Why Do I Have A Concept Of Continuous Experience?

[ULFBERHT]

Let me explain.

I was doing an exercise wherein I write a hundred questions I'd like to possibly answer. I got to #75 when I asked myself "what is memory?"

That's a good question. What IS memory? I don't mean from a scientific standpoint necessarily. Don't throw biochemistry at me (unless you really have to).

Why do I have these things in my mind that don't exist in physical reality? I feel like if I didn't have memory, in a sense I wouldn't have person-hood. There would be no perceived continuity. None of my current experience would have any context without memory. Moment by moment I'd be starting over.

And then I began to think, "what is person-hood anyway?". At this point I caught myself looking at my right hand, holding the pen. Is this the same hand, physically, that I had ten years ago? I hear some science says no, that because of the way your physical body regenerates damaged tissues, replaces lost cells, etc. that after a certain period of time, you're no longer the same physical person you were in the past. But that's just some shit somebody told me. I don't actually experience reality that way. At least I don't think I do.

How did I get here, to this point? What is this body? What is time? What am I perceiving here? I can't be confident that I know. I don't know what I'm experiencing.

I feel like I'm coming up on a blind spot in my knowledge about sensory perception. i'm doing my damnedest to avoid the spiritual word salad that typically accompanies topics like this.

If you know what the frick I'm getting at, please reply.

 

 

Edited December 18, 2016 by ULFBERHT

[ULFBERHT]

@NTOgen I gotta be honest, I don't like this feeling, dude. Like, it feels like in this moment everything everyone ever told me about experience I just took for granted. Not even a shred of skepticism did I put up. And I wasn't even trying to go down this rabbit hole at 11:30 at night lol. I was just working on trying to find the right career... yeesh.

[ULFBERHT]

I've got mixed emotions about it. Don't get me wrong, we're both on this forum right now. We both know that kinds of ideas being presented here. I'm into the work and I want to do it. I was just a little caught off guard.

[WelcometoReality]

@ULFBERHT Sounds to me that you for the first time are uncertain of what you are and that uncertainty makes you feel uncomfortable. It might feel like one step back but it is actually progress.

[Aware]

Great question!

Please let me explain, first a medicine for the mind, then will build from there on doing my utmost to clarify it for as far as I can clarify it.

 

All things exist, persist for a while, and eventually perish. 

Feelings, mental conditions (perception, shapes, formations, intellect and consciousness) and physical material cannot hold up due to their nature and conditionings in which they arose.
   When one realizes this, he grows wary of them. 
When he grows wary of them, he realizes: these feelings, these mental conditions are not me, not of me, not of you, myself, yourself, ourself or them. They simply come, persist for a while, and eventually perish according to their conditions and nature.
There for only suffering exists, decays and eventually perishes.
Besides suffering, nothing exists, and nothing seizes to exist.
Having realized this, one is released, his heart becomes radiant and is freed.

 

Feelings, physical objects and mental conditions as named above, seem to be promoting that they contain a self, presenting themselves as having a permanent source, are promoting the idea that they are discerned from anything else you perceive.

One thought is not the other thought, and this picture is completely different from that other picture, this memory is different from other memories, we have billions of different physical objects, this way, like this it seems for the mind. However, a clear investigation to this, one quickly realizes that all of them are not that different as they seem and you just identify with it. So let us investigate this right here.

Feelings, your body and mental conditions, are they permanent, or are they temporary in their nature?

They are temporary in nature.

And that which is temporary in nature, can we say of such things: Let it be so, or let it be not so?

Of sickness we can't say: I am better now, and we are better. Of death we can't say, I don't wanna die, and we don't die. Of old age we can't say, I want to stay young, and we stay young. Thus we can't control that which is temporary in nature and there for is empty.

That which we can't control, is that suffering, or is it not suffering? It is suffering, because it can't hold. (is conditioned).

Would it there for be right to state about those temporary phenomenon: This is me, this is myself, this is who I am? No, that is not right to state it like this and to identify with it. 

Would it be right to state: This is not me, this is not myself, this is not who I am? Yes, it is right to state it like this!

So what are you? I am Awareness, that is not bound, not born, never ill and is all pervasive and knows no equal of itself. And this would not be all pervasive, if but one thing out of all that is that you perceive Ulfberht, or comes up within you that actually presents itself being that which it presents. That would mean images that present themselves being images etc. But this is not the case, its a composite and presents everything except itself. There for the real you, is all pervasive.

There for, seek not how phenomenon differ, but pierce through by striving to aim for what always was, is and always will be by seeing that anything else but awareness just simply comes and goes.

[FindingPeace]

On 18/12/2016 at 6:20 AM, ULFBERHT said:

If you know what the frick I'm getting at, please reply.

Yes, I know exactly what you're getting at. I had the same realisation a while ago.

To sum it up in simple terms it's this: your life exists in a single moment in time. This moment. The present moment. This is all there is. The past doesn't exist, the future is only a projection of the past. It doesn't exist. All that exists is here and now in this moment. Your life is taking place in this present moment. All that is real for you is what you are experiencing right now, in this moment. Ultimately, every moment is the same. Every moment becomes a memory. Every memory is a vague recollection of the facts about an experience you once had that doesn't exist now.

Your life exists only as a continuous experience of the present moment. It has  no beginning or end. Just the 'now'.

[Neo]

Quote

Yes, I know exactly what you're getting at. I had the same realisation a while ago.

To sum it up in simple terms it's this: your life exists in a single moment in time. This moment. The present moment. This is all there is. The past doesn't exist, the future is only a projection of the past. It doesn't exist. All that exists is here and now in this moment. Your life is taking place in this present moment. All that is real for you is what you are experiencing right now, in this moment. Ultimately, every moment is the same. Every moment becomes a memory. Every memory is a vague recollection of the facts about an experience you once had that doesn't exist now.

Your life exists only as a continuous experience of the present moment. It has  no beginning or end. Just the 'now'.[/quote]

 

Do you, or does anyone, if you contemplate this for while, come to the realisation that the segments of now we call the past cannot build up into the character "you" as some kind of amalgam because this is literally impossible and just another illusion?

 

Edited December 19, 2016 by Neo

[alifesurreal]

1 hour ago, FindingPeace said:

your life exists in a single moment in time. This moment. The present moment. This is all there is.

But how long is this moment? Do we create an illusion of a continuos experience out of infinitely small fractions/moments? And how does the neurological delay of our perceptions come into play?

Just wondering as I've noticed recently when I was in bed listening to the sounds of the city how my brain was creating a flowing experience out of infinitely small pieces of instant sounds. It felt like my brain had a temporary ram-like memory of instant perceptions which were continuously pieced together in order to form a recognizable perception. Like there had to be a minimum length of a perception in order to be experienced at all.

Made me feel like most of my continuous perception of the now was not actually the now, but from a chached version of it sampled at a frequency determined by the resolution of my brain.

[Saarah]

@NTOgen the easiest example to think of is during deep sleep, although we're supposedly sleeping for some hours, the experience just jumps from before sleeping to dreaming to being awake and in between there's nothing, we don't feel each of the hours go by, and before we came into existence we didn't feel any time go by for all the existence that went on in existence before, otherwise I'd be pretty annoyed I had to wait so damn long lol  

[Neo]

19 hours ago, alifesurreal said:

Just wondering as I've noticed recently when I was in bed listening to the sounds of the city how my brain was creating a flowing experience out of infinitely small pieces of instant sounds. It felt like my brain had a temporary ram-like memory of instant perceptions which were continuously pieced together in order to form a recognizable perception. Like there had to be a minimum length of a perception in order to be experienced at all.

You would probably have difficulty making sense of the world if you weren't able to piece together snipets of sensory information whether is be seeing a predator running towards you  (that would be quite a fundamental ability to interpret moving images), also sounds strung together to be recognized or interpreted. Maybe even a sense of rhythm. Perhaps the brain's job is to create an immersive experience that we understand or make sense to us and it's interesting to analyse or even peel back a few layers if you can.

[cetus]

@ULFBERHT Time, space, movement and a seemingly continuous experience (duration) are just a few of the tools the mind uses to navigate within it's reality. Otherwise everything in reality would be bunched up into one heap. As it truly is.

[Neo]

29 minutes ago, cetus56 said:

@ULFBERHT Time, space, movement and a seemingly continuous experience (duration) are just a few of the tools the mind uses to navigate within it's reality. Otherwise everything in reality would be bunched up into one heap. As it truly is.

@cetus56

But this could be understood on several levels. Sometimes I convince myself it works on one level and then I'm not sure and think the other.

You could say that everything from out there in the physical world is reconstructed in the mind where you experience it along with your own agenda. e.g. It looks like a depressing or sad day - which is all in your mind and based on your beliefs.

 

Or you could believe that the world really is completely constructed in the mind in it's entirety and there is no objective reality. But as soon as you take this step you have to accommodate the fact there appears to be other beings who must construct their view of reality similar to yours.

 

[cetus]

3 hours ago, Neo said:

 

Or you could believe that the world really is completely constructed in the mind in it's entirety and there is no objective reality. But as soon as you take this step you have to accommodate the fact there appears to be other beings who must construct their view of reality similar to yours.

 

@Neo Yea hard to believe but that seems to be the consensus. Everything exists in the mind except paying the bills. hehe I ask Leo why we share the same reality between different observers. That's the part of this that doesn't quite add up. He said reality is expressed in patterns that we share. I try to keep reminding myself that no matter how reality seems to be, it is all happening in my mind. And that doesn't exist either? Am I just talking myself into this? 

But it is true that we only know reality through our 5 senses and not directly. Lately I've been researching the theory that reality exists as a hologram. It does give a decent explanation of what creates reality (information). Some people in the science community are also on board with the theory of a holographic universe. David Bohm was one of the first and he was a brilliant observer. Most of that debate stems from black holes. Maybe human minds are tuned to the wrong realm of the physical and living in delusion. I have no direct proof of that in my experience though.

[Neo]

I had this idea that everything (infinite possibilities) exits in this one spot and you only "tune in" to what you believe. It's been shown at a quantum level that an emitted photon will have a variety of possible end points and as it is emitted the end points are excited even before the photon arrives. And in similar fashion our mind is like the excitable array of sensory "detectors" if you like, and these attract the version of reality that we believe in. And because there are infinite versions of reality, there too are all the versions with each of your friends, relatives, co-workers etc in infinite possible positions. 

Edited December 20, 2016 by Neo
to change "sensual" to sensory

[cetus]

@Neo I think that's called "superposition"? Is that right. Just to ask, did you see the video I posted "Expert explains the holographic universe". There was a lot there that made sense to me and answered a lot of questions I have about different experiences through life. Even before I knew anything about higher levels of awareness, enlightenment and such. I'd like to hear your thoughts on it too.

[ULFBERHT]

@cetus56  saves the day again