Future Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ==In philosophy== {{Time sidebar}} In the [[philosophy of time]], presentism is the [[belief]] that only the present [[existence|exists]], and the future and [[past]] are [[reality|unreal]]. Past and future "entities" are construed as [[logic]]al constructions or [[fictionalism|fictions]]. The opposite of presentism is '[[Eternalism (philosophy of time)|eternalism]]', which is the belief that things in the past and things yet to come exist [[eternity|eternally]]. Another view (not held by many philosophers) is sometimes called the '[[Growing block universe|growing block]]' [[theory]] of time—which postulates that the past and present exist, but the future does not.<ref>{{cite book| last=Broad| first= C.D.| title= Scientific Thought| location=New York| publisher=Harcourt, Brace and Co.| year=1923| url=http://www.ditext.com/broad/st/st-con.html}}</ref> Presentism is [[wikt: compatible|compatible]] with [[Galilean relativity]], in which time is independent of space, but is probably incompatible with [[Hendrik Lorentz|Lorentz]]ian/[[Albert Einstein]]ian relativity in conjunction with certain other philosophical [[thesis|theses]] that many find uncontroversial. [[Augustine of Hippo|Saint Augustine]] [[Research proposal|proposed]] that the present is a knife edge between the past and the future and could not contain any extended period of time. Contrary to Saint Augustine, some philosophers propose that conscious experience is extended in time. For instance, [[William James]] said that time is "...the short duration of which we are immediately and incessantly sensible."{{Citation needed|date=February 2008}} Augustine proposed that God is outside of time and present for all times, in [[eternity]]. Other early philosophers who were presentists include the [[Buddhism|Buddhists]] (in the tradition of [[Indian Buddhism]]). A leading scholar from the modern era on [[Buddhist philosophy]] is [[Theodor Ippolitovich Stcherbatsky|Stcherbatsky]], who has written extensively on Buddhist presentism: {{cquote|Everything past is unreal, everything future is unreal, everything imagined, absent, mental... is unreal... Ultimately real is only the present moment of physical [[wikt:efficiency|efficiency]] [i.e., [[Causality|causation]]].<ref>Vol.1 of ''Buddhist Logic'', 1962, Dover: New York. 70–71.</ref>}} Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page