Can the past be changed?

Question:I actually think you can change the past....

When I was a kid, I was badly bullied by my girl cousin. We never spoke again from the time I was ten and I had always blocked out any thoughts of her and what she did. Three years ago I had to attend her brother's wedding and I thought I was going to need tranquilisers. When I saw her she was older, less confident and had completely lost the power to intimidate me anymore.

From that time onwards, my past has actually changed as, I now see what she did with an adult's eyes, not a child's any longer and it no longer hurts.

In the mainstream though, I would go along with what the others have said - the past is the past....

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I actually think you can change the past....

When I was a kid, I was badly bullied by my girl cousin. We never spoke again from the time I was ten and I had always blocked out any thoughts of her and what she did. Three years ago I had to attend her brother's wedding and I thought I was going to need tranquilisers. When I saw her she was older, less confident and had completely lost the power to intimidate me anymore.

From that time onwards, my past has actually changed as, I now see what she did with an adult's eyes, not a child's any longer and it no longer hurts.

In the mainstream though, I would go along with what the others have said - the past is the past....

No but maybe the future can.

no.

NO! the past is the past for a reason

No past is past.. it passed already, thats the reason why people call it "Past" :) Whats actually important is The Present.. Thats why present is called Present.. :)

no it cant but you can determine your future,if you lrearn from your past.

Nope. Imagination can change how you remember it, and even rewrite it. But, if it is done, it is history.

No it cannot be changed unfortunately. However, the way you feel about it can be changed.

I love the quote I read right here on Answers (sorry I don't remember the avatar)

When asked if you would like to go back and change your past, someone said, "No, it would probably still turn out wrong and THEN how bad would I feel!"

So close the door on the past and concertrate on now.

It's easier than you think, they just burn all the books and start again.

Peking/Beijing. Bombay/ Mumbai etc.

History is a right load of rubbish in any case.

Nope, you can learn from it but the past is written in stone except 4 the future

No What is past is past.

Richard Feinman proved that the past, in general, cannot be changed. For any given state of the world, there is a single consistent history which must have been the case to lead to the full complement of facts in our unique present. On a very small scale, to the extent that certain present facts are not yet set, past facts can be settled later on, but once settled, they cannot change.

We can forget them, and they can have ever decreasing impacts on the world, but the past still occurred and cannot change.

I suppose you can't prove that I'm not changing it all the time. Unless I were to jump back in time and stuff a sock in your mouth just as you read this?

no, the past can be forgotten but never changed. All that can be changed is your view of it and the perspective of which you see it, so get on with life, the past is gone, and cannot be changed so don't dwell on it.

No, but the way you look at it can.

how? have you ever tried to jump from now to yesterday? have you ever tried to jump from now to tomorrow? not possible. the only thing you can change is your steady mind's interpretation of what happened. you don't see the past as it happened, but through the veils of your mind interpretation, as you want it.

not unless we had a time machine, i wish i had one sometimes to correct any wrongs

Yes....except for the incidents we can change our dreams, thoughts, ways, standard etc.....But we are prone to stay entangled to the incidents...Try to free yourself from those incidents and you will realise you have changed your past...
Incidents are a part of your past not the whole....

no because time does not exist.

only the present exists, time is just a measure of change and fixed to space.

The past cannot be changed but you can learn from past experiences.

I doubt it. The same must apply to the future.

No. The past can NOT be changed, but your perspective on it does change through your lifetime. All people involved change too.
The past is done and lives on only in the memories.
You CAN heal the damages of the past by learning from it and creating something positive from it, not allowing it to conquer you. Helping yourself, you can in turn help others by your own struggles to overcome.

As individuals, as countries; as a planet, we try very hard to learn from the past so as not to repeat it again, to learn from it, to make things better so others don't have the same story.

What is past cannot be changed, but the present, which is PRE-SENT by it, can change the future.

No, it can't. I wish I could edit what I did in the past and just go back and fix it. Unfortunately, that's impossible. However, not everything is lost. We can't change the past but we can change ourselves regarding the past.

No. I wish it could.
But we can learn from the past and have a new beginning.

The past cannot be changed as such (its just 'stuff' 'back there'), but in respect that the sense we MAKE of the past is only constructed in relation to the present and the future in our own signifying systems, then the past is open to any interpretation you like (in terms of the moral and aesthetic decisions we make). If this were not true, there would no competing interpretations in history or any other subject come to that- and how boring and uneventful that would be!!