I came across this question today and I find it interesting -- If the past is gone and the future has not happened, does the present really exist? I feel this is similar to asking if time is an illusion? I think memory makes the present real. Without our mind or the ability to perceive and remember things there would be no reality. There would be no present to talk about. It is like asking if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Time persists in our mind. Before that question I was thinking about infinity and the conclusion I came to was that infinity does not exist in what I know as reality. Infinity is not real for me. For something to be real it must have an edge. Beyond the real is the unreal. Beyond the known is the unknown.
Infinity is not a state. Infinity means something is forever growing. Infinity is an action. Similarly, time is an action. Life is happening. What has happened becomes memories and what is to come is imagination. In between memories and imagination is the present but we can only perceive the present after it has happened. So I would say that the present exists but by the time it is perceived it is just a memory. Reality takes place in our mind. The present is real in our mind if that is the definition of reality that we are going by. Thinking back to infinity now. Technically if infinity can exist in our mind then it is real. This has given me a new perspective on my understanding of infinity.
If we can control our mind we can control our reality. This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes. "I was free once I realized that the cage was made of thoughts". So to answer this question and almost any question. If I say the present is real and define it as such then it is real. We create our reality and it all happens in the mind. We live in a society that often functions on consensus and if the society says the present is real then it is real. A word that I came across today and that I have come across before but need to research more is "metaphysical". According to wikipedia, metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. In summary, our present reality is a subjective mental construct, shaped by perception, memory, and shared consensus, existing only as it is experienced in the mind.
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