Past, Present And Future

What are past, present and future to a time traveler? Indeed, what are they to anyone? Any moment is "now" to conscious beings that exist in that moment just as any place is "here" by the same criterion. Many locations, e.g., in intergalactic space, will never be "here" to anyone just as there was no "now" before there was consciousness.

"The present" can mean either a durationless instant dividing the entire timeline into a past and a future or a period, "the present period," which can last for millennia.

Throughout Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series, Manse Everard's "present" is a period from 1954, when he is recruited to the Time Patrol, until 1990, at which time he is still living in his New York apartment. We in 2015 are in his future and indeed beyond the end of his "milieu." He can visit his future and we understand that he does so but we do not see him doing it because the entire focus of the series is on the past.

The most recent past year that Everard visits is 1944, close enough to be regarded as "the present" by a younger Everard who, however, can safely be left to his own devices. From 1988, Everard and Wanda Tamberly have a date in Paris, 1925. Born in different parts of the century, they have different attitudes to blood sports. When Everard visits 1902, we are made very aware of how much change there has been in much less than a hundred years.

Tempora mutantur nos et mutamur in illis. "Times change and we change with them."