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Sunday, August 20, 2006

Which is longest?

Which of your conceptions of the phases of time is longest - the past, the present or the future?

Its only a mini brainteaser, since there's no strictly right answer. If you look at it in terms of age of the universe, we have a figure of about 14billion years for the age of the universe, and by any of the topologies it will be around for a lot longer than that, so the answer there would be 'the future'. If you look at it in terms of an objective reality of observable phenomenon, then all you have is the past. You can't observe future events, unless you count indirect observations of sort implied by quantum non-locality, and that's only relatively in the future. If you can't observe future events, then you cannot really say you are observing present events, since the events themselves take time to be observed. In this sense, the answer would be 'the past'.

What I answered, because I like the simplicity of the logic involved, was 'the present'. In this case, one assumes that there is no past or future. Relatively, subjectively, one simply discounts the independent existence of time. There is only the present, and from that viewpoint it is the only possible answer, never mind the right one.

Answers on a postcard, winners receive nothing.

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