The Future is just a concept?

We live moment to moment, but because we have a long-term memory, we make long-term plans while we live moment to moment.

Retirement is just another way to say we Giant Squirrel Humans store and hide away our nuts for the coming winter, just like the tree squirrels do, so...

When you get a 401k plan and a retirement savings plan, you're not just saving for the future, your expressing confidence you'll live to be 65 and more, and promising yourself you'll do your best to get there alive to spend it, so...

The future you will like you more the more nuts you store up for him. And to him, as it was to your younger self, it is always...

...right now.

The concept of the future has always been just that a concept. However, when we think about the future and plan, it becomes more solid and real in my mind. As far as I am concerned I exist. Yes, I travel through time, and as Steve Miller says "we all are slipping, into future." The future becomes the now, momentarily and then it is the past, yet I remain, I persist. The person I become in the future is still me, the who Robert is still essentially the same, however the WHAT that I am changes. The adjectives used to describe me change, older, wiser, father, and husband all change but the WHO is the same.

Actually time is "one". Everything exists in time, yet there are different phases of the time factor—present, past and future. Present, past and future are one. Every day we can experience the time factor as morning, noon and evening, and although morning is different from noon, which is different from evening, all of them taken together are one. Still, we spend our lives thinking in the past and making plans for the future. If tomorrow never comes, why so many plans for the future?

Only for God there is not past and future, He always lives in the present, therefore all His activities are always fresh even they are going on eternally. He is not between past and present, but we are. We are experiencing time by the changing of our body, I was a child, I was a boy, I was a young man, now I am old man, so there was past and future in every stage. I am the same person in different bodies (child, young and old).

>>"The past and future must exist. Otherwise the entire universe would have to be recreated every instant ,and there would be no future to go into."

Actually, this is how a video game works. The entire universe is redrawn every instant, generally about 30 times per second (so that the motion looks smooth to the human eye).

So if our universe is a construct, this is probably true.

It's a pretty common concept within Eastern philosophies to be "in the present" so what you're saying is not exactly novel.

Perhaps you may think about what exactly is this "present" that you say exists. As soon as you say 'this is the present" - it's gone into the 'past'. Is life lineal, being made up of millions of 'present' mille-seconds?

Of course. I thought people here knew that.

Past and future are just illusions that exist in our mind, just more concepts.. The only "real time" is now. There has always been, and ever will be, only "now". We have invented this concept of time to make it easier to measure things and function in society.

In concrete terms, what value does this give us?

Are we supposed to live our lives with absolutely no forethought or reflection on our past? We would be blind atoms bouncing off each other, relying purely on basic instinct and desires with no planning and no regret.

The aesthetic lives entirely for the present moment. He has no cares for the future, no sense of responsibilities or obligations to others, and neither does he think of his past and therefore does not feel remorse for anything he does.

This sounds to me like a hedonist, comparable to Don Juan, who unabashedly womanized, got women to fall in love with him and allowed them to instigate the destruction of their own lives by breaking off their previous engagements. After which he just slips out the back door and continues on the prowl.

In my opinion, the very essence of life is choice. The aesthetic declines to play the game of morality all together, so it ceases to apply to his life and he therefore ceases to be a man at all. He is an animal, a primitive and destructive force.

Whether a man makes moral choices or wicked ones, the fact that he is consciously making choices by referring to past experiences and anticipating the future means that he is playing the game of morality. Good or evil, he is a man by choice.

The past and future must exist. Otherwise the entire universe would have to be recreated every instant ,and there would be no future to go into.

Yes. In fact this question will disappear by tomorrow.

Or not.

ok