Would past, present, and future exist for the earth if there were no humans?

Please save me a space and don't close shop too soon! (((angels))), thanks for the heads up :) oh, i'm so excited I can barely contain myself, what a wonderful question! First gut reaction: it would be awesome (in the scientific use of the term), for a start, what we perceive about reality is mainly wrong, human experience is so limited, so bound.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing or that it could have been otherwise, it's just a consequence of the environment in which we evolved or are evolving. So, yes, a more realistic experience and comprehension of the true nature of the universe would be amazing, it would change everything! However, as ambivalent points out, what it would have to imply and include, means we already know our minds and bodies are not evolved to cope with angels' 'expanded perception' scenario.

I'm not sure there would be no accuracy though, there would just be many, more than we can practically function with. As to giving adequate weight to everything, if I try to imagine myself in an environment which was not dominated by the weakest of the four forces, the possibility of such an equation becoming second nature or instinctual, becomes more probable. The thrill of being thus not bound... I can almost feel the boundaries of my own mind being pushed (and I like it) :) for me, it's not so much about seeing the past and the future and being constrained to march to inevitability's tune, it's more about a realm of possibilities or possible futures and here I totally realise that I am incapable (due to a deficiency in my grasp of mathematics and physics) to answer adequately on the probability of chance being written out of the equation.

All I feel, for some strange intuited reason, is that I don't think I could sign up to a very hard determinism. Yes, free will may be an illusion (as so many other facets of the human experience) but we are still agents capable of change. We are incapable of not changing, just as the world in which we live is constantly changing and adapting (we simply cannot help that).

So, basically, I think if you were to just drop us off, right now, into such a context, we wouldn't be happier or better off for the simple reason we are not designed to cope or thrive in such an environment. But, if a species (us or like us) was to evolve in said environment, then yes. I suspect a species able to position itself more realistically, in geological time, for example, instead of simply historical time (even though we may all understand that there are good evolutionary reasons for things to be as they are), in the grand scheme, or even all possible grand schemes, might realise (in a very zen sort of way) the futility of our human endeavours and preoccupations - all the while appreciating and understanding why such a journey and the implied suffering was necessary to get us to such a point - and do nothing.

We would finally just be, in eternal contemplation of the wonder of it all, it might imply the end of our biological or physical evolution and usher the start of the evolution of the collective consciousness. The idea that we could comprehend or experience the true nature of reality, be in different places and times at once, really stretches our imaginations and is deeply counter-intuitive, but, if you'd grown up with it, you'd just call it normal, wouldn't you? Anyway, I hope I understood what you were trying to get at acid.

In any case, it was heaps of fun thinking about it :) thank you. Edit: michael, there you are! :) i'm expecting further detail from you over at your own post, wonder whether you will oblige or whether you are just in a rebellious mood at the moment?

(((michael, kel, eb))) :).

I think your question makes assumptions about what 'accuracy' means and that we function from a place of pure rationality. Our understanding of the past is not 'accurate' but filtered through our perception (" we do not see things as they are, we see them as we are"). Our sense of the present, and for that matter the future, includes things like curiosity, desire, neediness, love, etc etc. That hypothetical sense would have to be capable of combining all of these 'felt sense'/body/feelings/etc and our choices would somehow have to manage to develop an equation that could give exactly the right weighting to everything.

In other words - I don't think this hypothetical sense and its perception would be remotely possible and even if it were, I don't think it would improve our experience of life. My biggest worry is that it would remove spontaneity, happenstance, lucky accident etc - and the best bits of my life seem to have resulted from those.... EDIT: I see what you mean, but I guess what I'm meaning is that there isn't such a thing as 'accuracy' and so there aren't really varying degrees of it either. There's 'experience', which is subjective, necessarily....

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.