root/etc/

Time

I'm writing this sentence. Ok, now I've finished writing
it. It belongs to the past, it's an action I've done. It
does not exist _now_, but I have memories of when I did
it. But does it mean it exists in the past? Does the past
exist?

When you think about it, why would it? It's not there,
has never been there and all things belonging to it do
not exist anymore. But when we say "anymore", it implies
that those things existed at some point. Which is true,
I think, but that doesn't make the past any realer since
those things don't exist now.

What are memories? Images of the past? I thought of that
at first, but after reconsideration this doesn't seem to
hold up. Imagine your brain as a huge parcel of sand.
Now imagine a cat jumps in it then runs away. The cat
jumping in is the event, the footprints, the memory. The
cat is gone, the memory remains.

Now you recall the event. How do you recall there was a
cat there? You look at the footprints. That's your proof.
But everything happened in the present. The cat jumping,
then you recalling the memory. We remember in the
present. The memory is just a mark in the sand. It's not
the event, obviously, but a specific modification of the
way the grains of sand are placed. Where's the past in
all of that?

Isn't the past just a belief? The belief that there is
another plane of existence in which everything that was
still is, in some kind of way? But as far as we know
there isn't, we've only always known the present. So why
are we so sure that the past exists?

Memories are relevant, of course, but are not the past.
We can view them as "data" our brains have deemed
valuable enough to be stored. So when we think of a
past event, we truely think of _memories_, thoughts,
which only happen in the present. The beliefs that those
represent or are the past are entirely subjective.
That's a link we make ourselves.

I have not taken shrooms