Psychologically, the choice to envision a future or multiple future’s change the present. Thinking about the past, similarly, changes the present. Interestingly to recall a memory is to make to vulnerable. Any “incoming information” a person is processing at the moment that a memory is recalled could “mix” in such a way that details of the past memory change and the new memory, if formed, is less than completely accurate.
The content of any present perceptual experience is constructed out of the past. For instance it takes time for light reflected by an object to travel to the retina, and it takes time for the incoming information it carries to reach the brain and for the brain to package it as a conscious experience.
Do not necessary understand if a question is here but thinking about the passed, the present and the future makes up a meaningful life in contrast to just think about the present, which gives a happy life. Do you want to experience meaningfulness or happiness in your life? Ref. Baumeister
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/happy_life_different_from_meaningful_life
s. Béatrice Marianne Ewalds-Kvist There is not a question here. It is more of a way of thinking about time in a as a psychological construct in which only the present truly exists in a physical sense (the past too, sort of) while the past and future are immaterial places we can "visit" that change the present. There are physical consequences of the past on the present or evidence of the past in the present depending on how one thinks about it.
Thinking about the future in terms of possibilites or possible futures It is a mechanism through which either hope or fear, for example, can develop. I think it's not so important the number of possible futures we envision but the nature and likelihood of those futures that affect emotional states.
The mechanism of "visiting" (thinking about) the past can provide a path to acceptance, change, growth, and the like or despair, sadness, etc. depending on how one chooses to construct their present reality (influenced in part by interepretations of the past)
To your question, i don't think meaningfulness or happiness are mutually exclusive. For me, when I engage in something I feel is meaningful I also am happy, content, and, just, generally, positive
s. Béatrice Marianne Ewalds-Kvist Do you believe that "visiting" the past is more helpful or a hindrance to "moving forward", "changing", "growth", etc.? Or does it depend on context? If so what are the factors that determine whether, and how, thinking about the past is psychologically healthful?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfy3qhsZrEQ
https://www.galileocommission.org/ulisse-di-corpo
Ulisse Di Corpo is doing good work, with respect to you question.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Fantappi%C3%A8 is a key scientist for this approach.
https://www.academia.edu/6210050/2012-06_Syntropy_Cosmology_and_Life
Learn from past use present time in every way and don't worry about future , your present efforts will determine your future
The content of any present perceptual experience is constructed out of the past. For instance it takes time for light reflected by an object to travel to the retina, and it takes time for the incoming information it carries to reach the brain and for the brain to package it as a conscious experience.
I think that visiting the passed in psychoanalysis gives meaning to the present and hinders you from repeating your former mistakes in the future.
Karl Pfeifer
I agree with the thought in part but do believe that incoming novel information must be taken into the equation. in my opinion content of any present perceptual experience is the interaction of memory and incoming information
Andrew Silletti Jr. I'm not sure you correctly understood me. Leaving the aspect of memory aside, the very content of incoming information is about the past. When we look at the night sky, we may see things that no longer exist because of the time it takes light to travel from distant galaxies. Here, the time it takes information to reach us is measured in light-years, and the information is of how things were when the photons began their journey to our retinas, but it is experienced as being in the present. Likewise when we look at a tree in our backyard, it takes time for the photons to reach our retinas, albeit on a much smaller scale, say in the neighborhood of 5/(1044) light-seconds. We see the tree as it was 5/(1044) light-seconds ago; that's as novel as it is possible for the incoming information to be.
Karl Pfeifer I think I have a better understanding of the initial point you had made. Thank you.
Best,
Andrew
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