The portrayal of past and future events as a set of pictures on a prepared timeline, Elizabeth goes on, is also connected to a particular way of understanding the idea that the future, but not the past, can change. The idea that the past cannot change but the future can change, ‘could be represented by the fact that once a picture has passed me it cannot be removed from the row, whereas a picture on the right-hand side can be removed’. And ‘by the fact that the pictures become set as they pass me so that they cannot be altered whereas the pictures to the right are in a fluid state or are as
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