GSLevy wrote:
>I agree with James that consciousness is not a sequence of thought in
>time.... because there is no such a thing as objective time.
>
>The plenitude can be viewed as a vast collection that include all possible
>observer moments.
>
>Any transition from one observer-moment to another observer-moment that
>satisfies rationality, (in mathematical terms, consistency), is a
>"consciousness thread."
>
>I could possibly be more precise by saying:
>Any transition from one observer-moment to another observer-moment that
>satisfies rationality-X, is a "consciousness-X thread." Thus the quality of
>a
>consciousness corresponds to the quality of the rationality that links the
>observer-moments.
>
>Each observer -moments is linked to many other observer-moments, thus
>giving
>rise to a branching tree or a branching/merging network.
>
>We can invoke the Anthropic principle to explain that only the logically
>sound links are observed. By "logically sound", I mean correct according to
>first person logic. Those links that support consciousness are those links
>that are observed. They are the consciousness threads.
>
>Time is an illusion created by the *logical* linkage between observer
>moments.
>
>Thus the sequencing from one observer-moment to another is not based on
>time,
>but on first person logic.
I have spent some time thinking about conciousness and how it relates to
time, and here are my thoughts:
I agree with most of what GSLevy said. However, what is it that links two
observer moments? The answer: memory. The *only* reason you even have a
perception of other observer moments is because you remember them within
another observer moment. In fact, when you are experiencing one observer
moment, it is not necessary for any previous observer moments to exist (or
have existed) at all, because they are still perceived in exactly the same
way within the current observer moment regardless. You simply do not make
the assumption that anything that has ever happened up to this very moment
in your life really did happen. Of course, in order to be accurate about
what moment you are actually experiencing and which ones are just memory,
you would have to constantly update your conclusions because of our
perception that we are continually flowing through observer moments. Our
conclusions would not be correct until we reached the actually existing
observer moment, and all of our previous conclusions never were actually
reached, but we only remember them being reached in that one single observer
moment. The same goes for all of our thoughts and experiences throughout
life. We never actually had any experiences; we only remember them within
that one single observer moment. The only reason it seems as though they
are actually happening is because we assume that what we remember actually
did happen.
GSLevy said that time is an illusion created by the logical linking of
observer moments; really, though, the illusion is created by the logical
structure of memory. All of our memories must exist within a single
observer moment. Not only must we remember everything that has happened in
our lives, but we must remember what we remembered within all of the
remembered observer moments in order to have a perception of time. The
easiest way to do this is with a linked-list type of memory. The actually
existing observer moment need only remember the most recent observer moment;
the rest are automatically remembered because the memory of every remembered
observer moment includes the memory of the previous observer moment.
Basically, our entire lives are just a logically structured linked-list
memory within a single moment of reality that exists independant of time.
Let me know what you think about this theory.
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Received on Thu Jan 13 2000 - 16:51:44 PST