mine. I would be 100% convinced that my past was yours. Therefore the past is no more perceivable than the future. We only think we move forwards because we believe we have moved to our present position from a previous one.
I don't really think this is the final answer either.
3.. Each moment comes with its own past! Whatever moment your in, it has its own past coded in it. Eg: If one moment you are a T-Rex devouring some less fortunate dinosaur, and the next you are Graybeard, and it is pointed out to you that a moment before you were a dinosaur, you would argue, "Impossible, I remember my Father and he wasn't a dinosaur". Each moment has its own history
I don't really like this one either. And of course there are many more, many are spiritual.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dipayankar Graybeard.. why is that from the mythical midposition, we only move forward and not backward?? |
I don't know if we move at all. I would like to re-word your question: Why do we perceive the past and not the future, given the assumption that the past and future are contemporary with the present.
My answer is that we do not 'perceive' the past any more than we can 'perceive' the future.
I tend to think that 'Memory' is a primeval natural selection tool. Necessary to survive. Even if you are a very simple-celled creature some things are necessary to know by comparison. eg: Day/Night. Hot/Cold. If you inadvertantly enter a cave and are attacked by a Sabre-toothed Tiger and miraculously survive. You need to commit your surroundings to memory, so that you can always compare new surroundings with that of the Sabre-toothed Tigers surroundings and you don't make the same mistake again.
This is what I think our past consists of. It is just our fond and not so fond memories. it doesn't really exist. Nothing to do with a Scientific Past Present or Future. When the last person who saw Jesus Christ in the flesh died. Did we lose that past, or did we lose it when Jesus died, or have we never lost it. Its all just opinion!
So I suppose this explanation provides some sort of an answer. Our memory collects more data and so the statistically weighted assumption is that we move forward.
No doubt many holes can be shot in this theory too. Did any of this make sense Dip ?
cool bananas ... greg
