"If, for example," I said, "there is a small child who throws a ball up in the air and is struck in the head. On the next day, if he throws the ball into the air again, his mother might say to him, 'Son, do you remember what happened to you yesterday when you threw the ball into the air? It struck you in the head.' Now, will the child be able to remember what happened the day before and avoid it in the present?"
"Perhaps not, if it is a very small child," he said.
"But if the child is old enough, then he will?"
"Yes," he said.
"Isn't that because it is not too difficult to be able to remember what happened in the past and apply it to the present time" I asked.
"Yes," he said, "that is the reason."
"But what about the future If a boy threw a ball into the air yesterday and it hit him in the head, will it do the same thing a year from now and the year after?"
"I suppose it will," he said.
"Are you as certain of that as you were about the present, that what happened yesterday will happen today as well?" I asked.
"No," he said, "I am not as certain."
"Neither am I," I said. "Perhaps this is because we are accustomed to applying what happened in the past to the present moment, but we are not as used to applying what happened in the past to what will happen in the future."
"Perhaps," he said.
"What, then, about the past?" I asked. "If the boy threw a ball up in the air yesterday and it struck him in the head, would it have done the same thing a year ago and the year before that?"
"I suppose it would have," he said.
"Of which are you more certain, that it would have done so in the past, or in the future?"
Saturday, October 25, 2008
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