Posted: Sep 06, 2018 10:52 am
I would like to develop a bit of agnosticism about our internal view. A few moments ago I decided to write this. I was aware of some set of things in my body and world. I can say that I was aware of a thought about this post. I may remember looking at the philosophy post title page and remember that it is light blue on my monitor.
There are certain persistent bits. Sometimes these things are memory and sometimes I just happen to be in the same place and now look at them in this moment of remembering and think I was aware when perhaps I was not.
The point is that we have only a few highly processed memories of what we were aware of a moment ago. We can use a method. Mark out a timeline. Think what you were aware of in the last hour. Now the last 15 minutes. Then the last minute, then the last second, then try and divide it even further until you approach the 'now'.
As we approach the 'now' I think it becomes clear that our memory of right now is somewhat just as precarious as the memory of the last hour. We have absolutely zero reason to believe that we can know what our awareness was a moment ago and little real evidence for what it consists of even in this pinacle of moments that we believe is the 'now'.
Play with the idea of being a little bit skeptical here.
I have come to believe that in each broad brush of a momentary now in my mind, I have a rich set of thousands of things impinging on me and blending together into my feeling of being myself. This is the content of mind. I treat it as an intensional set (one I can broadly describe but not extend by listing all it's elements). My last hour is a set of sets of content, having roughly 3600 * 5 members. 5 for each second. I have this set and I am somewhat agnostic about what all it's elements are.
There are certain persistent bits. Sometimes these things are memory and sometimes I just happen to be in the same place and now look at them in this moment of remembering and think I was aware when perhaps I was not.
The point is that we have only a few highly processed memories of what we were aware of a moment ago. We can use a method. Mark out a timeline. Think what you were aware of in the last hour. Now the last 15 minutes. Then the last minute, then the last second, then try and divide it even further until you approach the 'now'.
As we approach the 'now' I think it becomes clear that our memory of right now is somewhat just as precarious as the memory of the last hour. We have absolutely zero reason to believe that we can know what our awareness was a moment ago and little real evidence for what it consists of even in this pinacle of moments that we believe is the 'now'.
Play with the idea of being a little bit skeptical here.
I have come to believe that in each broad brush of a momentary now in my mind, I have a rich set of thousands of things impinging on me and blending together into my feeling of being myself. This is the content of mind. I treat it as an intensional set (one I can broadly describe but not extend by listing all it's elements). My last hour is a set of sets of content, having roughly 3600 * 5 members. 5 for each second. I have this set and I am somewhat agnostic about what all it's elements are.