- This article is about the concept of current time. "Present" also means a Gift, or a being's Presence. For other uses, see Present (disambiguation)
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- This article is about the concept of current time. "Present" also means a Gift, or a being's Presence. For other uses, see Present (disambiguation)
The present is a moment in time discernible as intermediate between past and future. The present is the time that is associated with the events perceived directly, not as a recollection or a speculation. It is often represented as a hyperplane in space-time, often called now, although modern physics demonstrates that such a hyperplane can not be defined uniquely for observers in relative motion. The present may also be viewed as a duration (see specious presentJames, W. (1893). The principles of psychology. New York: H. Holt and Company. Page 609.).
General overview
The present is contrasted with the past and the future. Modern physics has not yet been able to explain the perceived aspect of 'the present' as 'eliminator of possibilities' that transfers future into past. A complicating factor is that whilst a given observer would describe 'the present' as a spatial structure with zero time lapse, other observes would associate both time and space to this structure and therefore disagree on what constitutes 'the present'.
The direct experience of the present for each human is that it is what is here, now. Direct experience is of course subjective by definition yet, in this case, this same direct experience is true for all humans. For all of us, 'here' means 'where I am' and 'now' means 'when I am'. Thus, the common repeatable experience is that the present is inextricably linked to oneself.
In the time aspect, the conventional concept of 'now' is that it is some tiny point on a continuous timeline which separates past from future. It is not clear, however, that there is a universal timeline or whether, as relativity seems to indicate, the timeline is inextricably linked to the observer. Thus; is 'now' for me the same time as 'now' for you on a universal timeline, assuming a universal timeline exists? Adding to the confusion, in the physics view, there is no demonstrable reason why time should move in any one particular direction.
Adding substance to the supposition that the timeline view of 'now' may not hold the full picture, the qualities of 'now' or the 'present' in the human direct experience are very different to the qualities of past and future available through memory or anticipation. In the human direct experience, 'now' has a certain aliveness, reality and immediacy not present in our experience of past and future. Indeed, any experience is always happening 'now', even a re-living of some past event. Thus, there is a deep philosophical case for saying that the present moment is all there ever is, from moment to moment.
When comparing time in places separated by great distances, the notion of present becomes more subjective. For example, we visually perceive stars to be where they were when the light now reaching our eyes was emitted, because even though light travels at approximately 3 x 108 m/s it takes many years to reach us from distant sources. Thus, light travel time must be taken into account in such time comparisons.
