It's a physical necessity that anything you perceive in any way whatsoever has already finished by the time you perceive it. When you see something, you are seeing the light that reflected off the object some number of microseconds ago. When you touch something, your brain is interpreting the nerve impulses that were initiated some milliseconds ago. When you smell something, your brain is interpreting the nerve impulses initiated some milliseconds ago by a particle that drifted off some object seconds ago.
So, quite literally, we are all living in the past. The recent past, as it happens when you look around your room... or the incredibly distant past, as it happens when you look to the stars at night.
Feb 24, 2009 @ 15:39:45
