There is only now. If you are alive now then you exist. If not then you don’t exist.
I’m sorry, but my reaction to this post is but one kind:
[s]1]
[b]"I have told you repeatedly that I am of the opinion – and that is all it is, my own personal opinion – that you are afflicted with a “condition” that prompts you to post things here at ILP that make absolutely no sense at all. Surreal, bizarre things. You pummel us with all of these assumptions about everything under the sun but you fail to convince me that you are actually able to demonstrate that they are true much beyond you believing that they are.
Something is proven only in the fact of you having posted it."[/b][/s]
2]
Now is a concept of past and future. Even if there is only now… without past and future or even more extended concept of past and future, now = 0. (Which truly means you can’t exist!)
That’s in your mind. The present exists no matter what you think about now, past and future.
A mind cannot be sentient without stimulus. Past and ideas of future are that stimulus. You’ve been reading eckart tolle too much. Zero point doesn’t allow for sentience to occur.
Stimulus is in the present.
Not if no past ever occurred! Honestly phyllo, do you really think you’ll win this debate because of a few new age ideas you came across ?
I don’t need to win.
Win, lose, draw … these are thoughts in your mind.
Ok, whatever, you hypothetically posited an argument which you think is the correct one (otherwise you’d be a troll)…
I reiterate… if there was NEVER a past, how can there be a present!!! Think about it and get back to me! (If you so desire)
Feel free to borrow a few from me.
Hurl them at both of us. 
There is a past and a present because you think there is.
You have divided it in this way.
The past is a memory which does not exist. Nor does the future exist.
Really? The future doesn’t exist? Then how the fuck do you keep on living for another second?!?!
The past doesn’t exist? Then how the fuck do trees and shit exist who’ve been here thousands of years before us??!!
Are you anti-logic / anti-science ?
No wonder you believe in god!
Whoa!
This is admittedly an insightful observation.
But: How is it relevant to this particular thread?
Buddhists, like all the rest of us, only embody a present because they once embodied a past. And to the extent they are still around as the clock keeps ticking, they continue to embody a future.
What I then focus on given this is the extent to which the past, the present and the future embodied in any particular “I” becomes intertwined in the behaviors that “I” choose here and now as that becomes intertwined further in what I would like the fate of “I” to be when the future unfolds beyond the grave.
Over and again: There is what “I” believe is true and there is what “I” can demonstrate to others is in fact true for them too.
After all, here there is so much at stake: enlightenment on this side of the grave reconfiguring into chosen behaviors reconfiguring into the future as karma reconfiguring into the future as…a soul?
Again, if you are a Buddhist, you tell me.
Religion without God? How?
I live now. Trees exist now.
Hardly.
Be here now.
So you’re a zero point solipsist! Good to know!
It’s actually impossible to prove that we weren’t born in the instant of any point with all our memories there. (All of them lies) - but I will guarantee that you trust most of them, like not jumping off cliffs!!! Thinking it’s an illusion that can harm you!!
Phyllo, I need to be honest with you. I’ve always found you an absurd poster. Sure you say interesting things sometimes… but you have an absurd big picture… as I just demonstrated.
You believe in zero point solipsism but never act like it… hmmmmmm…
No thanks. I’ll just go with the idea I’m more than a nanosecond old and behave accordingly!
Yes, it is nt anti-science to think the future and the past do not exist. Some scientists (physicists) think they do exist (for example those who believe in a Block Universe) but this is one theory amongst others. Further if the past exists, what is it made of?
And then, ironically. If the past exists, then there is no death.
I would agree with this–the existence of the past or future is more of a philosophical question than a scientific one (or worse, a question of language)–but I would expect the vast majority of scientists to believe in the existence of past and future given current theories of spacetime relativity (i.e. Minkowski spacetime has time as just another dimension akin to space and therefore is just as real as space). But strictly speaking, it isn’t unscientific to not believe in the existence of past and future.
The same stuff as now?
Because we’re always alive at some point in the past? But then we’re also always dead at some point in the past (or we will be).
Biggy, I will reply to your last post later.
Okay, let’s sustain a discussion that revolves around whether Communism or Capitalism best reflects human nature. And attempt to pin progress down.
My facts. Your facts. Their facts. What can in fact be established historically? How did these facts come about instead of other facts? How far is the gap between the historical facts and the writings of Karl Marx and Adam Smith?
And how might a Buddhist react to this discussion insofar as it involves his or her understanding of enlightenment, karma, reincarnation and Nirvana.
For instance, has Marx come back back as the coronavirus? Or is that more likely to be Smith? 
You can hold on to your football, Lucy.