Due to the "Relativity of Simultaneity" which Einstein discovered, we now know that your entire life and death can be in someone's past even if their entire life and death is in your past.
Assuming Earth is not the only planet with life, then it's not merely a "can be" but an 'is':
Your entire life and death is in someone else's past even though their entire life and death is in your past. You see their death as being in "the past", and they would see your death as being in "the past", and neither of you would be more right or wrong than the other.
It's analogous to one person saying "Mars" is on "the left" and another person saying "Mars" is on "the right". Neither of them is more right or wrong than the other.
Objectively speaking, you would both be wrong. That's the sense in which there is no "the left" and there is no "the right" and there is no "the past" and there is no "the future".
In another sense, you would be right, in that you would be vaguely and sloppily referencing a subjective relationship you as one subject of infinite have with the universe as you experience from your subjective point and direction (i.e. where your nose happens to be pointing) in timeless spaceless spacetime. In that sense, there are infinite lefts, infinite rights, infinite pasts, infinite futures, and infinite here-and-nows existing together in tenseless spacetime all scattered about the entirety of spacetime timeless spacetime, including both that which you consider being in "the future" or "the past". In that sense, every point or spot or tiny blob in all of tenseless timeless spaceless spacetime is a here-and-now, at least every point (or spot or blob) that corresponds to a conscious being of a specific age. 36.532-year-old Socrates is in a unique here-and-now (one of infinite). Each and everyone of your great-great-great-grandchildren is in a here-and-now. In fact, each different-aged version of your great-great-great-grandchildren is in their own here and now. Each different-aged version of the human you see in the mirror is in its own here-and-now, which objectively is as equally real and existing as your own, in timeless tenseless spacetime.
There is no "the past" and the distinction between "past" and "future" is as relative and illusionary as the distinction between "left" and "right" or between "left" and "up". The universe doesn't have a left side or right side. It doesn't have a past side or future side. It doesn't have a time axis or an objective distinction between time and space. Even the seeming difference between time and space is as relative and illusory as the difference between "left" and "right" or between "left" and "up". Objectively, the universe is leftless, timeless, spaceless, and tenseless. What's space for one observer can be time for another, and vice versa.
Time isn't real. But consciousness and--at least to an extent--the spatiotemporal presence with which it comes with is real. That is, at least, it is real in the sense that a dream that is consciously dreamt is thus real. The experience of it is real. But it's plural, not singular. It's incorrect to say there is merely a presence. Unless you are solipsist, it's plural: presences.
There are infinite equally valid co-existing presences scattered throughout all of tenseless timeless spacetime, each having a dream-like experience of itself being the center of the universe, the here-and-now, with whatever direction its nose happens to be posting being forward-in-space direction, and with whatever direction it happens to be moving the forward-in-time-direction (such that it always see itself as going through time at the speed of life and being stationary in space).
It's no coincidence of course, that according to your own watch, time is always moving at one second per second (the speed of light). It's circular reasoning.
You are not really moving through time, and you are not really stationary in space, and you are not really the center of the universe. That's because really--meaning in objective reality--there is no time, no space, no center of the universe, no movement, and no speed. Those are all useful illusions, a made-up dream.
It's like pretending Flat Earth Theory is true as a useful illusion. It's easier to calculate the physics for practical purposes on a 2D map than a 3D globe.
Newtonian physics (i.e. the false assumption that time is real and that the universe has a singular objective now) is to Einstein's physics what Flat Earth Theory is to Round Earth Theory.
There is no "the past"; There is no "the past" in the same sense and to the same degree that there is no "the left".
It's a projection. It's an imaginary projection projected onto reality. It's an imaginary coordinate system projected onto reality that isn't really there and is projected differently by different observers, with neither projection being more or less correct, and both being objectively wrong.
It's analogous to 2D mappings of Earth made as if it Flat Earth Theory was true, with each observer/mapper/projecting drawing their 2D map as if they themself were at the center and as if their nose was pointing up (i.e. North). There is no center on the surface of the earth, just as there is no center (i.e. singular now or objective here) in the universe (i.e. timeless 4D spacetime).
Needless to say, this goes for other reference-frame-dependent measurements or concepts such as "up" and "down". Objectively, the universe does not have a top half and bottom half. There is no "the up" or "the down". Those are just dreamy phantoms that emerge from a conscious being experiencing the world, with each one's dreamy phantoms contradicting the others, neither one being right with the other wrong because there fictions. If Spiderman is a tall white guy in one comic and a black short girl in another comic, neither comic is or right or wrong, because Spiderman--like upness, timeness, spaceness, etc.--isn't real. If you dream of Spiderman one way one night, and a dream of him in a contradictory way, neither of us is right or wrong because Spiderman doesn't really exist, only in dreams and fictions and imaginations.
Presence doesn't exist without consciousness. It's a dreamy aspect of consciousness. We can (if we want) even define consciousness as presence or as a type of presences such that we would then definitively say consciousness is presence and presence is consciousnesses. Or we can think of presence and the experience of the illusion of the time (and space and forwardness and hereness and nowness and upness) that comes with it as being like an unreal dream that emerges from consciousness, but it's a dream that's consciously dreamt. If you consciously dream that you fight Spiderman, in a way you do actually fight him and in a way he is sort of relatively real in that your experience of him and of fighting him is real, and the pain you feel when he punches you in the face is real. However, what's crucial for accurate understanding is to remember that it's plural: presences (and dreams with an S). It's not singular (presence). Your dream is just one of infinite that co-exists in the timeless spaceless tenseless spacetime that includes all of what you consider future and all of you consider past, all of what you consider near and all of what you consider far. There is no single objective now, and there is no single objective here. In the objectively tenseless timeless spaceless spacetime in which we all live, your here-and-now is no more a here-and-now than Socrates's or your great-great-great grandchildren's. Your left isn't any more real than the infinite other lefts of all the infinite other people and creatures in spacetime who happen to be facing a different direction than you. There is no "the left" because objectively there is no left and subjectively there is not merely a left but rather infinite co-existing lefts, along with infinite co-existing heres and infinite co-existing nows.
There is no left; there's lefts. There is no now; there's nows. There is no here; there's heres. Yours isn't the left, here, now, it's just a left, a here, and a now, one of infinite. It's one of infinite. Everywhere and everywhen is a here and a now. Thus, there is no non-heres and non-nows, except in the objective sense that there is no heres and no nows. In either sense, either everywhere and everhwen is a here and now, or nowhere and nowhen is.
It's confusing, yes. The alternative concept--that time is real--is less confusing. It's much simpler. It's easier to draw maps than build globes. And it seems righter if you trust your eyes and don't remember that appearances are deceiving. The Earth looks flat. No matter how well you understand its not; it looks flat.
That's why Einstein famously said that time is a "persistent illusion".
With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott
- Your entire life and death is in someone else's past even though their entire life and death is in your past.
There is no "the past"; There is no "the past" in the same sense and to the same degree that there is no "the left".
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In addition to having authored his book, In It Together, Eckhart Aurelius Hughes (a.k.a. Scott) runs a mentoring program, with a free option, that guarantees success. Success is guaranteed for anyone who follows the program.
