Is past present and future an illusion?

Albert Einstein once wrote: People like us who believe in physics know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. Time, in other words, he said, is an illusion. Many physicists since have shared this view, that true reality is timeless.

Can time be created?

The experience of time is actively created by our minds. Various factors are crucial to this construction of the perception of time – memory, concentration, emotion and the sense we have that time is somehow located in space.

Do the past and future really exist?

So, in that sense: no, the past and future don’t exist (by definition). But big issues start coming into play when you consider that in relativity (which has given us a much more solid and nuanced understanding of time and space) what “now” is depends on how you’re physically moving.

Is there a moment in the past that happens now?

In this four-dimensional world, events in the past and in the future are all equally real. Because of this, there is no special moment called the “present”. There is no moment that is happening now. One could argue that there is nothing “happening” and there is nothing “becoming”.

Why do we value the past more than the future?

This way of thinking is far from illogical; the future is never certain and can always change while the past remains the same. But some new experiments shows that people tend to place more value on events in the future, even when it’s completely irrational.

Do event events happen in the past and in the future?

Events in the past and in the future do not exist. The only reality, the only thing that is real, is the present. This idea is called Presentism. This idea, however, runs into some serious problems when you start taking into account relativity.