Hello,

I've seen multiple threads that wasted pages and pages of discussion on irrelevant topics, more often than not everything that had to be said was said on the first page and for some reason the discussion went forward without any particular reason. there are 2 rules on this thread:

i) Posts must be linked to the current topic.
ii) Topics are changed weekly, I will announce them every Saturday.

Have fun :)

Topic 1:
Why can we remember the past, but not the future?

Here you go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdTMuivYF30

We can remember the past because we have experienced it, but not the future because it is yet to be experienced.

Moros, the arrow of time is not really an explanation, we can just observe that increasing entropy is associated with what we perceive, but it does not explain why do we remember the past and we cannot see into the future.

Arun, how do you actually know that? Imagine a 3 dimensional ball with 1 pole being the beginning of our universe and the other being the "end" if there is one (for the sake of the argument suppose it is the moment where universe expansion will force electrons to stop moving). If that is the case as we live we travel alongside a curve from the beginning to the end of universe, from a physics standpoint there is not real difference between past and future since time can go backwards just as easily. How do you know that what you think is an experience is not really just a stiff projection of what has and will happen? Maybe free will does not exist and you are not going through life as you want, maybe you're just a passenger?

Again this boring topic?
We already had that next week :(

I remember things that happened in the past and plans I have for the future.

I'm ready for next week's topic.

Why can we remember the past, but not the future?

I can`t remember the past, nor the future. So I don\t understand the question :(

The arrow of time is the direction of causality, so any events that may occur at a later date can have no effect on our current state. This doesn't preclude a four-dimensional universe, where time is analogous to space and any reference to past, present or future is indexical, relative to one's temporal frame of reference. Our physiology is such that our experience of a mental state, remembering an event say, requires a cause that is temporally prior to the experience.

But, what if there are googolplexes of parallel universes, one for every possibility of every action?

And our lives are set to follow a certain path through each parallel universe (each of which lasts an instant)? This doesn't answer the question, but is something strange to think about...

Szew, what about déjà vu? Thats basically remembering the future.

Are there any explanations for that phenomenon. I don't believe in any kind of supernatural crap, so I don't believe I can ever see the future consistently but sometimes..... I could have sworn I did exactly that in a dream a couple of weeks ago...

Are there any explanations for that phenomenon?*

Noone is playing along with sze nice game and it seems like a shame. I bet the answer is an interesting one.

[a lot of writing and deleting later]

A memory is a group of proteins inside your head. Why cant a future event cause me to lay down a memory now? For the same reason a future event cannot cause any other physical change now. I dont know what that is, it may even be possible.

Or are you asking why we dont lay down memories for future events? We dont know which of the many things that could happen, will happen. If we could work out which of the possible futures was the one that was going to happen then we would lay down memories of the future.

In my future memory i remember Piggy quiting warlight.

Remembering is simply recalling events, as the furutre has not yet happened you can not recall these events.

However i think he means why can't we remember what we are supposed to do in the future. Everyone has done it: 'I am sure i had to do something now...' yada yada yada. If so the reason is we have no fixsated image to do with it. The past we can assoit senses which aid the memory alot. GThe furture has non of this, just the image.

In your dreams stinky myhand.

icvotria, would you care to elaborate? What you said is basically the same thing that was said before, that our perception is accompanied by growing entropy, yet it is the same as stating that we perceive the universe by cause and effect. We see that effect always happens after cause, but why is that? Are effect and cause immanent to the universe or are they only projections of our weak minds that cannot perceive otherwise?

there is no past, there is no future, there is only an everchanging now.
with the correct use of drugs you can get rid of those "past"-fantasies that plague your tiny human-head.

Who here believes in multiple universe theories because i don't i can't live life knowing that somewhere in another universe there is another me doing worse or better than me.And szew you can only remember what you have experienced so if time travel was possible you will be able to remember the future so the answer to your question is we can not remember the future because we cannot look into the future or timetravel.
Dejavu is not seeing into the future it had a reason i forgot(google it you lazy sods)