Can We Remember The Future?

The distinction between past and future is foundational for us westerners - maybe non-westerners, too, I don't know. We believe that the future doesn't yet exist, and the past is all there in our memory, to be accessed more or less at will, more or less completely. Let's look at this more closely.

We don't believe that we remember everything, of course, nor even most things. But we believe that what has happened, happened, and is therefore real. This is one distinction between past and future: we can say what happened, and we can't say what will happen.

But this isn't true. We can say with certainty that everyone alive today will one day die. We know the future with certainty in that regard. On the other hand, we can't say with certainty who lived in the past - that is, we can't determine every single individual who has lived, their name or location or duration.

Even in our own individual lives, the limits of our memory of our own personal lives is extremely limited. I have often thought to ask my mother about various details of my childhood, to verify those details. My mother is now in her early eighties, and she gave birth to thirteen - yes, thirteen - children. Why do I think her memory will be authoritative regarding the minutiae of my early childhood?

On the other hand, I can say with certainty that I will one day die. I can say, with a high degree of confidence, what I will be doing this evening at about 10 p.m.. I can say with a lower but still significant degree of certainty what I will be doing on Saturday morning at 10 a.m.. My future does already exist, in some sense. My future is real. I can access my future - I just did, in fact.

What does this mean?