No past, only perceived memory

[rodimus]

Since about 5 years old , i had this concept that the past is not real. My concept was that since everyone perceive a thing and event differently, the past is as good as a dream we had last night, and memory is something only we ourself can see/hear/experience mentally.

Plus we distort things from our perception and imagination, and we add our beliefs etc. Hence, memory becomes as good as an imagination, and we can all change our imagination.

Until now, i still have the same concept. It is like, everything is real only to our own perception and thoughts/imagination of our consciousness.

I remember when I was small, I used to lay on the floor, thinking about these things. "What if the things I see are different from what my sisters see? What if my thoughts on reality are only my own, and others see and think a totally different reality?"

Would anyone like to add their views and discuss?

[skip]

You are correct in yout thinking.

[Terry (existing)]

You are correct in yout thinking. But how facinating that you had such thoughts at so young an age!

[moe]

a post about the past sparked something I have been thinking of since I started learning about NLP

one of the principles in NLP is ( The map is not the territory )

while I understand that this can be true , I come to wonder if people practicing in NLP believe in a reality , or in actual facts of any kind ?

I mean , do you think there's a possibilty that we can happen to "know" what the reality of something really is ?
or if an event actually happened/happening
and so on

[rodimus]

But how facinating that you had such thoughts at so young an age!

Yeah, i remember since very young, even before going to school, i already had the speculation in me that life is 'just like a dream', since only I see and think the way I do, and I didnt see or think like my mum or dad or sisters.

I was facinated with dreams, and I would try to recall my dreams the day before, and it was as 'real' as the breakfast I had yesterday. I was also very fascinated with thought process and consciousness, and i remember this event:

Lying on the sofa, staring up the ceiling i would ask "Why do I know I am me? What is this thing that calls me 'me'(I)? And yet my sisters call themself 'me'. What is this in me that thinks(self awareness/consciousness)? Would this universe exist if I do not exist? If I am not here to be aware and experience it? Is this reality just in my thought? That if the things I think are real are only real to me, and its totally different to other people? What is life for? Why am I here? "

And I remember even before kindergarten my concept of life was "What if my reality and life is only real to me? Since I am the only one who thinks like me, and what if everyone in my life until I am old are all just 'actors' placed here by Life(God?),to test my response and reaction to see if I do well?"

I think a lot of people have this concept, that is how the inspiration of the Truman Show came about.

[rodimus]

In case someone says I think of people as merely props and actors, I would like to clarify that my concept was that not that they are going like "heheheh, scene 12, lets see how he reacts today, ready, action!"
My concept was that in my life, they are the actors, while in their life, i become their actor. It is like this great super intelligence that organizes the whole action reaction of everyone's life in a orginized whole.

In 1995,(after years of adapting to logic and study of sciences) I started to re-realize that the mind is actually more powerful than I thought, in the fact that we have a 6th sense, and I found that I could give it suggestions and ideas and see it work.

In those days I used it like a prayer, its like mentally saying "let me meet this person again(x10)" or "reveal to me the answer to this" and then few days later, I would meet them in totally unexpected places. This happens many times over 1995. It became an experiment, I even tried it to focus on a stranger in the train, focus on their face and presense, and say "I will meet this person again". (its usually a pretty gal ;P) . I did not know I was actually giving a command to my subconsicous to arrange that coincidence. Everytime it happened i would feel like "Its a miracle, there is some special power organizing this".

In 1997 I found and ESP book by Harold Sherman of Arkansas, he taught how to use the mind to create coincidences and bring to reality some goals with some special techniques. And I found that the technique he used was much alike what I did, altho he did not use verbal commands (what I call "praying"), he would use visualisation of the outcome. And he could make people whose service or help he needed to be drawn to him.

[tick tock]

well since time doesn't really exist, it's just a perceived notion of change, you could say that the past doesn't exist

which I think is great because it reminds us that we need to live for now and the next instant and not to look to the past.

which is why I hate time travelling movies cause you can't go back into time and change things but you can change the past in the present which is quite the paradox.

I think?

[Merlin]

Some get the idea that there is only map.

I have a different take.
To me, the idea of map *implies* territory. Else why have a MAP?
Why not just have a novel?

We each perceive the territory differently, but that (to me) does not imply no territory, only that we are limited in our knowing of that territory.

[Stoic]

Ahh, yes... Empiricism, Idealism, and Realism.


What’s sad is, I used to sit around as a child and think about all the thought processes going on, and I would for a moment switch to someone else’s life, then next, and on and on. That is what a child with ADHD does sitting in the back of a car looking out the window. Until one day, I decided it would be pointless to have all these people thinking at the same time, so I was the only real human and everyone else was just an actor in my movie. Especially my family, for the longest time I thought my brother was an alien. It is unfortunate that I cannot remember 95% of my childhood, from what I remember I was a very odd character and still am, but kids are so much more fun.

[designedmind]

In developmental psych we refer to developing an awareness of others' cognition (and being able to predict / emulate their thinking) as Theory of Mind. It stems from the (brilliant, although slightly off in his timing) developmental theory of Piaget. check out more info at

http://chd.gse.gmu.edu/immersion/knowledgebase/theorists/constructivism/Piaget.htm

We should add to this discussion some recent news regarding neurons that activate in a peculiarly social way....

http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs182/readings/ns/article.html

The mechanism at work is refered to as "mirror neurons"

aaron

[Stoic]

Interesting article, thank you for the link!