 How might his be connected to perception? According to the indirect (or, as it is sometimes called, representative) theory of perception, we perceive external objects only by perceiving some intermediate object, a sense datum. According to the direct theory, in contrast, perception of external objects involves no such intermediary. Now, external objects are at varying distances from us, and, as noted above, since light and sound travel at finite speeds, that means that the state of objects that we perceive will necessarily lie in the past. In the case of stars, where the distances are very considerable, the time gap between light leaving the star and our perceiving it may be one of many years. The presentist holds that past states, events and objects are no longer real. But if all that we perceive in the external world is past, then it seems that the objects of our perception (or at least the states of those objects that we perceive) are unreal. It is hard to reconcile this with the direct theory of perception. It looks on the face of it, therefore, that presentists are committed to the indirect theory of perception. (See Power 2010a, 2010b, 2018, Le Poidevin 2015b.)