The Reactive Mind

the reactive mind:

"what i'm saying is that people are impressionable. they go by what they see. and that's obvious that materialism is built on a visual impression of the world, what we see is thought of as real. and dreams, because what we see is usually less clear, that's thought of as not real, because it's less than what we see in waking life."

"wait, what's your argument, that dreams are just as real? or they're both not real? because i would go with both not being that real."

"maybe they're equally real or equally not real, if you see what i mean. my point is that we place dreams on a lower status just because we see in waking life much more clearly and it's a more stable world. we prize clarity and stability. you could say the mind is a big snob about the clear light of waking life."

"that philosopher who wondered whether he was a human dreaming of being a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming of being human? that you could say both are true?"

"right. the mind reacts upon waking that the dream wasn't real but what if it was?"

"so you could be sharing a dream with real people just as you could be with philosophical zombies in waking life?"

"right. zombies without consciousness, human illusions, simulated people, hallucinations of people, non player characters, whatever. it is interesting that when we consider that a lot of people on earth may not be real, doesn't that mean we're hallucinating? that everyone on earth falls into the schizoid camp of people? that everyone is schizophrenic?"

"but you're equating hallucinations with schizophrenia. but yes, i agree, but not everyone is clinically diagnosed schizophrenic. i have a theory though. all real people may be schizophrenic to some degree, it's just that most people hide it better than those that end up committed to a mental hospital. they have better coping mechanisms. think of it this way, there's a statistic i've read that over 10% hear voices or auditory hallucinations. and if this earth is a simulated world, that means 100% see visual hallucinations of people. why are only 1%, that's the statistic, diagnosed schizophrenic?"

"what you're saying is most people are just better at acting normal so they don't get locked up in a psychiatric ward?"

"exactly. but that's just my theory. it's like acting not normal is illegal and they're well aware of it."

"probably from a very early age, i guess. and i've been trying to remember the first part of my life better. i'm still sure how i ended up here on earth was because i dreamed of earth and then woke up in it. born at the age of three. on the one hand, you've got the theory life on earth is a dream, then you have the theory it's a computer simulation, or that's it's a grand hallucination, but really i guess it has elements of all three."

"it's the frame of reference. like if you think it's a simulation then the question is who created it. the idea of god as the programmer just pops up like that naturally. but i think a lot of people don't ask who created your dreams last night, right?"

"it seems there's no getting away from the concept of god though. everyone on earth feels powerless really. and so everyone can imagine what god is. it's like it's one of the most common concepts that everyone arrives at. what if there is someone with power over it all, even if it's just someone who manages to hack the Matrix, if you like?"

"but is it run on what could be like computer code? are dreams coded too? what if, by inventing the computer and programming languages, we've made it run on computer code in the background?"

"and it wasn't before? so earth was fundamentally different before the advent of the computer age? and now it does run on something like C++? because now the code exists? and this is out there but like maybe before Newton's Laws of Motion, mechanical motion was different? humans somehow made motion work to the laws? who remembers?"

"right. once something new exists, it could change everything in the universe."

"what is the unconscious? is it just the material connecting our senses and the thought in our heads to everything else running in the invisible background? is it a random chaotic swirl happening around us?"

"yes. it's not easy to think about what really goes on, the metaphysics of reality. but all this talk of a simulated reality is the reaction to the Matrix movies, it really popularized the concept. the schizophrenia theory of earth and creation is not as popular."

"it's a loaded word. people fear madness. and chaos, which mentally is what schizophrenia is."

"again, people want stability. full on schizophrenia violently bends reality. it frightens people. it's like taking a sledgehammer to the world that is actually very delicate."

"the question is, if earth is hallucinatory, let's go with this, what makes it so stable?"

"maybe it's the code behind it now. computer science. now everyone knows and imagines the medieval world as a magical, chaotic place and time, it's fully in the culture. the thing is, what if we dismiss those that dismiss that as superstitious nonsense, and consider that's what life really was, nobody made it up later? ancient times really were the world of swords and sorcery?"

"and science banished that away and replaced it with today? science killed the magic? i don't know. i have my doubts sometimes that reality is even older than a few hundred years. i mean i've heard it's the Year 443. that means Year 1 was AD 1572 equivalent. it's like the dream world is constructed in an instant, and so could earth be therefore, i guess."

"that's true, it's just conjecture. but that's the way to think, i think. try to find the truth in everything. consider everything if it were true at first, without prejudice. hopefully eventually what is false will become obvious."

CLEARCHARGE

The Problem of False Memory

the problem of false memory:

of course, ideally, we'd like memory, what there is of it, to be true, but inevitably some of it is false, perhaps only a little part even, but that is enough to make us uneasy, if not question whether we are losing our minds.

as an example, i remember December, 1985, on winter school holiday, as a time of staying up late watching television. in my memory, a few years afterwards, i saw the film, Night Shift, on a Thursday night but also that it was New Year's Eve. now New Year's Eve, 1985, was a Tuesday so Thursday is perhaps a false memory. now for a long time right up to today, i thought i had seen the movie on a Thursday and therefore not on New Year's Eve, but having just discovered TV Tango's website and checking the listings for December 31, 1985 confirms that it was on CBS that day though of course this record may be false as everyone is confused. i thought for years that i had conflated two memories, and before that, that i had seen the movie on New Year's Eve and that December 31, 1985 was a Thursday. now one avenue of thought is that actually yes it was and somehow the calendar had changed after that but that is unlikely as i remember that August 27, 1986 was definitely a Wednesday and assuming the calendar hadn't changed between the two dates and that TV Tango is correct, December 31, 1985 was definitely a Tuesday and i saw Night Shift that night. where did the memory of Thursday come from? i did also have the vague memory that New Year's Day was Wednesday at the same time as thinking i saw the film on Thursday, so pretty confused there.

my dream life has some continuity as well, like a parallel world where i have a different history with the dream versions of people in waking life and in that they often happen in dream versions of places like schools i went to or old homes i lived in. it happened where i realized i was in a dream but struggled to remember whether such things had happened in waking life with people i knew. what i conclude from this is that memory is very bad in dreams, false memories are ever present, which explains why we remember so little of what happened before our lives on earth. that i was born into earth, this world, means that i had an amnesiac break from what went before, my previous life, perhaps i was asleep for days, if not months, dreaming and eventually captured and propelled by my dreams of earth into earth.

so i've muddled days and confused memories or that things had happened slightly differently or that the order was hard to determine, but most disturbingly, have i memories of events that never happened at all but which i have vivid details of in my mind? well, hopefully not, and nothing stands out.

what about when we cannot remember something, like a name, but obviously we have not forgotten entirely because when we check or ask someone, we instantly recognize that as the thing forgotten? there is some residual memory that exists even though we cannot bring it into conscious thought. how does this recognition work? i think it is something like an incomplete electrical circuit and when we introduce the missing element, the current flows and we recognize. now i digress, if the theory of eternal return of time were somewhat true, wouldn't we have a buildup of residue that got bigger and bigger with each repeat of events, that we might predict the future accurately? i don't think we do. and residue must exist, perhaps some of it's ancient, for some things feel familiar to us, without us being able to explain why.

what about the start of time? let us assume our minds always existed, predating earth. it is easy to think, because we don't think we can remember what happened before our lives on earth, that perhaps it is a solipsistic nightmare and that earth began when we were born. what do i remember of the first day? when i think about it, i imagine a scene of the ground covered with pebbles and stones, a reddish brown colour, not much visibility, there was fog, walking forwards slowly, looking around, seeing trees, and alone at first. now presumably, the first day was a shocking time and thus more easily remembered than any other day.

CLEARCHARGE

A Chain of Personal Bubbles in Space

a chain of personal bubbles in space:

"to common sense, or what assumptions everyone has to make, solipsism seems almost absurd, those afflicted grotesquely delusional. what's worse, if not true, if there were many minds, not just one, in reality, it's extremely embarrassing. i mean, it's like, too bad she's crazy, she's thinks she's the only one and doesn't believe i'm real, i'm supposed to be like a figment of her imagination or something. or he's a solipsist, he thinks he's God, only less powerful."

"well, it's not that hard. that's why you have to consider all the possibilities. either it's one mind only or at least two, right? though, on the balance of probability and all that, and what it seems, if it's more than one, it's got to be many, surely? but let's not get into what exactly is a mind by definition, what they have in common and if each mind is unique could you really consider there to be more than one? that's a mind boggler in itself."

"yeah, someone who can think independently, ok, to an extent, i mean, is there any real independence if everything is connected?"

"that's a whole other question. but yes, a mind can think. but how to visualize space? how connected is everything or everyone? i mean, it's like, i think things like other person at 80 degrees mark 7, four light years away, that is, again assuming that everyone is fixed in position in space, that nobody really moves."

"yeah, if space were densely packed, like thick vegetable soup or something, there would be like billions of ways people are connected, right? but what if it weren't? what if everyone was, like, in their own personal bubble space and there were chains of bubbles, different people, connecting people together?"

"so you could be the bubble next to mine or you could be 20 bubbles down the chain. it's like six degrees of separation, sort of."

"only the completely real, nothing could be more real, version. i mean it could look like a diagram of the world wide web or something more complicated, there could be clusters, there could be sections only connected by one link, there could be multiple ways two personal bubble spaces were connected. and so on."

"great. but i'm imagining it now and i'm thinking what if you could move your personal bubble to another personal bubble?"

"that's just the illusion created by light and time. my theory is that nobody moves. you'd think, in the end, you'd have a fair idea who your neighbours were, at least, you've got to know them better than someone 1000 degrees of real separation away."

"well communication is a wonderful thing, the internet, the press. but i guess you're right. where does this image of bubbles come from? i guess it's from blowing soap bubbles as a kid."

CLEARCHARGE

The Building Blocks of Thought

the building blocks of thought:

now what we have in our minds or our brains perhaps is a network, a web of connected ideas and concepts or what we might call items of thought. these relate mostly to real things but also those abstract. by real things, i mean images, actions past, sounds, and so on. yes we all have imagination and a surprising capacity to think about things that do not exist in actuality and also we can think about abstract subjects like mathematics.

now i digress. can a fiction, a made up story, ever allow us to wander far enough away from reality to ever be truly believable? a word always connects to something real. we cannot turn off thoughts about real things that we have experienced and seen and heard. a writer creates a work, but the audience has its own individual interpretation of it. of course, if we were less strict, yes it could be admitted that we all share a general sense of this work, but each individual brain whilst reading it works in its own way. i might mention the word "drink", but whilst i think of the coffee i've just had, a reader elsewhere in space at another time might think of whatever he or she just had, orange juice perhaps. the word triggers something in our own experience. what i am saying is that we cannot truly have a "clean" reading of any work, fiction or non fiction, for everything is coloured by individual experience. to deconstruct any work is to work out what is connected to what in the world of real things, to undermine imagination really, and in so doing perhaps we discover more of the impossible and the possible.

it is clear that the conscious mind is little in relation to the unconscious and memory. it is a slim "holder" of thoughts, like a tiny screen lit up on the side of a mainframe computer. it can only hold so much at any one time. it is volatile like a multicoloured flame of a candle or lighter blowing in the wind. i would say it is incorrect to attach all of our identity to our consciousness, for we are more than what we are thinking of at any given moment. i think, therefore i am, but i am not only what i think.

let's say an intelligent person's consciousness, or mental "holder", could have 50 discrete items of thought at once. of course, let us consider that this could be a variable number. perhaps in concentrated thought, even a 100 in one go, like the flame were adjustable. now the items of thought are like building blocks which a person might play with, each represents something real or abstract. in writing this work, i've thought of a computer, a flame, building block toys, etc. i have ghostly images of these things in my mind's eye now. i have a little collection of building blocks of thought. now what lateral thinking is, briefly, is the manipulation of these building blocks, creating a new collection or arrangement of thoughts, by adding a new, different block to what we had before, something seemingly unrelated usually. what do we have now in our conscious mind? what has the addition forced us to think of?

there is an argument that the consciousness is not the leader of the total mind, rather it is the larger unconscious that is so, even that calculation is led by the unconscious. then the concept that the unconscious is the supercomputer seems more apt. the conscious mind is more like a passenger viewing the scenery of thoughts.

CLEARCHARGE

A Motion in Time

a motion in time:

the mind is an excitable creature and easily led by its own interests and concerns. when a lot happens, our senses force many changes in our consciousness. we are caught up in the moment. our minds are almost distorted by events, though these do not have a lasting effect on our consciousness, for like an elastic band, they revert to what they once were, or like sand castles by the sea, the tide washes them away, and our minds forget.

things could be divided into those that are volatile, like the life of our minds, where much happens, and those that are not, where very little happens. if everything could be represented visually and we could sit in a control room where everything was shown on a bank of screens, we might see such a difference, one mind's thoughts, the words and images on one screen, the passing of the day on another, perhaps a still image on yet another, which never changes.

memory and the future both relate to our emotions. when we are emotional we may remember things better. it is a motion in time, if you like, that is captured. and our emotions ensure that certain things must happen, things that we want, and that certain things never happen, things that we fear or hate. in the belief that the mind is eternal, that it always did and always will exist, the question of the start of time and our memory of it emerges. when there are many things unknown to us, we become nervous or even scared. on the first day, we knew very little, therefore logically, the day was one of great fear and emotion, so we should remember something of it.

CLEARCHARGE

A Question of Precedence

a question of precedence:

the human mind is a powerful tool, apparently, as it can shape events. and the universe is ever changing. in an excited, unstable and highly emotional state, the mind can warp reality, indeed perhaps even change natural laws which hold in more normal, settled times. this is how it seems. now this could be dismissed as just flawed perception, that the actual universe has not changed, but to do so would be to dismiss and underweight perception and consciousness itself, to deny personal experience as important. in someone's strange, wild and crazy world, unusual things are happening! there is an assumption that we receive correct data from an "external world" to our brain and to our senses, that there is no great individual power to change this "external world" through our being, that there is no forceful feedback that can alter the state of it, so to speak.

posit that a great, and mad, scientist, perhaps in a dream, perhaps from an unusual experience, perhaps in an epiphany, creates a theory of how something works. his or her mind is engrossed with theoretical possibilities and detail, mechanical metrics and hypotheses and statistics. he or she, very excited, doesn't sleep for days and, when he or she does, has strange vivid dreams. then this mad scientist invents a machine or test to determine whether this hitherto only theoretical stuff is true or works. and it does. the question is, is this really science, is this the way things were or has the scientist changed them? or is it magic, is he or she actually a wizard of some kind? or just the god of this new machine and theory?

there may be true natural laws which came before thought chanced upon them, but what if we have altered the universe with our minds, created new systems, which we now label as "science"?

CLEARCHARGE