“I think the second part of this assumes a deterministic model according to which the future is fixed so that we who are in the present can speak of something already being “in” the future.”

I guess the assumptions built into the language are hard to avoid. I certainly am not arguing the future is fixed, since I’m saying it doesn’t exist. The process of computing all the input into any event only happens within the state of the present. It’s just that patterns do repeat and we usually are making assumptions about what is going to happen.

Referring to the baseball example, what is more fundamental; Light flashing around, as the physical present, or the Yankee’s playing the Astro’s on some evening in ‘19? The current dimensional model of space effectively argues the events are more fundamental and physically out on the time dimension, rather than this state of presence, in which they once existed, or might potentially exist.

“I’m not sure how much it clarifies things to say established patterns go backwards in time.”

The patterns are the events. Would you agree the summer of ’19 continues to fade ever further into the past? Which is all I’m saying. That if we take the physical present as the point of reference and not the events, it is the events going from potential, to actual, to residual, future to past, rather than the point of the present moving past to future.

That civilization is built on the narrative flow and our entire process of knowledge and education, not to mention perspective, is built on the past to future sequence, can make it difficult to see otherwise, especially for those with an advanced education.

I remember some years ago, making this general point to two different people. The first was a cardiologist I know and her response was, “Stop it, you’re hurting my brain.” The other was the teenaged daughter of another friend and her response was,”Well, duh.”

“so we explain the formation of objective patterns by saying they’re produced from past states”

As I point out, the past is consumed by the present, in order to inform it. Causality. Yet not pre-determined, because the computing of all this prior information coming together only occurs as the present.

“The finished house comes after the construction process and the breakdown comes after the standing house.”

Yes. Process=cause. Pattern=effect.