A seed

[Muratus del Mur]

Plain and simple thought seed i found lost in my gardener pocket, lets see what it grows into:

 

The present is caused by both the past and the future. We see this very clear when we talk about the past, but the other half of the picture that we miss is that the future is also causing the present in equal proportions as the past does.

 

 

 

..and yes this is a forum post because i am waiting for some smart replies

[Syrian]

Imagination like a Seed needs to be nurtured to grow, in many ways already predisposed to become a certain thing its future depends on many things, all of which can Change the end result. While feeding the Imagination will have various effects, o will feeding a Seed, however with Imagination limited input tends to lead to a greater variety while with a Seed predictable results are sure to ensue, or are they? using my Imagination i not only see an intricate root system seeking nourishment but and equally intricate branch/leaf system to absorb sunlight wind and rain, all of which will have more than typical results, sunlight may change its color, wind may strengthen its resolve making it steadfast and rain may generate a soften foundation which larger deeper roots will be needed to maintain its balance... Putting all these together one can easily see a simple Rose, yet add many factors and the simple Rose may be come a Hybrid or even a bountiful Bush whose thorns not only protect but enlighten all who feel their prick...

 

-Xavax

[Eara Meraia]

strangely, for me the best notion that corresponds a seed and at the same time a concept of present-past-future is idea.

 

Idea is planted to you mind representing some knowledge of past generations and minds. This knowledge is not present but accumulated in a small object containing life. This object (idea) not yet grown up and might be only little blicks in complete darkness. But planted on a good ground - thinking, creative mind, nurtured with knowledge and experience, the idea starts to grow. this is present. Period when knowledge is "touchable" and vulnerable to outside influences and changes. At some point gives fruit, which results in further ideas, more deep, more detailed, innovative. This fruit is a hope for future, motivation to move further and achieve more. The process of growth (present) cannot be imagined without a seed (which is past) and makes no sense without fruit, which is future. This is the endless nature of knowledge but the same paradigm applies for other spheres as well .

[Bashaw Steel]

ahh, it is really interesting how minds reflect on this..

for xavax its "imagination" and for eara its "idea"..

around this two words all others are built, making it look perfect in their perspective

"seed" will always be something else for different people, never same thing..

one seed for one soul, and one soul for one mind..

they fit perfectly, and even when one is not well said as some other, it does not mean that "one" is not the truth

no matter the energy, positive or negative, the "seed" will always grow into that its meant to be

however, question is "how" it will grow, will it be some twisted, and dead version of oak

or strong, and full of life and shades..

for a poet, its not what seed is, into what it will become, or what will become of it..

past, present, and future are just terms used to determinate passing of time, it means nothing for a poet

all that matters is that bond which exists beyond time, immortal spirit between all those things that separate people, as well as themselves 

into sides, good, bad, evil.. the canvas upon which our colors are painted, and "seed" that may connect earth and sky.. one day...

[Ackshan Bemunah]

[SIGSEGV]

Edited November 12, 2014 by Ackshan Bemunah

[Seigheart]

The future affects the present due to our ability to foresee future events, now, through past experiences.

[Ackshan Bemunah]

[SIGSEGV]

Edited November 12, 2014 by Ackshan Bemunah

[Pipstickz]

From the perspective of the present, it's hard to get away from the idea that there was one past leading up to one present which could branch out into any number of possible futures. In a different sense, though, if there are infinite possibilities for the future right now, then some of them must lead to the same conclusion in the future. For example, if instead of finishing this sentence, I clicked away and watched a youtube video, then came back and finished, but wrote the same thing (simplified example, I would in reality probably write something different). No real difference, so no net change, but I took a different route to get there, and since there are infinitely many future possibilities, there must also have been infinitely many ways to get to this moment from the past. In that way, it's not a line that branches out but many lines on either side that are squeezed into a point that we call the present. Because of this, the past is inconsequential because if it didn't happen one way, it would perhaps have happened another, and what happens in the future is inconsequential because beyond prediction and what little control you have over it, you can't change it much. Both equally important to what happens right now.
 

[rikstar]

I got some questions out of the thought you presented:

Does our present cause our past and future?

Is our future set or is it changeble?

What is present?

Are other pasts and futures causing our present?

 

First I love the seed reference for seeing it as a thought process from multiple persons together. But it's in your gardener's pocket, so it would grow the way you look at our opinions. You're the cells of the seed, and we like giving it water. We are all cells of our own seeds, and we all like gathering water. Thus an infinite loop is created. :D

 

Since this is going nowhere I shall try to interconnect it with our little thought. A thought starts out of "nothing", and slowly builds up till it has got a simple shape. This shape adds up to be a a complex shape, and it finally gets to the end shape; the conclusion has been found. At every point in it's life it has a present, past and future. Well it doesn't have a past at the creation and no future at the end.

 

So I personally like to look at things from the maths side. Let me make a simple equation based on Mur's post:

Present = Past + Future In which Past / Future = 1;

 

I would personally say that this is not a good equation, since our past and future are not at the same length. As we get older our past gets bigger and our future gets lesser. So Past / Future = 1 is untrue. I could add a variable that says how important our future/ past is in our lives. When I go for this, I am actually making an equation about how important our past/ future is on our present. I don't want to go that direction, since we are speaking about how our future/ past causes our present.

 

"But Rik how could our past and future cause our present, when we control our present?" -> random guy who likes to ask questions. To come back to my first question, does our past and future cause our present? From our normal point of view I would say, that that is a yes. Like for example our little thought shape, that learns from its mistake in the past. And its future holds a goal, which causes its present to change and achieve it.

 

Lets go the other way around. Imagine a world in which time goes the other way around, we don't go forward, we go backwards. We already know what is going to happen, because going forward is taking us into our past. But our past gets forgotten, even our "imaginary present" (more on present at the question "What is present?"). our present is a point in our timeline. It could be defined as the point we call "now". Only time moves on and never stops, so our present changes as our brain takes time to process. We always live a little after our present. We can't physically be at our present. So when we live in a world in which time flows backwards. Our present isn't after us but before us it's in the past. So our present has yet to happen? No, because that contradicts with what our present is. But that contradicts with our time flowing backwards. Our thought process is going backwards, so the present is indeed in our past. Now the contradiction of contradictions comes into play. Our past is always the same it never changes, because it already happenend. Then our present must always be the same since it's in the past.

 

"Hold on my friend, our present can't be in the past. Because our present is a point, and before lays our past and after our future. It does not matter that our brain can't handle that speed." <- An other random guy. Well sir, what's the point in calling the present a certain point in which we live in. If we can't observe our present. We could call it imaginary present and real present. Our imaginary present is the present we observe, while the real present is the actual present.

 

Our past is unchangeble, our present is changeble but unobservable and our future is unkown. The future becomes our present and our present becomes our past. But when our future gets our present and our present is changeble, then our future should be changeble as well. We only don't see it as changeble, since it immediatly changes to past when it's changed in the present. So our past was definately our future, but at the same time our past is our future.

 

Experiment time! This will definately be fun! So walk outside of your room. Grab some food, maybe a drink or a snack. When you come back you open/ walk through your door. This will be defined by your past, did you close it our did you left it open? Your future was your past. Now go find another person, testing with other persons is even more fun! Walk outside your room, let the door open or close as you wish. Ask the other person to open or close the door, based on the state the door is already in.Well you come back and you see that the state of your door has changed. Now you probably think, Rik I didn't change my past the other person did. That's right, the other person changed your past in his/ her present, which changed your future. This is indeed a thought process, since you don't actually change someone's past. But imagine you are in a room with no contact to any human or any living being. Well you will only experience your past, would be boing right? Try to live one day so that what everybody is doing changes your past. Try to actual believe in it. Try to imagine a world in which no other human or living being has ever lived. How would it look? I think that our world is beautifull, everywhere you look you see traces of the pasts of others even your own.

 

We all have different goals for our futures. We change our present so that we get to our goals in the future. Our present gets past, and our past changes the future of others. The future of others eventually change our past, which will change our present. So our present eventually changes our present. :)

 

I don't want to say that our past and future causes our present. No, our past, future and present all causes our present.

[Ackshan Bemunah]

[SIGSEGV]

Edited November 12, 2014 by Ackshan Bemunah

[Myth]

All I read was the first post.
 
I don't get what this seed is expected to become, since the thought is neither too complicated nor is it entirely true. Yes, the present is an outcome of the past - this is painfully obvious. And yes, it's also affected by the desired future, in the sense that what we do, we do in order to obtain results. These results can be almost immediate, or far ahead... either way, they happen in the future.
 
However, the proportion in which the present is affected by the past isn't necessarily equal to the one in which it is affected by the future, since the future is unknown for the most part. Sure, one can examine events and reach a logical prediction concerning the outcome of said events. This would still be no more than a guess, since the element of surprise will always be around the corner to turn the numbers of even the most precise mind upside down. If this proportion existed, then I would be inclined to believe that balance is indeed more than just a concept - that it manifests itself in reality, naturally. But it does not exist solely because of the existence of what we perceive as chaos.
 
Here's time represented through action/reaction, from my point of view:
 
       PAST                                 PRESENT                          FUTURE
       REACTION / ACTION         REACTION / ACTION         REACTION / ACTION

   ______^                 |___CHAOS___^                |___CHAOS___^                |________

                            PLAN/DESIRE                   PLAN/DESIRE

 

Now, loop that over and over, and you get the idea. Something happened at some point. It happened because of a chain of events that lead to it, and it also happened to prepare the road for something else to happen - either chaotically, because someone had a plan, because something desired something. (e.g.: to live)

Edited December 27, 2013 by Myth

[Ackshan Bemunah]

[SIGSEGV]

Edited November 12, 2014 by Ackshan Bemunah

[Muratus del Mur]

Your answers (that i tried to resd entirely, but sorry if i won't reply to each) are very interesting.

 

I see you grab onto PERCEPTION to build this thought process, i think that is an anchor due to "fear", you need to grab on things you "know". I literally believe that events in the future cause events in the present. They build roots into reality ad form the needed paths for them to happen. This is just my opinion.

 

We can see this best in how nature works. The amazing complexity of a plant is there jut for the purpose to create the fruit, that will eventually hold the seed. The "result" (fruit/seed) is not a simple result that randomly coes out of the complexity of the plant..but it is its PURPOSE, it drags events in the "past" so at some point in the future it will come to existance.

 

Think of something, explaining how something happend is often so complicated and amazing, if we look at it in a past-present-future direction, but if we consider events in the future "drag" events in the past to result in their existance, it becomes esier to explain. 

 

An artist sees the result of what he wants to achieve, then guids the creation process so that thing comes to reality..the "future", in this case the creation, is the first thing that is there, while the past and present are built to lead to it.

(note: would be interesting to use the post voting system to see how many of you sympathize with one or the other ideea posted by someone writing here, i will consider that a form of reply too.)

[Ackshan Bemunah]

[SIGSEGV]

Edited November 12, 2014 by Ackshan Bemunah

[AmberRune]

May as well toss in a train of thought

 

When we are doing stuff in the present, we are working with experience gained or observed from the past since they generally show tendencies that occur when certain combinations of circumstances are mixed. It's very much so "Been there, done that, look we even have the tshirt" and halfway decently recorded (even with some physical pieces to touch!) for people to find and look at.

 

The future is more nebulous and we follow information collected in the past and project trends of importance to imagine what kind of world we will be in and where we will fit. Or probably some combination of our family, friends, their families, teachers, experts, etc would have mapped trends of world importance and/or the extent of our abilities from past progression and then encourage us to try to fill the sections where we could be productive/able to improve in idea of what the future world will be. We may do our own past mapping and come up with where we want to be in the future and work towards it too but more likely it's at least partially influenced by other people we respect/listen to.

 

The thought of what our futures could hold could then loop back into the past as respected people/people we have to live with/whoever tries to mold and direct our child selves into a suitable role in the presumed future which can become ingrained as goals, habits, ways of thinking, beliefs, etc and lead us to our present. Or in an opposite directions if we listen to our respected people and decide they don’t know anything (or see things weird) and do our own mapping of the past and create trend lines that --should--  run into a different point as “The Future” and develop ourselves/goals/habits/etc to do something other than what the other people envisioned.

 

We may grow up believing Maui (or other landmasses, this was just one I grew up hearing) will sink because of x, y, and z reasons so we will need to consider living in underwater cities for a-h reasons and should probably work now to try to find a way to grow the foods we like underwater, make reliable contraptions to enclose living spaces in salt water, or find volcanic plumes that might erupt often enough to create new islands. This could even go in the opposite direction if we think our friends/family are idiots for thinking the oceans will swallow the land and that instead we will look to the sky because we heard scientists sent rovers to Mars which made us believe Mars will be the next place we will live and possibly deal with invading aliens that will try to take our homes, which would --obviously-- point out that we will need ways to get to other planets, build survivable habitats on said planets, and make things to protect our stuff from invaders so we will work now to get into a position to influence terra-forming or create more advanced weaponry.

 

To follow the seed analogy: the soil we (the seeds) are planted in has a history and as we are grown, we are nurtured and then groomed to try and fill a spot a long way up on the fence, hopefully covering up the holes or chewed up sections and -very luckily- if we can match or improve on the pattern found in a gardening magazine or at least match another section of the fence.

[Blackthorn]

The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.
Albert Einstein

 

I don't really think that the past, present, and future should be viewed separately, but rather as singular continuum. 

(A continuous sequence in which adjacent elements are not perceptibly different from each other, although the extremes are quite distinct.)

 

The Idea that the future is pulling the past and present into being is not a new one.  The Idea of "Fate" as determining the course of the past, present, and future is very old.  Though most people look at "Fate" as being derived from some form of deity, that Idea is a crutch used by people who cannot/will not expand their childlike minds/beliefs to overcome their fear of what they do not understand. This is not how I am using it here, rather, "Fate" is just a label used for viewing/understanding the continuum from the future perspective and cannot exist outside the concept of Time.  Time is simply the Man-made system used to quantify the continuum.  Time allows us to set measurements (millennium, century, decade, year, etc... it provides us the perspective of a past, present, and future.  That perspective is at its best limited due to the quantifying effects imposed by the time system and so limits our understanding of the continuum.   (Read again the Einstein quote)

 

The seed is a good analogy.  A seed contains within it a continuous sequence or code.  Viewing it within the constraints of time we will see that the seed grew from its parent plant (past), is now a seed (defines for this purpose as both a product of past growth and a source of development for future growth, or according to Webster’s: the fertilized ripened ovule of a flowering plant containing an embryo and capable normally of germination to produce a new plant) (present), and a new plant (future) 

 

If we view the seed without the constraints of time, the seed contains the sequence or code of the plant.  That code is barely distinguishable from the plant it was or the plant it will be, for the code is continuous.  When you buy a rose seed and plant it in the ground, you know what grows from it is a rose plant and not a tomato plant.  Therefore viewed within the continuum, "the plant is the seed; the seed is the plant".   Have you ever held an entire forest in your hand?

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Infinity is another example of the past, present, future continuum. (I call it the i-continuum)  It is a circle with no beginning and no end. (Therefore time is not a useful measurement).   Another way to describe infinity is: that which is, was, and always will be; no beginning and no end.  Seeing things this way is like what Mur said about artists. 

In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it. (Michelangelo

Edited December 29, 2013 by Blackthorn

[Ackshan Bemunah]

[SIGSEGV]

Edited November 12, 2014 by Ackshan Bemunah

[Muratus del Mur]

it will take me A LOT to read long posts. I have enormous difficulties focusing on large text, i keep saying this over and over again, nobody cares. The way i manage to read them is by pasting the text in a notepad, splitting it in portions and reading some from time to time...imagine that combined with my fuckedup schedule and lack of time AND bad memory. I am very smart, sometimes writing really short things is enough to get the message through.

 

i spotted a couple of _VERY_ interesting ideas in your posts. but i need to read everything, and i will.

 

I am really happy to have such smart people i can learn from in here...but remember i am not interested in your education and ability to quote other smart people, i value your own opinion a lot more.

 

Following the footsteps of other smart people that already researched this subject, will not bring anything new or enlightening. I am looking to see beyond the old borders.

 

(give me several days to read all the above posts, i might not reply directly to them but thats irrelevant, this is not a discussion with me, i am simply an observer that watches the seed grow ;) )

[Valldore Nal]

The use of the word seed is very interesting, cause (at least in my mind ) it practically applies to so many things (ideas, relationships, love, events in our life etc ... )

 

"The present is caused by both the past and the future."

 

The idea of how past affects present seems to be generally accepted. But i personally never saw, never agreed that my present can be affected by future.

 

For some reason (and i've been giving it some thoughts on random occasions trying to figure out different perspectives) whenever i bring this idea in my mind, it's stuck in the word Fate. Fate as in, a predefined path for certain subjects that no matter what you do you can't avoid it (kinda falls in the same category as "luck", but it's off-topic to explain that )

 

The only way my mind can understand the future affecting the present is if the present gets predefined , in a way. It's a matter of perception, there isn't "proof" of whether it's right or wrong (or at least i haven't stumble across it yet ). 

 

And the reason of why i never believed in the idea is because if i did, i would feel i lose my freedom of choice. They contradict each other, and yes i do believe in the freedom of choice of people (always abode by other factors, which are /were determined by series of random events in the past, so unless we are able to change the past it's pointless to argue if those really take away our freedom of choice). It just leaves a certain feeling of "pessimism" (it's hard to explain it differently, if anyone feels offended by the use of the word, i apologize in advance, no offense meant)

 

My mind just can't handle pessimism,i guess.And the fact that i have that strong negative feeling against the idea of fate and i actually connected Mur's initial post with that from the very fist moment really makes it hard to see it from a different perspective.

[Ackshan Bemunah]

[SIGSEGV]

Edited November 12, 2014 by Ackshan Bemunah