depends on whether you buy into continuity

*it was

exactly

is there only one present, in your estimation?

I like to entertain the idea that there is only one present, but any number of pasts or futures

I remember one past

is existence defined by perception? does the past change when you misremember something?

no, but memory can exist in spite of past reality... it's kind of hard to explain what the practical implications of mulitple pasts would be

like, if the the all-powerful simulation got started just 5 minutes ago, complete with the memories we have of the "past", then those memories would be part of the host history and not real at all

whether we're a simulation or not, any moment in time may as well be the first moment in time, regardless of prior state

But wouldn't the past be implicit in the present? even if it is just simulated

Assuming there is one present.

Or, more to my point, there may be many pasts to a single present

for instance, a single chess board state may have resulted from multiple past play timelines

Chess is an interesting analogy, though I don't know how apt it is, it reduces the importance of momentum in that scenario

if I'm mid jump, I'm either on the way up, or on the way down. You may not be able to tell in a freeze frame, but the next frame will make it obvious

good point, momentum is key

chess fails in this regard

but multiple past moves... two pawns converging on each other from two separate past positions... may cumulate in a single forward move

I'm really stretching here, but if you wanted to move the clock backwards from any state in chess, you could do so with any piece

obviously, the neural pathways of human memory are a hell of a lot more complex

certainly

but... if a static configuration of brain cells can be produced from a multitude of past configurations... how certain are we that there is a single past?

ugh... still didn't exactly explain the momentum issue

I suppose it is theoretically possible, but the particular alignment of any moment in reality, or even one brain configuration, is so infinitely complex that the odds of something happening any different way are so nearly impossible that it's negligible

in an infinitely large universe, sure; but as far as our experience can reach

TBH, this is all simply my attempt to explain Gravity (the movie)

in infinite time and space all rare events are common

^that is what I started to say at the end there

no wait, is Gravity the stupid or smart one... urg

gravity sucks

then... the one that had the black hole and time travel

interstellar

or all space outside of you pushes you towards mass

@Phact yep, Interstellar

looked like they were trying to rescue multiple pasts

@WisdomVendor I think mass may be the end of time

mass is the lowest level of energy

fusion is the lowest level of mass

so were we going to talk about determinism and/or true random in software @WisdomVendor ?

talk or chat? you have a mic?