The Reflections Theory of Memory

When you close your eyes and open them again, you are most likely not shocked by your immediate surroundings. Why? Because there is usually nothing out of the expected, that is, you remain in the time and place where you would have expected or believed that you last left off before you closed your eyes. But what you do not question further is why and how you came to expect the continuation of your existence in this particular point in spacetime after opening your eyes – not just your existence in this particular point, but also your existence as you.

The key is that you cannot prove or disprove the state of existence of anything or any event unless you are constantly perceiving it and/or direct evidence of it. Assuming you could not possibly perceive every and any event simultaneously forever, there always exist an infinite number of possible alternate events that could have happened, are happening, or will happen outside of your perception. Therefore the way you choose to interpret, invent, or interact with your memory of the past dictates the way you exist in the present. But what is memory exactly? And what is its relationship with reality?

How do you know if what you remember as having happened actually happened in reality or whether an alternate story happened instead that led to the same exact outcomes? Or perhaps you only ever came into existence in the present moment with your memories pre-installed into your mind? And what about a moment into the future when the present will inevitably become the past? Depending on the level of skepticism you raise toward your continuous existence from the past to the present moment in such a particular time and place as such a particular person, however, you have varying degrees of ultimately unlimited freedom to manipulate the reality of the state of your existence depending on what exactly you are able to convince yourself into believing.

There seems to be an obvious but inescapably circular relationship between the perception of memory and the reality of the past. Compare the reflections of physical objects through mirrors with the recall of events through memories. A real object serves as an initial source of light that is then reflected onto a mirror and then into the perceiver's eyes. If the mirror is perfectly flat, then the image transferred from the mirror will be a perfect mirror-imaged representation of that object. However, if the mirror is warped or colored, then the image reflected off of that mirror into the perceiver's eyes will not be of accurate resemblance of the real object.

The only way to know whether an image reflected by a mirror were an accurate representation of the original object would be to directly look at the original object and compare it with the reflection, just as the only way to verify the accuracy of a memory of an event would be to look at a recording of the past. But the point we revisit is that unless we constantly perceive the original object or the recording of the actual event in the past, there is no way of proving or disproving the true state of anything outside of conscious perception. In other words, if you closed your eyes and stopped all your sensory perceptions, then the external state of reality may as well be the equivalent of the internal state of your mind.

What's more, even if not on a metaphysical level, the encoding of events in human memory is already contaminated with all sorts of secondary information that form the subjective human realm of experience, such as emotions or thought – if memory were a mirror, it would most certainly not be a flat one. Also our recall of the past is not usually a direct remembrance of an event through one memory, but instead through the memory of a memory of a memory and so on. The farther away from the original object or event, the more mirrors, the more room for manipulation of the reflection of an image, since any or all mirrors along the set of mirrors reflecting light from the original object to the eyes of the perceiver could be warped. 

In the end, what reaches the eyes of the perceiver is not an image of an event but a reflection of a reflection of reflections which may or may not bare any accurate resemblance of the event that actually happened. So memory does not teach you anything about your current state of existence by giving you accurate information about the past – it's not a matter of knowing about the past; it's purely a matter of believing what you think you know about the past. No matter what may have happened in the past, it is only through recalling them in the present moment through perception that they even begin bare any existence at all. And for that matter, any memory is as good as another, so long as they lead to the same outcomes.

On the other hand, changing the past to affect the present and ultimately the future may not be a matter of changing the outcomes, but changing what you choose to believe as the reality of the process. Existence and identity are never dictated by the past since they can only ever be defined by how you choose to perceive your past within the present moment. In a circular way then, the past seems to be dependent on the present as much as the present seems to be dependent on the past, at least theoretically - but in a world where there are no true or false answers, what difference would it make? In a subjective universe where the exact way any given set of events happened in the past can never be objectively proven, all that could ever matter is how you actively perceive that set of events as having happened in the present moment. 

Here is a list of questions to constantly consider:

Who was I yesterday?
Who will I be tomorrow?
Who am I today?
How many times have I lived my life?
How many times have I lived the same exact life?
How many different lives of different people have I already lived?
Have I ever actually lived, or have I been stuck in this very moment for all eternity?

In a universe where nothing can even seem to exist objectively without first being subjectively perceived, it matters not what anyone else tells you they perceive; it matters not what you think you have perceived; it matters not what you think you perceive. All that matters is what you believe you perceive.

Laws of the Universe

The universe is not governed by the laws of nature! The laws of nature just happen to be one of the infinite possible models that attempt to describe how the universe exists! Can’t psudo-scientists get anything straight!? Science does not deny religion nor does religion deny science; each only offers a simpler alternative explanation from its own perspective. Is that really so hard to understand? And please, stop thinking that you’ve found answers to questions that you’ve never even realized you’ve never understood.

Ignostic's Interpretation of Religion

An over-asked question - if religion teaches us to love and accept, why does it seem to cause so much conflict? From my own ignostic perspective, I think that what any religion attempts to teach is ultimate acceptance with the goal of ending all suffering, giving meaning to life/what we encounter in life, and providing answers to questions. In my opinion, all that you need to know/understand in order to be able to “accept” unconditionally is this: 1) There is no good or bad, only thought makes it so. 2) The finger that points to the moon is not the moon.

However, this is not what most religions seem to be interpreted as. Any religion comes with its own set of specific beliefs, strict rituals that must be followed, and rules that must be observed at all times. There is nothing inherently right or wrong about any of these activities, and their purpose is to help the one who caries out the actions be able to accept and find a meaning to their life. So everything is fine if you understand that, but it becomes problematic when you do not realize what your belief is trying to do for you on a deeper level (acceptance), but instead overemphasize what seems to be conveyed on the superficial level of language and human interpretation (the finger that points to the moon).

Belief becomes the origin of conflict when one side believes that what they belief is the objective/absolute truth, and the other side believes that as well. Both think that they are only trying to do the other side “good” by “enlightening” them to the “truth” and the “real path to liberation”, does not understand why the other side just won’t understand what the first side does, but completely miss the whole point of acceptance - “there is no right or wrong”, “the finger that points to the moon is not the moon”.

Consider how musical notes on paper help you interpret a piece of music, but the notes are not the music - nor are the combination of notes played by an instrument, nor even the interpretation of melodious sounds by the mind. You can play the same piece of music with whatever instrument in whatever way you like and listen to it however you like, and no one would ever say that it’s “right” or “wrong” to play or interpret the music a certain way, and there is no “inherent meaning” in the music aside from what arises from the interpretation of music on a personal level, whether from the original composer or someone else.

There is no way to know how any other person interprets the same piece of music, let alone know whether your interpretations are the “same”. There is no way to know what the “music” “actually” is, and all you can ever know is that the music is what you’ve interpreted or perceived for yourself. This does not mean that any interpretation can never be a “real” interpretation but that the term “real interpretation” is just rather strange. Any interpretation is just as meaningful as another (or just as “real” if you will), and no interpretation is ever “meaningless” or “false”.

The bottom line that you realize though, is that even “there is no right or wrong” and “there is no objective truth” are ultimately still views, which become beliefs. The more you believe in one certain set of beliefs, the less readily you will be able to understand (if at all) any other set of beliefs, which is the problem that I’ve realized that I’ve run into - I’m afraid I’ve taught myself to become so strictly ignotic that no matter how much knowledge I ever gain of another religion - or better yet, of anything at all - I will never understand anything at all - there comes the paradox (that scientists hate the most): that you’ll never understand anything unless you believe it, but when you believe you no longer understand.

ཐང་ཀ་ (Thangka)

I am teaching myself Tibetan, trying to understand the Bardo Thodol. Buddhist art also fascinates me.









(click for sources)

(quoting myself)

You have way too much imagination? That’s like having way too much intelligence.

Ignostic Eclecticism

Despite my hostility toward definitions and their meaningful meaninglessness, it makes me quite content that I seem to have found a couple words that seem to define my religious perspective reasonably adequately - Ignostic Eclecticism!

(Wikipedia is such an incredible source of joy, thank you.) An atheist would say “I do not believe God exists”. An agnostic would say “I cannot know if God exists”. An ignostic would say “I cannot know if God exists if cannot know what is meant by “God exists”“.

But what would you call someone who would say “I cannot know whether I can know if God exists if can know neither what is meant by “God exists”, nor what is meant by “to know”“? And what would you call another someone who would say “I cannot know whether I can know what is meant by “I cannot know whether I can know if God exists if can know neither what is meant by “God exists”, nor what is meant by “to know”” if I cannot know what is meant by “meant”“? More comprehensibly, what would you call someone who would say “How could I possibly know whether I could know what is meant by anything at all (if I could not know whether I could know)^∞ what is meant by anything at all”? Most concisely, “(… uncertain certain…)^∞ uncertainty”.

And Eclecticism - I do not think it is in conflict with the concept (and/or definition) of Ignosticism to “use elements from multiple religions, applied philosophies, personal experiences or other texts and dogma to form beliefs and ideas, noting the similarities between existing systems and practices, and recognizing them as [internally] valid”.

Q&A

Q: "The only way for something to “not exist at all” is for no one to have ever even thought of it." is this necessarily true? what about all of the concepts that seem exist prior to our discovery or "awareness" of it? The field of mathematics, the numbers, concepts or sequences and series that infinitely exist, are we creating the patterns or do you think the patterns exist and we discover them?"

A: “The only way for something to “not exist at all” is for no one to have ever even thought of it.” Is this necessarily true? What about all of the concepts that seem exist prior to our discovery or “awareness” of it?

In short, something that exists now or in the past or future “exists” and therefore does not “not exist”. For something to “not exist at all” means that it never existed and never will exist, so math and the like that you’ve mentioned simply do not fall under this category. But of course that’s just another “definition” with zero relevance to “necessary truth” whatever that means, and right now I’m only arguing for the sake of the definition of “non-existence” I’ve created, which is in the grand search for meaning, supremely pointless, although not necessarily uninteresting.

On the other hand, whether mathematics, logic, and the like are “discovered” or “invented” is up to personal interpretation. There is no way of proving it, and since proof is based on logic, what it the point? Ever if we were to assume they were “discovered”, how do you know with certainty that they “existed” prior to discovery? The whole point is the existence of anything outside of awareness, whether in the past or future (or that would be non-sensical anyways because does time really exist outside of awareness anyways?), cannot be proved or disproved.

Perhaps you could try and distinguish things this way: that which has been “discovered” and exists in the present moment exists or does not exist with uncertainty in the past when it was not yet “discovered”. But in order for something to not exist definitively, it must not exist in any time, not in the past, now, or future, i.e. if can never “be discovered” because it does not exist, and in order for this to be true, no one must ever be able to think of if. So I suppose a slightly better way of trying to word it might be “the only way for something to “not exist at all” is for no one to have ever thought of it or ever be capable of thinking of it.” - which includes not only its possibility of existing in the past but also in the future.

I guess some people argue that the only things that “exist” are the things that exist in the “present moment”, but I don’t know what that means because I have no idea what “present moment” means or if it’s possible to have an infinitesimally small increment of time or if time even exists, and the existence of time outside of human perception can neither be proved nor disproved so long as you’re perceiving as a human. And of course this once again becomes a debate about what the word “exist” is defined as and the many other problematic words with definitions that it comes with.

Q: Why is it that various geologically isolated cultures “created”/”discovered” the same abstract patterns?

A: How should I know? Maybe it’s a property of the brain? Maybe we’re all aliens? Maybe we’re just all the same person? Maybe those things existed somewhere in the universe before? Etc., etc., I could come up with as many theories as I desire, but none of them could be “proven”, could they? And even if they could, what is the point of “proof”? What is “proof”?

Sets, Fractals, Whatever You Want to Call Them

In summary: The set of “existence” contains the set of “observed existence”. The set of “observed existence” may include less elements than the set of existence, or it may include the same number of elements (i.e. they are the same set). We set of “observed existence” contains the set of “human perceived existence”, and likewise the contained set may contain equal or less elements than the set that contains it (as well as the set that contains that set). Exceedingly simple. 

The one and only question are these all sets that contain more subsets and are contained by broader sets, or are they all the same set? What is the set of all sets? Think Mandelbrot Fractals. It is just that simple, and that complex. The inclusion of fancy and irrelevant words just complicates the story in an unnecessary and meaningless way - that is, if you assume they’re just elements of (part of) a set.

But in the end, anything is just a way of trying to make sense of things - a theory, no more, and no less - please, please don’t confuse a theory with what is or could be, don’t you realize how meaningless and at the same time all-meaningful that is?

Q&A

Q: "Im no empiricist, very feasible field of thought, but believing that "all i ever see is all there will ever be" is again making the assumption that I have Godlike ability to manipulate the fate of realities existence. One's existence or human functioning may be contingent to the creation of an objective something. Without an objective ideal there is no progress. even within the conception of subjectivity there is the assumption that all is objectively subjective. So there may be meaning."

A: It’s ok, I don’t know what “empiricist” really means anyways, but I’m afraid you seem to be interpreting a lot of which was not meant to be stated in the words - another problem of language, I suppose, so let’s dissect this first:

“All i ever see is all there will ever be” - I think you might have gotten that from this “Once you observe something, it intrinsically changes from unobserved to observed, and unless I simply assume that such universes without my conscious observance do not exist, and thereby not think of then, then they cannot exist as universes without conscious awareness.” Let me clarify again that the only thing I assert about existence is that you cannot prove or disprove the existence of anything that you do not perceive. This makes absolutely no assertion that nothing “can exist” outside of my perception, simply that it remains unfalsifiable.

What is meant by the second quotation (what I said previously) is simply this: Once I observe any given universe (whether it it through pure thought or physical manifestation or whatever), then conscious awareness exists in that universe. There was no attempted reference to anything about unobserved universes (which I emphasize again, you cannot prove or disprove the existence of). What I was trying to convey was that the only possible way for anything to “not exist at all” is for no one to have ever even thought of it, since once you think about it, it exists in the form of thought (in the realm of the universes of your mind or whatever you want to call it). Simply put, if something does not exist, then it must not be observed, but if something is not observed, that does not imply it does not exist, i.e. observed existence is a subset of existence. Or more efficiently, I said “if not B then not A”, which implies “if A then B” but not (as you seem to have assumed) ”if B then A” - simple first order logic.

The paradox does not like within the faulty application of logic though. This presents a different level of inquiry, that is, where does the set of logical applications lie? If it’s merely a set with in the set of all possible existence, why should I care whether its rules are applied correctly and whether this has any relevance to whether something exists or not? i.e., if I showed with logic a consistent theory of what I intend to call existing or not existing, then all I did was that - it has nothing to do with any further nature of existence, assuming that there is more to meaning than definitions and man-invented premises.

Ok, so now even if you did assume that I implied “if B then A” (if existence, then observance) why is that the equivalent of “making the assumption that I have Godlike ability to manipulate the fate of realities existence”? Why did this just become a discussion on a more superficial level of “ability”, “God”, “fate”, “reality”? The only thing we were talking about was the relation between “existence” and “observance” nothing else. Nowhere was there ever a mention of “human functioning” or any sort of limited human perception. Perhaps it’s just difficult to convey exactly what is meant by “observance”? All that it meant by that is the act of conscious perception, with no reference to human perception in particular, but only awareness.

Lastly, “one’s existence or human functioning may be contingent to the creation of an objective something […] even within the conception of subjectivity there is the assumption that all is objectively subjective.” - what does this mean? What is meant by “objectively subjective”? I feel like all that is really trying to be said is that there exist things outside of observance (a.k.a. conscious subjective perception). Yes, as implied by what I said in the first place (if not B then not A), existence is a set that includes the subset of observed existence (it is not true that if not A then not B).

Q&A

Q: "Elevated self importance in that the natural human tendency to relate all to one’s personal existence. Can you really assume your omnipresence? it seems that a major component to your conception of reality is the ability for there to be a manipulation in the space-time continuum or the fabric of some sense of reality as a result of human mental manipulation (hinging the reality of a phenomena {observed=unobserved} on the presence/lack thereof of your sense perception. also,The thing is about paradox’s is that they do not defy existence so much as they defy the reasoning made in the deductions prior to, My pointing out of the paradox was more of a means of making you question the conclusion in that single theory, can every possible chance (in the same multi-verse) exist at the same time? is there a line to be drawn on that separates the realms of reality if, by this reasoning, their existence contradicts? Non-existence is hinged on existence, you cannot have the concept of existence without the concept of non existence because with no contrast or polar opposite one can not know of either side. ( ex. We dont know what Cold is without measuring the amount of heat, vice versa, you dont know what light is without the existence of darkness) Parallelism may not be feasible because one can not know the outcome of said probability unless all other possibilities never happened. or to stretch even further, The existence of one universe may be hinged on the non existence of all others, or our knowledge or existence in one universe may be hinged on our non existence in others."

A: To clarify, all I assert is you cannot prove or disprove the existence of anything that is not consciously perceived by yourself. This has absolutely nothing to do with how or whether “human perception”, either sensory or mental is capable of experiencing whatever happens to exist. So no, I don’t believe “elevated self importance” according to how you’ve defined it is at all a key to what I posit - again, all I’m saying is whatever you do not “perceive” (through thought, imagination, comprehension or whatever other form of non-human perception that cannot be understood through human experience), its existence can neither be proved nor disproved. There is a big difference between simply “observing” something, that is, to consciously perceive it in one way or another and to “observe through human perception” - to assert that all that could ever exist lies within the set of the latter would obviously be short-sighted, and is not what I posit. In other words, by supposing that that which cannot be perceived cannot be proved or disproved to exist, it does not in any way exclude the possibility of experience that has not yet been experienced or comprehended previously.

You cannot know what light is without knowing darkness, but there is a very important distinction to make that involves “conscious” perception or awareness of what you are perceiving. That is, a person who has been blind from birth supposedly “perceives” darkness for his whole life, but you cannot say that only darkness exists for him and not light, not because “objectively” (whatever that means) darkness can only exist with light, but because he has never been consciously aware that this perception of absence of light was in fact a perception. For him, the existence or non existence of light can neither be proved nor disproved, but only understood theoretically and not experientially, and the problem of existence again becomes simply a matter of what you are willing to define as existence.

Your question - in a single theory, can every possible chance exist at the same time? - Why not? Is this not at the heart of quantum mechanics? In the absence of the act of “observation” (perception, consciousness, whatever you want to call it), all possible outcomes exist simultaneously, and yet upon observation the wave function collapses altogether leaving only a single outcome. It seems like the debate you are raising is only a matter of what to define as “reality” - only the collapsed wave function because it is not within the human realm of comprehension to understand what it means to have all possibilities exist simultaneously? Is this not the very supposition you were arguing against when you question the absurdity of “elevated self importance” in the set of all possible universes? On a grander scale, probability itself is just another human-comprehensible theory. What has whether or not something is consistent with “probability theory” as comprehended by man got anything to do with the vast sea of other possibilities that cannot be comprehended? Why should comprehension be a premise of perception?

Q&A

Q: "I'm not sure the sci-fi depiction of reality is feasible. What if there are billions of universes that exist in the theoretical realm, (the realm of perfection as plato called it, of the fibinacci sequences nature, and time) their existence is arguably just as real as ours, simply the collision of probability and predestination and manipulation by man(free will) determines the path of the reality we perceive subjectively."

A: What exactly is “the sci-fi depiction of reality”? Infinite universes already exist in the theoretical realm, and their existence as “real” depends entirely on your definition of “real” which becomes quite a meaningless distinction. Does “objective perception” have any meaning at all? To perceive is an inherently subjective act unless of course you suppose that all you perceive is all there will ever be, which can neither be proved nor disproved, but in the case that it’s true, there would be no distinction between objective and subjective, would there?

Q&A

Q: "It seems that you have this conception of elevated self importance in your multi-verse theory. Why is it that one's self has to permeate through all layers of the multiple universes? (multiple realities of one's self) In your theory it seems that parallelism and adjacent universes is key, but in a system of billions of different possibilities is parallelism even possible? ex. A "universe" where a multiverse exists, being parallel to a universe where there is nothing but singularity=a paradox."

A: What do you mean by “elevated self importance”? And what does “one’s self” mean? True, it would be absurd if my “identity as a person” had to permeate through all possible universes, but unless I am consciously aware in that universe, I cannot know that it exists. Of course I could suppose that there are infinite other universes where I am not consciously present, but once I think about the existence of that universe, am I not then present and part of that universe which exists in my mind? Once you observe something, it intrinsically changes from unobserved to observed, and unless I simply assume that such universes without my conscious observance do not exist, and thereby not think of then, then they cannot exist as universes without conscious awareness - obviously a paradox. But what does it mean to be a “paradox”? What is wrong or right about being a paradox? Why must being paradoxical entail non-existence?

In a system of “billions of different possibilities” but not infinite, how should I know whether parallelism is possible or what that even means? Why would it? Why wouldn’t it? But in an infinite set of possibilities, obviously it must.

Science Fiction and Fantasy

Science fiction and fantasy are intriguing, but more so is the reaction toward and admiration of it. Unfortunately I’m not really a big reader (at all), but I’ve been looking for books or stories of the introspective sort - science fiction that is not built upon the fantasy of what is not there but on the convoluted perception of the reality that is already there.

There are so many stories of time travel, alternate universes, stories of the dead, stories of the extraterrestrial, stories of superpowers and things of all sorts that are not believed to exist in ordinary realities. People seem to be so drawn to this - fantasy, they call it - science fiction fantasy because it seems to be to some extent scientifically possible, but nonetheless does not “exist” so to stay under ordinary circumstances, and so it exists only as “fiction”. But why? Why are they so drawn to these fictional descriptions that are built upon their concrete perception of reality and so in turn aren’t really alternate realities at all? Why it is that they become so fascinated by things that are no different than their already concrete perceptions of the universe, so different but superficially - their idea of an “extraterrestrial being”, beings, whatever of similar nature - but what they build hardly ever if at all exceeds their perception of what consists of their possible reality. Why have they not explored the infinite loop of their own “ordinary” reality from there built true psychological thrillers? (Their thrillers seem to be limited to ideas of serial killers of convoluted identity and murders, deaths, of some sort, but only superficially). 

Will someone please introduce me to any book, story, writing, fictional perception of any sort that is not just another superficial manipulation of superficial perception? I am really tired of ideas of “aliens” that are basically no different from humans and “time travel” that bares no allusion to the mystery of reality whatsoever. Where are the right places to search? Are people’s imaginations really this confined?

Vis Imaginativa

Science - what ever happened to the experimentation of mind and reality through first-person exploration with the power of imagination? Where is the hope in an all-objective method when reality can only be perceived subjectively?

Chronicles of Life and Death

Following the previous commentary on “death is the only certainty”, the following chronicles -

People fear death. Why? People die. But do they?

Yes, I understand the sadness, aloneness that is perceived from the prospect of “death” with respect to “leaving this world”, but is that really why people are so death-aversive? Is it the fear of unknown? But what about for people who have already decided what to believe in with certainty? Can they still not be quite sure? Or is it the fear of uncertainty itself? Or rather, not really a fear, but simply an uneasiness caused by uncertainty? But uncertainty isn’t all bad either, in fact it’s the best thing ever sometimes, but of course that all depends, because it is not the uncertainty itself that causes any reaction but rather the all the infinite number of unfalsifiable theories that one could create, the perception, experience, and subjective value of each of them that cause the reactions. Here are just a few, stemming from our familiar friends, life and death:

People fear death. But what they do not realize is that they assume that they are alive. Not only do they assume that they are alive, but also that everyone else around them that “looks” alive is alive, that everyone who looks alive has never died, that they themselves have never died, and that you can only die once in a single lifetime. They no nothing about death, and consequentially nothing about being alive. They know nothing about anything, including the fact that they know nothing (which is the problem). They completely unknowingly make assumptions, millions of them without ever realizing that they are assumptions. These assumptions make them feel safe and secure as if they “knew” what was going on, what went on, and what would perhaps happen, and even if they did wonder once in a long while whether they were actually “alive”, they associate “probability” with it as if they understood anything about causality, induction, or being the cat inside Schrödinger’s box. 

Well scratch all of that. This is your reality (and just one of the many many infinite infinite sets) - fascinatingly, terrifyingly, and unfalsifiably so:

1. You are not alive. You are dead. You cannot die because you are already dead. You could “die” as many times as you wanted, but you could never cease to exist. You never remember exactly what it is like to die, but every instant in time you are constantly dying and continuing to exist, in which case it would be completely meaningless to call yourself either “dead” or “alive”. No matter how much you want to or don’t want to cease to exist, you cannot because once you exist, you exist, and for all you know, was there ever a beginning? Would there ever be an end? In this universe of yours, other people die and cease to exist, in your universe, but what about you? A state that you are not in remains and can only remain in a state of uncertainty until you reach that state - but then there would remain infinite uncertainties for all the other states as well.

2. You can and do remember every single time you’ve ever died - so many so many times, but each time you still continue to exist. No one else outside of yourself will never know that you “died” except for you. The difference from the first universe is that you believe that you “remember each time what it was like to die” that is, when you ask yourself “how did I die the last time I died?” then your mind would generate an answer that the inhabitant of Universe 1 would call “just your imagination” but you, the inhabitant of Universe 2 would call “what actually happened” because you further drop the assumption that “things that randomly pop into your mind have no actual meaning and/or could not have actually happened” i.e. “what” exactly causes those “thoughts” that follow sequentially, randomly, at will or not at will?

3. All of the above in Universe 2, but now sometimes you are dead, and sometimes you are alive, you just don’t know when. You could define being dead as being in a universe perceived to be exactly the same as though you were alive, but everyone that you see in the dead universe would also be dead and experience universes of type 2. You’d never know when you were dead or when you were alive since they would be perceived to be exactly the same, and you could also never cease to exist.

4. Same as Universe 3, except when you ask yourself whether you are “dead”, you can decide to believe that the answer did not pop out randomly (or it did) but whatever you happen to believe in that moment (whether or not by “choice”) is what would be your state of being dead or alive.

(Now, the question of whether you would continue to be “alive” or “dead” in the additional universes of other people generated while you “died” of course remains uncertain and has, for all purposes, nothing to do with the state of yourself in your own universe. But that’s already assuming 1) that universes of different people exist completely separately as infinite sets freely generated and destroyed and 2) other people’s universes even exist at all. In other words, if you want to go about experiencing “dying” infinite times just because you happen to believe you won’t cease to exist, you still need to take into account the uncertainties associated with those possibly existing universes of other people if you care about the emotional impact of your “death” on others - well, unless you are able to invariably believe that they don’t and will never exist.)

As you can see, with each addition level of abstraction, a.k.a. killing of concrete assumptions, the prospect of asking additional questions and answering of unfalsifiable possibilities becomes increasingly ”meaningless”, since the bottom line would simply be that the state of anything could at most be completely dependent on “what you happened to believe in the moment”. So I suppose most people, even if they were in the habit of questioning everything, would stick to believing the assumptions that “made the most sense”. But for me? How could I possibly have the slightest clue what that meant if my only infinite set of uncertainly experienced subjective universes were my own? Or are they?

Uncertainty is the Only Certainty (Death is NOT)

I saw a picture of this flying public artwork thing by Sebastian Errazuriz, and it intrigued me a little - it seemed to carry a lot of conceptual significance. (I’ve been questioning the significance and interpretation of conceptual art and design more and more ever since the time I approached that fashion designer guy to tell him how intrigued I was by his geometrically complex constructions, only to awkwardly find that he had no idea what hyperbolic geometry was and that his inspiration came purely from what he thought to be visually interesting, but this is different.) This flying all-caps sentence was extremely interesting to me not for the content itself, but the extent of further inquisition it raises - “death is the only certainty” - is it really now?

What I mean is not that there could be other certainties in life, but seriously, how could anyone ever assert that “death” is a certainty if no living person has any idea what death even is? I’ve come to realize that whenever anyone speaks any sentence, my mind immediately asks a million why’s and why not’s so quickly that it escapes my conscious awareness, but the most important ones pop out to my attention. This one especially. “Death is the only certainty” - forget the “in life” part, that makes it even more incredibly nonsensical, but sometimes I simply do not understand how people could completely overlook so, so many questions out there, making billions of assumptions every nanosecond of their lives without ever.. wondering - it’s absolutely incredible.

I have no idea how people, especially philosophers and other people doomed with a bunch of “knowledge”, just go around making these statements, statements of all different kinds, all consisting of words and concepts, concepts that they have absolutely no understanding that they have no understanding of, as if they had the slightest clue what they were actually talking about - this is just bizarre. But forget whether the people will ever have any hope of understanding. What I’m interested in is the curiosity of the statement and why/how it could possibly seem like a “true” statement to anyone.

“Death is the only certainty.” Rule #1: If you’re making a statement of any sort that you believe to have any relevance to anything at all, you have to understand what the words mean. Rule #2: Words about fundamental things have little meaning if any at all simply because by nature you have no idea what anything means, especially not if you want to put it in words. (Well, of course these rules have no meaning either, but the point is that I am frequently really bothered by the seemingly extreme ignorance of educated grown-up people, and I would like to point them out just in case.) So anyways, “death” - what in the world is “death”? Forget death, you want to say that it’s the state of ceasing to be alive? Well what in the world is “being alive”? What is the state of being “alive”? What does it mean to say that I am “alive” if I have no idea what it means to be “dead”?

Now, there is a very big difference between what it means to “be dead” versus the action of “dying”. The flying sentence seems to be talking about the latter. So we as “living” people have plenty of knowledge of what it means to die, perhaps physically, perhaps spiritually perhaps both, but not only do we know nothing about what happens after the act of dying, but there is in fact *no* possible way of knowing unless you are already in the state of being “dead”, and I mean exactly that. There are a series of infinite issues concerned with the state of “being dead” that basically reduce to 1) the act of other people dying outside of yourself has absolutely nothing to do with what it means to either “die” or “be dead” yourself 2) the act of “dying” as far as the word seems to be concerned, is the transition from being “alive” to being “dead”, but how on earth can we possibly begin to understand what it means to “die” if we have no idea what “alive” and “dead” are, i.e. 3) “I am alive” is an assumption - how in the world would I know if I’m “alive” if I have no idea what it means to be “dead”, in other words it’s just as meaningful to say “I’m dead” as it is to say “I’m alive”.

If you think about it, it could get as complicated, confusing, nonsensical, and completely meaningless as you want, but really all this is really doing is just creating another infinite set of unfalsifiable models of existence/reality/whatever-you-want-to-call-it. That’s the fun in these sentences that concern the fundamental nature of reality (which is really completely meaningless because it is all meaningful and vice versa). 

So start from the sentence “death is the only certainty in life” - bull shit!!! (But the most meaningful bull shit ever because it is completely meaningless, obviously, which is a good thing.) Everybody is going to die - false - but not true either, just unknown, uncertain, and completely meaningless. People “die” (or seem to anyways) outside of yourself, but just like anything else, that’s go absolutely nothing to do with dying with respect to myself. And now let me just create a few more fascinatingly magnificently terrifying and amazing theories of “life” - I could write a mansion full of books on this - novels, fiction, but not really, or not at all. Actually I’ll just write another post devoted to that.

Point being, “death is the only certainty in life” - what in the universe!?!?

"Death is the Only Uncertainty in Life"

Computers & Aliens: The Abstract (as opposed to the concrete)

Continuing on the topic of placebo universe, i.e. why is the placebo necessary/why can’t you just believe without believing in something? Basically, it’s a concrete vs. abstract concept. Concrete (or supposedly concerte) concepts are a lot narrower than abstract concepts, which is also why abstract models become what I would call “higher level” on the hierarchy - because they encompass more by becoming looser.

What is a concept? How do you define any concept? When you give (or attempt to give) something a “definition” or “meaning”, it becomes more concrete, i.e. you seem to have a better “grasp” of what something is.. but really? Sometimes the opposite happens, and you realize how absurd it is to attempt to define anything at all, and you’re then left only with abstract uncertain unfalsifiable ideas. Ok sure, but then why do most human beings seem more accustomed to concrete concepts even though there’s no real “meaning” in that? Why is concrete preferable and more statistically apparent in thought patterns than abstract? Or what I mean is, why do the things that constantly swirl my mind hardly ever (if not never) stir any attention at all in the vast majority of other people in the universe? Is it because they’re not “real” people?!

I’d like to bring the topic to the human discussion of “mind”: What is mind? What is an intelligent being? What is having consciousness? In particular, computers and aliens: Can a computer have a mind/be consciously aware? Does intelligence exist outside of earth? These are all questions that human beings LOVE to ask, and seem to gain much pleasure from attempting to answer, but from my perspective, it’s absolutely absurd!!!!

Humans talk about minds and intelligence as if they had the slightest clue what “mind” and “intelligence” even are (just like they talking about what God is or isn’t). They invent definitions for what they think “are” mind/intelligence, which are clearly nothing more than “definitions” and then they have a battle of definitions and languages that touches on absolutely nothing beyond language and conclusions that have nothing to do with minds and intelligence at all. Actually that’s even the better type. Most people don’t even seem to think that far, that is, they don’t even attempt to concrete-ify the already abstractly existing ideas of mind/intelligence, but jump directly to the assumption that mind/intelligence is and can only be what we as humans “know” as mind/intelligence even though they clearly have no clue that they know nothing about what mind/intelligence is.

I’m really tired of people going after computers/robots and aliens having “human consciousness”. You “people” find it so difficult to form an abstraction of the concept of mind that you don’t even realize that you’re still caught up in the human bubble of experience that’s got nothing to do with what conscious awareness even means. Stop trying aliens out there that will comprehend in the exact same way that human beings do, because if they do, then they’re not even extraterrestrial intelligence anymore, they’re just human beings! And stop asking whether computers can be intelligent, whether they have the capacity to experience things the way humans do - if they could really do all of that then they’d be “human beings”, not “computers” and that’s got absolutely nothing to do with whether they’re consciously aware either!

Please, people - actually know what you’re talking about (i.e. know that you know absolutely nothing about anything at all) before you go of explaining things as if you had a clue what an explanation even is. Oh the trouble/joys of incomprehension of (human) comprehension.

The Placebo Universe

What is the universe? What is God? Do I believe in God? Do I believe in the universe? Do I believe in the power of my mind? Do I believe in belief?

In particular, do I believe in God? People ask this question as if they had the slightest clue what “God” is. People affirm as if they knew everything about what “God” is, and people deny as though they knew everything that “God” isn’t. I ask you, what is God? It is a word, no more, no less, but a word that has the potential to install belief in one’s mind like no other. What is strange is not the fact that people believe in or don’t believe in it, but rather the way they seem to “know” what they are or aren’t talking about.

What do I believe in then? I believe in the complete power of belief itself, and I believe that it has nothing at all to do what what anyone happens to believe in, but only everything to do with the act of believing. Human beings - they are indeed very peculiar. They seem to have so many different belief - they believe in so many different types of things - they agree and disagree on what they believe in, but they forget the one thing that gives their belief the power it has, that they simply believe [in something], be it “God”, nirvana, science, whatever.

Ok what’s the point? I’ll get there. Recently I found a group of meditation practicers and have been exploring the depths of consciousness myself. It’s been quite impressively rewarding, but I was somewhat surprised to find that the members of my group seemed to hold a firm belief that I didn’t - that is, the belief in the guidance of “Shifu”, the leader of a certain sect of Buddhism. Now that I’ve thought about it, I have absolutely nothing against it, but in the moment I was quite shocked at their seemingly unanimous belief that “without the guidance of Shifu, one could never attain the level of transcendance ultimately attainable”. I was confused because I thought Buddhism (as far as my knowledge of it) was all about the belief that anyone has the power to reach Nirvana, and that it is not in fact almost impossibly difficult to reach, but rather exceedingly simple since you reach it once you realize that it’s always been there. In short, I had no idea why this Shifu character was at all necessary, and why the others would not believe in the power within themselves as their source of transcendance.

But the answer is immediately apparent in the question (as always). Most human beings just seem to be used to believing in things outside of themselves. But this in turn has absolutely nothing to with the cause or source of power or ability. It is no more relevant to attribute the ability to transcend conscious experience to the self than it is to something outside of the self because it it not the object of the belief that matters. It is the act of believing. It is simply a statistical fact that most people find it easier to believe in something outside of themselves (rather than believe in themselves) and therefore carry that belief, and statistics remain no more than statistics. It’s got nothing to do with what you might call “truth”.

Perhaps the way I type this with such assertion is absurd because I type it as if it were the truth of the truth, as though there was a way to know what that even means, but it’s not. I do not propose it to be the truth, it’s simply a higher level model that has wider explanatory power than it’s narrower sub-counter parts. In other words: If you believe that God (exterior) is what’s all powerful, then your model (i.e. narrower model) does not explain why/how those who do not believe in God (exterior) are able to attain their wishes and vice versa for God (interior, i.e. yourself). But if the model (i.e. higher level wider model) simply says that the act of believing, but not the object, is the source of the power, then it does not contradict/exclude any data (since believers of everything are included).

So then the question is not why people need to believe in Shifu (the exterior) rather than believe in the power within themselves (since neither is relevant), but rather, why they need to believe in anything at all. Well, then ask what does it mean to “believe” without “believing in something”? How does that even begin to make sense? But it’s not a matter of making sense or not, that’s just the way human beings are used to the concept of “believing” whatever that means. 

And finally, what is God? What is the universe? What is consciousness? What is any object of any belief? IT IS A PLACEBO! It’s a purposeless place holder that exists to complete the concept of “belief” and carry out the power of “belief” without actively serving any “cause”. Quite simply put: Someone has a headache. You give him placebo pill, and his headache goes away. It’s not that the placebo was not the cause of the relief but that it wasn’t what was necessary. What was necessary was the belief, and only the belief, in the placebo.

The Inverted Spectrum Problem of Language

And finally, this - probably one of the most powerful of all realizations - I’ve been debating quite some time whether to document this one at all since the very documentation of it would be completely ironic.

Language is a tool of communication. Language is a bunch of words organized in meaningful patterns. How do we learn language naturally? By hearing it and then utilizing it once we infer the meaning, over and over again. But the point is, when you learn your native language, you learn the meaning of a word by inferring it. The majority if not all words are learned by inferring the meaning through the context, hardly ever if not never through a given “definition”. In other words, there is no “definition” to any word or concept, but only the word itself. Words and the combination of them are then used to communicate as though they replaced the actual meaning of anything at all - as if an explanation through language is the equivalent of a “meaning”. 

But what is “meaning”? It seems as though you could give that question an answer, as if meaning had the same meaning to each and every person even though you have no way of possibly getting into another person’s mind and perceiving the meaning of meaning through their conscious perception (and even if you did, how would you know? since you would have given up your own conscious perception and forgotten completely that you aren’t actually that other person). Point being, meaning is a completely subjective experience of a word. Not just the meaning of “meaning”, but the meaning of any word at all.

Yes, you could attempt to give a definition to any word and ignorantly believe that you just proved that you agree on the meaning of that word with other people after checking that your definitions indeed match, but what in the world has that got to do with anything at all!! The definition is still a definition made of words, and how in the world am I supposed to know whether you comprehend that strand of words the same way I do? More straightforwardly, my red is red, you agree that red is red, but I have no possible way of knowing what “red” actually looks like to you. Same with any word, hence the “inverted spectrum problem of language”.

Anyways, that’s all trivial understanding, the point is - the conflict caused through disagreement in belief - how does this make any sense at all? How could you even infer that someone has a belief contrary to yours when you don’t even know how that person comprehends the words he/she is speaking to you to convey his/her beliefs? For example, a reasonable number of people seem to dislike the way some religious people attempt to spread their beliefs. They dislike it because the religious people tend to explain their beliefs as though they were the one and only true “truth” even though there is clearly no way of knowing what truth even means when you’re inside the box. Well then the problem is, however, that it is not that religious person who is making you comprehend his/her words the way you are, it is you who is comprehending the words.

So take the sentence “if you don’t believe in god, you won’t go to heaven” if you disagree or if you agree with it, what are you actually agreeing with? Do you actually think that you agree with the idea, the belief that someone else has attempted to implant in your mind? Or course not! The only thing you ever comprehend from that sentence is what your mind comprehends for itself, it’s got not the slightest thing to do with what the person who said it “meant” at all. What does the word “god” entail? What does the word “heaven” entail? What if you happened to disagree with religious people on what “god” and “heaven” meant even though you agree or disagree with that sentence? You can’t know anyways, so how could it possibly matter?

Too often religious believers will tell you that you must have faith in order to experience the extraordinary. They will describe the supernatural spiritual awakening that they’ve experienced, and their indescribable encounter with god. Atheists will immediately combat the idea, dismissing it as ludicrous because it does not survive the scientific method - which advocates the “objective” perspective in everything. But what you don’t realize is that the religious believer says you need to experience it for yourself. They do everything they can to describe /their/ experiences, and what /they/ think that you should experience or believe - yes, but using what? WORDS! How on earth would they know how you happen to comprehend/believe the words they spoke to you, and how on earth would you know what they comprehend/believe compared to what you think they comprehend/believe from their words?

Doesn’t anyone actually realize that we live in a world of unfalsifiable assumptions? The finger that points to the moon is not the moon. What is the moon? Something that’s not the finger pointing at it. It’s completely ridiculous that there are so many disagreements, conflicts, fights, wars, over whose finger is actually the moon. Actually, it’s absolutely insane. I don’t understand any of this. Humans are such bizarre creatures, sometimes I believe that they’re not real at all - they’ve got no consciousness. Well, maybe it is like that then, is it not? The only people who are actually conscious are the ones who understand that all that could possibly be understood is that there can be no understanding at all. How strange - I wonder how I ever got to this universe to start with..