Big question, Poirot. I recommend that you read Stephen Hawking's 'A Brief History of Time', which was specifically written to explain difficult concepts in physics to lay people. Great book.

Or watch the film Donnie Darko.

“Present” is merely that less than a moment which delineates between the fanciful promises of the future and the cold, hard facts of the past.

And at moments like this I would add

Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat the errors of the past.

That is how and why we end up with a bunch of useless politicians as we have in government today -

Some new generation which arrogantly thinks it knows better and will do better than its forebearers

Two objects cannot occupy the same space-time dimension, but two objects can exist in the same space in different times. I understand that physicists view time as a forth dimension. OK that's it, taking CJ's advice. Off to read Stephen Hawking's 'A Brief History of Time' if only to find the words for what I intuit. Has been on my list of books to read, now, perhaps, it is time.

I hope.

Poirot for someone who claims they have no scientific back ground, your approach to problems is very science orientated.

I've long tentatively concluded that everything has already happened, just not for us hear and now. I agree that time is a stubborn part of our view of reality, but am also persuaded it's an illusion. The future is then just as real as the present; indeed I suspect we are haunted by the future--depending on how much humanity evolves in the future, it's perfectly reasonable to me to speculate that future humans can and do revisit their past in some way. The sheer ambiguity of our reality makes it difficult for me ultimately to subscribe to it. I go along with it, of course, but I'm always waiting for someone to jump up and say, "Ha! Fooled you!"