When we look at the realm of the very small we look at a world that is defined in terms of probable futures. We tend to call this the quantum realm.

It has begun to be recognized that when we look at the realm of the very large, we see something quite similar. As if the entire universe is a quantum realm.

Between these realms, we look at the world we live in and see something that appears to be very stable. Well established. Unchanging. Fixed past.

Why this apparent anomaly?

In the preceding series of discussions, we may have already arrived at an explanation. Quite clearly, it is a matter of viewpoint. History. In our mundane realm, we clearly have one. Outside this realm, we don't.

When we look at the realm of the very small, we are looking at a realm where everything is happening so fast that all we can see is what might happen next. When we observe that something does happen in this realm, we have resolved an instant of the possible into the actual. Into history. In the next instant, that event is already part of our past.

When we look at the realm of the very large, how can that be similar? We understand clearly that what we see there has already happened. This is certainly true for us.

But it is just as certainly not true for what we are looking at. When we look at something that is billions of light years away from us, we are seeing things that can be many light years from their nearest neighbors. We see things not as what they presently are, but as what they were: evolving toward futures which, in that instant, hadn't happened yet. We see possibilities. We get a glimpse of a quantum realm on a scale so vast that it appears to be frozen in time.

On the scale of the very small things are changing too fast to give us a sense of history. On the scale of the very large things are changing too slowly to give us a sense of history. Only on our Earthly scale does history become important. 

Or does it?

History gives us a sense that the future is predictable. But is this not invariably a lie? We all learn that we cannot go back again. When we try, we always find that things have changed. They may be comfortably familiar, but never quite the same.

We are told that those who don't remember the past are doomed to repeat it. This sounds like wise advice. But we have to know that it is not literally true. Perhaps the best use of remembering our history is to remind ourselves that it is assuredly behind us. In our ongoing existence it is the contemplation of possible futures that most engages us. If what we foresee is not perfect, we still want to believe that it is probably perfectable. 

This is our own quantum realm. It is where we most truly live.