Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site dciem.UUCP Path: utzoo!dciem!mmt From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) Newsgroups: net.philosophy Subject: Re: Now and Then Message-ID: <1032@dciem.UUCP> Date: Tue, 7-Aug-84 12:13:15 EDT Article-I.D.: dciem.1032 Posted: Tue Aug 7 12:13:15 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 7-Aug-84 14:19:37 EDT References: <3113@decwrl.UUCP> Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada Lines: 24 **************** . . . If my predictions of the future were ideally accurate, then I could transcend the the direction of time. My recollections of the past are also not accurate, although they are much more accurate than my predictions of the future. Thus, my experience is a sample of reality. My free will determines **************** How do you know that your recollections of the past are more accurate than your predictions of the future? There seems to be no way other than concensus to make that assertion (photographs and written things may also count, but like other people's memories, they could be faked or wrong). What you have is the "now", in which is embedded some notion of a "past" you have experienced, which feels subjectively quite different from the "future" you guess at. This subjective difference is with us all our lives, but it really doesn't have any bearing on an absolutist position in regard to cause and effect. If you are a relativist, then the possibility of perception is all-important, but if not, then you have to look to the mathematics, and be very careful not to let subjective impressions creep in unannounced. -- Martin Taylor {allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt {uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsrgv!dciem!mmt