In many ways I wish that it wasn't but I should not complain as my past is what made me the person I am today.

Depends on which version you're talking about?

Well... <looks both ways, checking for thought police>... Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that we need a way to talk about the "direction of time", or rather the direction of entropy. That means "change happens, and the changes tend to increase the entropy of the universe". This increase in entropy implies that there is a prior state of less entropy, and that would be (drumroll!) the past. So the notion of the past is *useful*, it allows us to conceive of time as a linear space upon which events are placed, with NOW being a moving point on that line. Very handy for things like scheduling your spouse's birthday party. On the other hand, no... there's no such thing as time. It's all a fiction of smoke and mirrors and concepts. Everything happens NOW. Everyone is waiting for the future, but there's no THERE there -- it's always now and our entire relationship with the future is speculation and possibility, which exist NOW. Everyone talks about the past, but there's no place to point to, all we have are memories and the "residue" of the past, which is all in existence NOW. I think it's important to understand this last part about time: that everything which is real exists in some form NOW. The reason it's important is because that realization is key to cognitive freedom: it says "the future is a blank slate. It is not enslaved to the past. You do not have to go on being the same person, repeating the same mistakes, believing what you've always believed. You are free." That's obvious when you see time for what it is, otherwise it sounds like fantasy or ivory tower pretension.

No, it is memory, the future is imagines, only this second or moment in the present is real...

About as real as my present is!

Yep..you betcha..everything about me is real..nothing plastic/fake/phony! :)

unfortunately....

It is very real for me. For my imaginary friends it is not. :-)

Far too real :)

What an excellent question. Much as I'd like to say otherwise I think it isn't truly real. My past, like everyone else's is made up of memories, but they won't always be accurate. So they may be memories of real events in the past, but our recall is imperfect, so the reality is diluted. Our perceptions can deceive us in the 'now' too, but that wasn't your question. Our pasts do seem real to us though, and if we think something is real then it is - for us. Other people's reality may be different. I'm rambling.

Yes. In a sense, it is more 'real' in a tactile sense then the so-called 'present'. Despite the speed of our nervous systems there is still a gap between when things happen and when we perceive them (this is more pronounced for some of us than others...) Thus one might accurately say that we are all living in the past. (great question, by the way. I was wondering if you would mind picking up http://www.answerbag.com/a_view/3812926 again...)

If it wasn't it wouldn't be the past--it would be the neverbeen

Sure, and depending on who you are, it might matter more than the present or even the future. You could say it hinges on if the past was a real pain or not, though you could also say it is not what happened but how you think of it.