Does the present exist?

[lacktheknack]

Yes.

At any given moment, everything exists in a set of Planck lengths, the "pixel of the universe" if you will (it's the smallest conceivable measurement).

In the past, they were in a different set of Planck lengths.

In the future, they will travel to other sets.

But in the present, they are where they are.

...or you could look at the present as a linguistic/logical construct that merely refers to "whatever my brain is processing to be around me right now".

Both work.

What a strange and pointless question.

 

[Aaron Sylvester]

Of course there's a present, it's called planck time [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_time]. The planck unit you are currently occupying is your "present".

 

[Ipsen]

My take:

Not only is the present just the infinitely small dividing line between past and present, it's the only tense of time where, considering one person/object/concept, time is actually stopped. You can note a sequence of events to any one person/object/concept, right? You can even attempt to note a sequence of events to the future. All sequences happen over time. But the present? Granted you take the smallest amount of time observing a person/object/concept, can't do it.

Also, seeing how the past and future rely on things changing:

-What if, at this point in time, things just suddenly stopped changing for the rest of time; all matter frozen in place, laws of physics be damned? Well, we'd still have a past; things DID have a time where they went through change, even though we couldn't recall that change anymore (you know, being frozen in time). Heck, technically there's still a future, just one you'd have to tweak the definition for, since nothing else would commit to change. Might have to tweak the definition of 'time' as well, at that point.

- What if time never started/big bang never occurred/change never occurred in this existance? Well, you could still consider whatever is to have a past of 'not changing', and a future of 'not changing'. Useless to our definition, but -shrug-

What it comes down to, since the cease of eventual occurance doesn't really 'stop' the concept of past/present/future, we only have these tenses of time because we have impulse to manage the change that EXISTS and DOES happen around us, constantly and beyond us. Down to our very atomic structures this impulse originates from.

...Guess a topic like this beats crying over the failures of Steam. Or the FCC fucking us over. Or something-something equal rights.

For now.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

Uh, about 1950.

/thread

Here's why: Stephen Fry.


(Starts at 15:57, I don't know how to embed timestamps >.<)

 

[Lazy Kitty]

The present is the in progress period of time in whichever length said period of time is measure.
Could be hours, seconds, a single instance or centuries, depending on what you're measuring.
Could be "important" events in history. For example a war or the existence of a species. Or the time that the earth exists. Or just dinner or the moment you're reading this.

Basically anything you can preceed with "right now" is the present in some measure of time.
For example "Right now I'm typing this." or "Right now dinosaurs are extinct."
In the second example, the present is from the moment dinosaurs went extinct up until either someone builds Jurassic Park or the end of time, whichever happens first.

Basically, the present is a range of time greater than 0 which the current instance is a part of.

 

[gandhi the peacemake]

You could think of time as binary -

existing = past = 1
not existing = future = 0

- with the present simply being the switch from one state to the other.

This is, of course, framing time solely within the human experiencing of it. Read a physics textbook and you start getting into quantum superposition and relativity, where past, present, and future become more malleable.

 

[TaboriHK]

I'd answer, but you couldn't take me at my word.

 

[2xDouble]

Yes.

Spoiler: Here it is

...I'm so sorry. Also, what the hell took you guys so long to make that joke?

Real answer: The "present", the "moment", the "now"... as described, exists momentarily, as an effective massless singularity in time. But, in reality, "the present" repeats and propagates ad infinitum. The longer time exists, the more of "the present" exists. To put it another way: It doesn't matter how quickly a moment has passed if the next moment instantly becomes the new "now". As such, "The present" exists and continues to exist, not as a specific point in time, but as the vehicle through which we travel time; the frame of reference by which we observe time.

Funny note: the present you perceive is not the actual, up-to-date present. You are actually delayed by the fractional seconds it takes your brain and internal sensors to process the movements of space-time; literally "living in the past".

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Not in the strictest sense, but it often refers to a period of time around the exact present where the conditions in question are similar, which can last centuries in some senses.