trendal said:

The present is an illusion. Doesn't exist, never will, and never has

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trendal said:

MushroomTrip said:

What explanation do you exactly find for the face that everything is predetermined up to the point where we're unable to freely choose anything? Meaning, hoe exactly do you prove that?

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You don't...it's one of those big mysteries in life

You can't prove it one way or another.

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And you also said:

trendal said:

Or, are you leading to the absence of free will by saying "the past is dependent upon the future"....?

Bingo! You get the prize!

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That's pretty much a contradiction in my book.

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Jeez you just don't know when to quit eh?

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I don't quit only because I have good reasons not to quit
Like the fact that you're contradicting yourself . That's sufficient reason to me because your contradiction disolves your entire structure of reasoning presented in this thread. How can it remain valid since you yourself are the one who says that this is one of the life's mysteries? Then why didn't you focus you arguments around the mystery instead of trying to prove something that can't ... while at some points of the discussion you were strong and firm on the position that your reasons are sufficient. That is exactly the reason why I don't quit.

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Are you going to ban things like discussion on god, an afterlife, hell, ect? Might as well get rid of this whole forum!

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Rid the whole forum?
This forum is sustained by the idea of being able to find contradictory arguments and trying to explain them... you obviously didn't explain your contradiction, preferring instead to say that you can't continue a discussion with someone who has no further notions on modern physics. Would those notions of made it clear that your contradiction makes sense (as in a logical one)?

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Einstein's spinning in his grave right now.

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trendal said:

The past depends on the future as much as the future does on the past.

In order to change the future, you must be able to change the past.

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trendal said:

Why is he spinning? I think that everything I have said is in line with Einstein's works...

Lets look at my first post:

trendal said:

The past depends on the future as much as the future does on the past.

In order to change the future, you must be able to change the past.

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In the first I am saying that the future depends on the past, which should be self-evident. I know, you disagree with my later statement that there is no "present"...let's forget that for a moment and remember that the "present" also depends on the past. So if the future depends on the present, it also depends on the past. The second part of it is really just the same thing, said for anyone who thinks you can go backwards in time.

My second sentence was meant to eventually bring in the subject of free will which, if it's not obvious by now, I don't really believe in. Most of why I do not believe it stems from the fact that I believe time to be a dimension like the usual 3 spatial ones (this is the essential part of what Einstein said in his special theory of relativity). If it is a dimension like the other three, then the "future" does exist and from a vantage point outside of our universe all of time exists - the past and the future.

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mr_kite said:

I read the whole thread and I think it all comes back to this:

trendal said:

The present is an illusion. Doesn't exist, never will, and never has

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You'll never do anything in the future, and you never did anything in the past, your entire life happens "now"!

The present, now, is the only thing that exists. The past is an illusion, as it is a construct of your memory that was never truly "real". The future is an illusion. Anything that isn't "now" is an illusion.

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That is absolutely correct
To complement: The moment is that what connects the whole universe. This moment is the same everywhere in the universe !
Whatever Einstein and mathematics would like to bend for their contextual prove of the constant of the speed of light. Ha, forget it.
The moment is it what counts.
Translate this: Learn from the past, look into the future, BUT live in the moment, 'cause every change only will happen there.
Another already mentioned point of view: The moment (aka present) is all that exists, because past and future are really all imaginations or subjectivisms from THAT present moment !

trendal said:

I'm sorry but I didn't want this thread to degenerate into a discussion about semantics...

First your argument was that I was contradicting myself because you said "present" was the same thing as "now", and that was shown not to be so. Then your argument was that I was contradicting myself by hinting that I wanted to have a discussion about fee will while saying that I don't think it is provable one way or another....I have to wonder where you got your definition of "contradiction".

Can we not have a discussion about temporal mechanics and how it relates to the notion of free will without you bringing up "contradictions" left and right when they aren't there?

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Yes I mention two contradictions because you made two contradictions, each due to confuse the meaning of the thread.
First you said that the present in not the same with "now" and then you said you can't prove that there is free will or not while on the other hand you strongly sustained that all our actions are predetermined to the point where we're being unable to make any choice out of out own free Will.
What's so strange about me pointing that out?

The only time we're always experiencing is NOW. Now is in a constant state self updating

trendal said:

We'll have to agree to disagree then, because to me time is a dimension and like any other dimension it exists both before and after "now". Where is the past you ask? Well, it's in the past! It happened a second, minute, hour, or year ago and that's where it is.

If you cannot see time as a dimension...then our discussion should end here, because I do.

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