Hi Punshhh,
Do you mean the past and future are there also?

Yes, but only in a relation or reference to the temporal world we are living in. I don't see a strict distinction between the eternal and the temporal, rather that the temporal is entertained by the eternal, a construct, rather like the sensible world is a construct.

So time is like a one-way street? We travel what's already there?

I don't see a strict distinction between the eternal and the temporal — Punshhh

I'm suspicious that this is a circular argument dependent on your initial definition of 'eternal' which of course will be the definition that most suits your argument. If this isn't to be just a sneaky bit of sophistry then I suggest you lay out exactly what you mean by both 'eternal' and 'temporal' and indicate what you think their ontological status as, if either or both are considered merely illusory, then it all becomes a bit moot!

My view is that we live in an eternal moment and that the past and present are there also in a limited sense. But that they are a consequence of the constitution of our incarnate bodies and the world they are evolved to dwell in, rather than some more fundamental part of our being. I am interested in what philosophy has to say about this. — Punshhh

I don't know what philosophy has to say about this, and as a would-be consolation prize I can only offer what little I might be able to say, and maybe throw in a couple of fragments of Blake.

So, I would say that if we were lucky we might live in an eternal moment. But it is not as though the whole of our lives consists in an eternal moment, phenomenologically speaking anyway, but rather that they consist in a series of moments, each of which is at most a day, and some of which may be eternal moments.

"To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour"

But this is probably not to be for many, or even most, of us:

"Some are Born to sweet delight
Some are Born to sweet delight
Some are Born to Endless Night"

In the end I didn't say much at all, but let Blake do the speaking instead.

What does it mean that we live in an eternal moment? Eternity assumes that there is some kind of relative time definer. Are you thinking of presentism? How does this account for change?

How Kierkegaardian. I share this thought of time too. I think it's breifly in The Concept of Anxiety?

...When time is correctly defined as infinite succession, it seems plausible to define it also as the present, the past and the future. However this distinction is incorrect, if one means by it that this is implied in time itself; for it first emerges with the relation of time to eternity and the reflection of eternity in it. If in the infinite succession of time one could in fact find a foothold, i.e. a present, which would serve as a dividing point, then this division would be quite correct. But precisely because every moment, like the sum of the moments, is a process (a going-by) no moment is a present, and in the same sense there is neither past, present, nor future. If one thinks it possible to maintain this division, it is because we spatialize a moment, but thereby the infinite succession is brought to a standstill, and that is because one introduces a visual representation, visualizing time instead of thinking it. But even so it is not correctly thought, for even in this visual representation the infinite succession of time is a present infinitely void of content. (This is the parody of the eternal.) The Hindus speak of a line of kings which has reigned for 70,000 years. About the kings nothing is known, not even their names (as I assume). Taking this as an illustration of time, these 70,000 years are for thought an infinite vanishing; for visual representation they widen out spatially into an illusive view of a nothing infinitely void. On the other hand, so soon as we let one moment succeed the other we posit the present.

The present, however, is not the concept of time, unless precisely as something infinitely void, which again is precisely the infinite vanishing. If one does not give heed to this, then, however swiftly one may let it pass, one has nevertheless posited the present, and having posited that, one lets it appear again in the definition of the past and the future. On the contrary, the eternal is the present. For thought, the eternal is the present as an annulled [aufgehoben] succession (time was succession, going by). For visual representation, eternity is a going-forth, yet it never budges from the spot, because for visual representation it is a present infinitely rich in content. Likewise in the eternal there is not to be found any division of the past and the future, because the present is posited as the annulled succession... — Soren Kierkegaard

If I understand it correctly, it's a type of presentism where the present is really a moment, an instant. A constantly changing eternal nowness.

So time is like a one-way street? We travel what's already there

I don't know, as I see it the travelling through time is part of the world we find ourselves in, an aspect of the spacetime. So in a sense time, the temporal, may be a quality of a domain or realm found in eternity, or manifest in some way. But when we are not present in a realm, time might just be a now, with no travelling. Perhaps some kind of transcendent state.

I am thinking of the reality or truth of the situation we find ourselves in, so this is more of an exploration of that or what we can, or can't, say about it. Rather than a constructed argument. I can try to define the terms, but I am very busy today, it will have to be later.

Thankyou, very evocative. I do think that this subject may be beyond us in a rational sense. But I expect eventually there will be a science which will become to understand such things.

Presentism might be a good place to start, but what I've seen of it it may be a bit clunky. The jist is the same I think.

Eternity assumes that there is some kind of relative time definer. — darthbarracuda

Not necessarily. If you understand eternity quantitatively then it certainly does. If, however, you understand it qualitatively as Plato and Neo-Platonist Christianity do then it is literally timeless

I'm not much of a one for the moment. At any given time (sic) I feel short-term memory and near-future-models in play, as well as longer-term hopes and memories. It's as if I am always in the middle of a song, and I remember most of the beginning, and I have a feeling about how it's going to end. Certainly there is a key we're in and some recent motifs keep playing.

The alternative surely, is a very brief present though, with any sense of a moment of a longer duration, being some kind of simulation performed by our minds, or brain.

The alternative surely, is a very brief present though, with any sense of a moment of a longer duration, being some kind of simulation performed by our minds, or brain. — Punshhh

I don't see this. A symphony: that can be present to us as a whole. A drama. A novel. The ways of remembering and anticipating presented to us in novels, from Flaubert to Toni Morrison. I suppose I disagree with the distinction you make in the op:

...a consequence of the constitution of our incarnate bodies and the world they are evolved to dwell in, rather than some more fundamental part of our being — Punshhh

Biology is history, it seems rich enough to me to be the foundation of 'fundamental parts of our being', although I don't mean we can explain culture from biology. From biological beginnings we can imagine time as Proust or Hawking or Shostakovich imagines time: once we do this imagining, it's available to us at any given, ahm, moment, isn't it?

I don't see this. A symphony: that can be present to us as a whole. A drama. A novel. The ways of remembering and anticipating presented to us in novels, from Flaubert to Toni Morrison. I suppose I disagree with the distinction you make in the op:

Yes I see this and don't disagree, however we can distinguish the brief moment of passing time, it's a reality and it is also clear that the moment we experienced a couple of seconds ago has past, it ceases to pass and is frozen as a historical record, perhaps facilitated by our memories.

I collect antiques, these antiques are present with me know in that moment, they also bear the marks of a checkered past, which they bring with them. It is by analogy like the way the light from a lighthouse swings around lighting the horizon in a great arc. This moment containing all the universe we experience is contained in that beam of light, of illumination. But surely our experience of this beam of light, of nowness, is a restricted experience, one dictated by the material universe that we find ourselves in. Like a two dimensional being not being able to experience the three dimensional reality of a piece of paper but confined to that two dimensional surface.

There might well be other beams of light (now) out there, indeed many, inhabiting the same space, external to our spacetime. They might be as pages in a book in another dimension in an eternity of time, moments.

Biology is history, it seems rich enough to me to be the foundation of 'fundamental parts of our being', although I don't mean we can explain culture from biology. From biological beginnings we can imagine time as Proust or Hawking or Shostakovich imagines time: once we do this imagining, it's available to us at any given, ahm, moment, isn't it?

Yes, I don't disagree (this is though an explorative exercise). What you describe here is what I suggested, a full or pregnant moment, nowness, generated by our bodies, our brain, our mind, a simulation. It implies a minutely brief moment of time passing with scientific precision on the atomic scale, on the nano scale.

I agree with you philosophically...but the problem is, no matter how hard I try, I am still stuck in this world of past and future. I think the revelation of present can only be conceived in specific moments of time.

Yes, I know it is a difficult thing to think about. The way I think about it is that there is space in the moment, of a second or two, rather like the feeling of three dimensional space around us. We experience many events happening around us in this space, things may happen symultaniously, but appear to us to happen at slightly different times and visa versa. There is a breadth to the moment, with a second or two of past and future appearing to us as now. I know that our body enables us to experience this through complex processes. But the moment I am thinking about is a mental thing and considers a reality in which mind, or soul is more real than the external world.

I agree with you philosophically...but the problem is, no matter how hard I try, I am still stuck in this world of past and future. I think the revelation of present can only be conceived in specific moments of time. — saw038

That's the difficulty I have. If the present is conceived of as specific moments, how does this become eternal? If we define "the present" in relation to the world we're "stuck in", then it becomes some sort of boundary between past and future. This could only be eternal if we assume that time keeps going forever.

There is a breadth to the moment, with a second or two of past and future appearing to us as now. — Punshhh

If this were the case, how could we distinguish which part of the now is past, and which part is future? It all simply seems like now, but if part was really past, and part was really future, shouldn't we be able to distinguish which is which?

But the moment I am thinking about is a mental thing and considers a reality in which mind, or soul is more real than the external world. — Punshhh

I wonder how this moment, the moment of the mind, could be conceived as being eternal.

It is the conception of the moment as a series of nows which is incorrect. From my perspective it is one continuous period, continuous in an eternal realm in which our being is present, as a soul or spirit(or mind, or the like), but due to us inhabiting a physical body we experience what seems to be a brief moment, dictated by the chemical action of the atoms in our environment(including our brains). So I am positing an underlying eternal time, which we can only access through the mechanisms of the physical body and the environment it is evolved to experience.

I do think that for animals and uneducated tribal people the moment is eternal, they don't or only rarely intellectually divide or limit their moments, there is just now, which is very extensive.

I don't think we can view the moment as a series of brief moments as ticks on an atomic clock, which is in tune with all other atomic clocks, or the like. This is because as time (as we experience it) is actually a result of chemical reactions and atomic activity in the physical material of our world. This is an organic progression, in which there is some small variation in the progression of time, also that events happening closer, or farther distant from the observer are experienced with a delay, due to the effects having variations in delay.
Also our brain is rigged to create the perception of a greater breadth of moment for better interaction in our environment, which is why I used the phrase "holism". This holism my be artificially constructed by a divine process to mirror a breadth of moment in the experience of the soul or spirit in the eternal moment in another parallel realm, as I suggested at the top.

It is the conception of the moment as a series of nows which is incorrect. — Punshhh

I can understand why you say that the series of nows is incorrect. The now is an assumed point which we use to mark the beginning and end of a period of time. One could say "now", then proceed to measure the passing of time, with a clock, until "now" is spoken again. Under this assumption, the now is an assumed point. We can also project that point, to yesterday at 6:00 AM for example, and tomorrow at 6:00 AM, then claim a period of time between these two assumed points. The problem is that no time passes at the now, it all passes between the nows, so it is impossible that time could consist of a series of nows.

Notice that these points, "nows", or "moments", are simply assumed. They are somewhat transcendent to time itself, because time passes at both sides of the moment, but not at the moment itself; and the moment is simply placed there, artificially, by the human being who says "now", or 6:00 AM, or some such thing. The moment can be moved around to any place in time this way. Any particular moment is created in that way, by taking the general moment, which is just a point, and placing it somewhere in the duration of time.

The duration is what you call "one continuous period". Without a beginning or an end, we could say that the continuous period is "eternal". And if we assume that the moment which produces beginnings and ends to periods of time is completely artificial, as described above, then there is no beginning or end, and the continuous period is eternal.

That is one sense of the word eternal, an unending time. But in another sense, the point, the moment, or "now", as something which transcends time, and is therefore outside of time, is eternal. I think that to understand the true nature of "eternal", we must approach this point, this moment, not the continuous passing of time. This moment is at once, the end of one period of time, and the beginning of the next. That is the moment of the present, it is the end of the future, and beginning of the past.

We can consider that this moment of the present, which is the end of the future, and beginning of the past, is itself active, not static, because as soon as we say "now", it is past. This activity makes the boundary between future and past, which is the moment of now, somewhat vague. And that is what special relativity theory assumes, that the relative position of this moment of now is dependent on one's perspective. The particular perspective which we have, is dictated by out physical bodies, as you say, so we don't see that there are other perspectives, we all have similar bodies. But if we consider other possible perspectives, this gives us the breadth of the moment.

I don't think it makes sense to speak about the passing of time between moments, and no passing of time within the moment, rather passing of time is a movement through or across instants, but yet the movement itself is made up of instants. There are no actual instants, they are abstracta, so in a sense there can be no actual movement of time, because it is also an abstraction; apart from its phenomenological dimension as pure duration or persistence.

Considered abstractly the moment is an infinitesimal point-instant, and just as a series of infinitesimal points constitute a line, so a series of infinitesimal point-instants constitute a duration. Abstractly considered passing from one moment to another can only consist in a traversal across further infinitesimal point-instants. So the moment-as-point-instant is not anything we could be in.

Phemonenologically considered, there is no passing of time but rather a movement of focal awareness, seamless transformations within what is always the present moment. So experientially the present moment is indefinately extended to include past and future. Past and future are always phenomenologically here-now, they are only there-then or somewhere-when in abstractum.

Of course you will find something wrong with what I have written here; on analysis it is always possible to find inconsistencies or incoherencies in anything we may say about such things; they are inherent. The thinking of such things helps only to give us the feeling of having a better grasp on what is really ungraspable. An endless diversion for minds that are not productively occupied. Not that there's anything wrong with that!
;)

The past and future are the only the things we can truly understand, while the present is an elusive concept, because the moment we think about the present it becomes the past. Furthermore, when we think about the present, it is a futuristic perspective.

Therefore, the present contains all, but we cannot conceive it.

Yes I am aware of those perspectives, also the phenomenological interpretation provided by John. I suppose my perspective as I am presenting it here is a mystical conception in which all time, space and being is present in one point in space and time and what we experience as the present and the passage of time is a fraction of the whole, rather like a thread following an incarnate arc across the span of a certain combination of parts of the whole. The eternal present is immanent in that thread of now, whereas the past and future are also in that one point, but inaccessible to us due to us being experientially locked into that thread.

The above is a physical description, I would also give a mental description in which the one point is a transcendent God like being to which we are attached by a thread of spirit, embodying and sustaining a fraction of meaning and experience of the one being. In which we experience time similarly as in the physical description. But different in that the mental thread is straight and immanent, rather than an arc and the physical thread is curved tangential and causally distant.

Interestingly this conception describes a cross, the upright in the mind and the cross piece in the body, with the present in both meeting at the crossing point in the moment.

I suppose my perspective as I am presenting it here is a mystical conception in which all time, space and being is present in one point in space and time and what we experience as the present and the passage of time is a fraction of the whole, rather like a thread following an incarnate arc across the span of a certain combination of parts of the whole. — Punshhh

Whenever I read stuff like that, my first thought is always this: "Okay. That's what you believe, but why do you believe it?"

I don't believe it, it's just an idea, expressing some concepts arrived at while contemplating time, along in this case with a unity.

Actually I don't hold any beliefs, I regard them as a kind of halt, or full stop in the development and refinement of ideas.

Do you believe that you do not hold any beliefs?

I know it along with many other things I know. Why would I add an affirmation of belief to such knowledge?

So you don't buy that propositional knowledge is justified true belief? That's the standard characterization of knowledge in philosophy--at least in analytic philosophy.

If you don't believe that you hold any beliefs, then it would be accurate for us to say, "Punshhh doesn't believe that he does not hold any beliefs." People would expectedly take that to be saying that you believe you do hold some beliefs.

A simpler example: "Punshhh doesn't believe that 2+2=4." You should expect people to respond to that with, "Really? What does he believe 2+2 equals instead? 5?"

I don't think it makes sense to speak about the passing of time between moments, and no passing of time within the moment, rather passing of time is a movement through or across instants, but yet the movement itself is made up of instants. There are no actual instants, they are abstracta, so in a sense there can be no actual movement of time, because it is also an abstraction; apart from its phenomenological dimension as pure duration or persistence. — John

Let me see if I understand what you say here. Movement is made up of instants. The passing of time is a type of movement, occurring across instants. There are no actual instants, because these are abstractions. Does this mean that from your perspective, movement is not real either? Is movement simply an abstraction as well?

Considered abstractly the moment is an infinitesimal point-instant, and just as a series of infinitesimal points constitute a line, so a series of infinitesimal point-instants constitute a duration. — John

Isn't the boundary between one infinitesimal point instant and another simply artificial, completely conceptual? Otherwise, how could you say that the instant is an abstraction? Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that there is simply duration, and the point-instants are just conceptual? If not, what evidence do you have, that such point-instants are real?

I suppose my perspective as I am presenting it here is a mystical conception in which all time, space and being is present in one point in space and time and what we experience as the present and the passage of time is a fraction of the whole, rather like a thread following an incarnate arc across the span of a certain combination of parts of the whole. — Punshhh

Could you explain what you mean when you say that all time, space, and being, are present in one point? is this an extremely large point, or what type of "point" are you talking about here, some type of black hole?