[oh_teh_meows]

Or that there really is only one unchanging state, and what you perceive to be the passage of time is really just a very particular configuration of your 'memory' through which you 'remember' a different state, and that hasn't really changed at all.

[retreatguru]

Is there not just one ever present now in which all thing change?

[oh_teh_meows]

Theory of relativity would say that there are many 'nows', which one you're in depends on which frame of reference you're in :)

To a photon traveling at c, the birth, growth, and death of the universe happen simultaneously; so to a photon, there is no now. From its perspective, it dies just as quickly as it comes into existence.

> Is there not just one ever present now in which all thing change?

Sure there may be; but going by the hypothetical possibility I raised, there really isn't a now. The passage of time could be an illusion due to your memory being in a particular unchanging state that has existed 'forever'. Who's to say the 'now' that has just passed wasn't just you remembering it?