Does Time Exist? Thoughts about the now.

The understanding of time by humans is perhaps one of the most important things to separate us, unlike other animals, from savagery. A lion wakes up every day running for his food, we can check the drawers of our kitchen and have food there for months. Of course, not all animals have a conception of time as limited as lions, but, no doubt, no animal can understand time in the way that humans do, which we can even think about things that will happen after we are dead, or things that happened before we were born.

The birth of a civilization, just to set an example, is only possible in the mind of someone who is capable of thinking not only for himself, but also for his children, and for his grandchildren, and for the grandchildren of his grandchildren, understanding, in turn, that everything one can do for them can only do it in the now.

However, it is to be feared that our conception of time in modernity, especially because of the influence of television, is not like that of the ancient creators of civilizations, and worse, it is to be feared that our understanding of time in modernity not only be detached from theirs and therefore be incapable of such creative ingenuity, but, moreover, very likely to be wrong, giving on the contrary a destructive mentality.

Let's look at the following, everything that exists in this physical world in which we live is always in motion, even that which at first seems static, because we live in continuous alteration, nothing is today as it was yesterday, everything is in constant change.

It's as simple as this; since we are born we begin to age.

But, in turn, it's a little more complicated than we usually think. If we simply stop to observe the present, this as quickly as we see it slips out of our hands, and before we can even blink, the present has passed and become past.

This is because we live in a continuous and permanent succession of the "now", because this is undoubtedly the only time we know. No one has ever lived in the past and not in the future, everyone has always lived and at all times in the now, although even using the words "now" or "present" is wrong to some extent, because they denote something static, the appropriate word would be "becoming".

So, to say that we live in the present is, technically, wrong, because in the course of pronouncing such a word the present is past, instead, we live in a becoming, in a continuous change.

We must, therefore, avoid imagining time in a linear way, as if it were a photographic tape, because then we will fall into the illusion of dividing the past, the present and the future as if each lived apart from the other, as if each had an independent and simultaneous material existence.

Everything that has happened in the history of the universe, everything that is happening, and everything that will happen, will always be in the now. Think that the particles that were thousands of years ago forming the universe are the same as now, they have changed their order, but they have not ceased to exist.

A few days ago the centenary of the end of the Great War was celebrated, it is evident that that happened, as a countless number of historical events, ancient characters and so on, where is all that now? Does the past exist?

To answer such questions, we must first quickly understand what time is.

The time is not the hours, nor the minutes, nor the seconds, this in any case is the passage of time. Time is not our observation of him, many believe that as they perceive the time fast or slow, i.e. at different speeds, time varies depending on the observer, deceptive argument, because it confuses the perception of time with time itself. Time, on the other hand, is the existence of an order, a succession; a past, a present and a future, or in other words, a before and after.

Now, if we live in a constant becoming, how is it possible that such concepts as "present", "past" or "future" exist?

Simple. As "becoming" is a constant change, for there to be change there must be a "before" and a "after", because if everything remains static, there is no change. The fact that there is a "before" ensures the existence of a past, and the fact that there is a "after" ensures the existence of a present. When there is a "past" and a "present" in turn, we therefore know that there is a "future", taking into consideration that the "present" is the "future" of the "past". However, the future of the present, that is, what we usually known simply as "future", is the only unknown we will have in this matter always, being that it is so unpredictable that even its very existence can not be known. Trusting in the future is always an act of faith.

Now, as we said before, we already know that there is a past, but... where is it?, because it's not here, we have never lived it, we have always lived in the "now", what did not we say that before?

That's right, but the past is not at all like we imagined, we should try to think outside the box by this time. The only thing that physically exists, the only thing that exists in matter, is the present, the now. The past does not exist materially speaking, therefore, we should forget about traveling in time, we better park for a moment the DeLorean.

Let's look again at one of the questions we asked earlier; Does the past exist?

Let's analyze this question in depth for a moment. The word "exist" refers to the present, unlike the word "existed", which refers to the past. When we ask if the past exists, we are asking if the past exists in the present, does not that seem a bit ironic?

But however contradictory it may seem, the answer is positive; yes, the past exists in the present, as it cannot be otherwise. Everything that exists, absolutely everything, does in the now.

As I said above, we must eliminate that materialistic conception we have of time, believing that the past and the future exist materially, that is totally an error. The past and the future exist only as ideas, in an intelligible form, the only thing that exists materially, and the only thing that has ever existed, is the now.

When we use the word "past", we refer to material conditions that previously existed, but now exist only as an idea. Today's past was yesterday, however, no one yesterday believed he was living in the past, and indeed they were not doing it, they were living in the "now" that happened to them. In the same way, yesterday no longer exists materially, and never will, only exists as an idea, therefore, don't continue to visualize it because you only waste time, you miss the "now" when you live thinking about the days that were gone.

Our mind, seeing how material conditions are in constant change, realizes, through abstraction, that things were before as they are not already, and therefore, discovers this concept of the "past", which does not denote the "nows" that have already passed, but on the contrary denotes material circumstances that no longer exist, but that existed. In such a way that the past only and always exists as an idea, and nothing more.

And it is not only surprising that the past exists only in the now, but in the same way, by never living in the "past" nor in the "future", more always living in the "now", then we realize that the "now" is eternal.

This concept, "eternal", may cause us confusion, as it's caused to most people. The eternal is not that which lasts long, neither that which lasts forever, this is, on the contrary, the lasting. The eternal is that which has neither beginning nor end, that is, which does not participate in time, the eternal is timeless.

Does not it seem even more incredible then that the now, being eternal, does not participate in time? And I'm not talking about the "now", taken as precisely this now, that is, I'm not talking about the current material circumstances that are constantly changing, because they do participate in time, but I'm talking about the "now" taken in itself, by saying, that we are always in the now.

Well, that's right, the past is in the now, and the future, if it is to be found somewhere, that will undoubtedly be in the now also, which in turn is eternal. This could suggest that time is a social construct or an illusion, but that would be to leave all the arguments that we have already established on the floor. Time actually exists, only not materially, therefore, we must avoid turning our head to another place, because here in the now is where we find everything we need to see, and in reality, everything that exists.

To conclude, let's go back to the creators of civilizations. I mentioned above that to create a civilization it is necessary to think even of the grandchildren of your grandchildren, and now, however, I say that it is necessary to live in the now, what is not a contradiction?

That may seem, but in reality it's quite the opposite. If we understand that the past and the future are in the now, then we should not have problems to understand that the future will only be the change in the circumstances of the now, therefore, thinking about the grandchildren of our grandchildren is simply understanding that the only thing what we can do for them, and for the future in general, is to worry about now, is to take responsibility for the only thing that is in our hands, not only to change the future, but also to change the past of the future.

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