Random thoughts about the universe

[whoiam]

Imagine that you are sitting in a train on a completely straight track, and you are fastened into your seat. All that is visible is a narrow slice of countryside through slit windows on either side of you.

The train moves along this track in only the one direction, and so you can see everything out of the windows, so long as you are patient enough to wait for it to come into the LoS of the windows level with your seat.

Now, say there is a windmill off to one side. You will see it just the once, as the train passes it. However, when you can no longer see it through the windoes, it is nevertheless still there - it is just somewhere you cannot see.

I think this is a fairly accurate visualisation for PHJ's view on things - if you assume that the train is your passage through time, then you can only ever experience the slice of time you are in now, but the times you have already passed are still there, regardless of whether or not we are in them.

Or to put it another way, just because you cannot turn around, doesn't mean that the world behind you isn't there...