`` As if - the explanation of Emergence

Under Construction


Memory and Imagination


The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make heaven of Hell, and a hell of Heaven - John Milton - Paradise Lost


Index


  1. Memory

  2. Imagination

  3. Dreams

  4. Retrogrades

Memory


There certainly may be confirmation bias at times, but more important than that is the necessary mechanism for confirmation of thought, of all kinds - perceptions, memories, and imaginings. As thinking creatures we need to know that what we are thinking at any moment really is the thing that we coulda-woulda-shoulda be thinking. This is especially true when we are trying to recall a memory.


To remember; to recall a memory into one's mind; requires first that a question be formed in that mind. The question is simply icons with a space, or spaces [and there must always be spaces, because the subjective mind cannot be objective, omniscient, mind.] The gaps are curiosity, or rather, curiosity is an awareness of gaps. The question then, is formed by the presence of some data, in the form of icons of things, and any gap left will automatically fill with whatever can fit into that gap.


Of course, the inrushing tide of ideas has to be fleshed out in the mind, and this happens because the abstract icon is a collection of numbers that alters the probabilities of the quantum events that are the consequences of all causative influences within the environment, bodily senses, brain, mind, memory, and the spirit of the age, the zeitgeist.


The question itself is just as much a cause of the answer. The question constrains the possibilities of the answer, in such a manner that it is 'as if' there were an actual real connection between question and answer, between thought and memory. However such a real connection is impossible, except in the case of hardwired pathways in the brain, and most memories are forgettable because they are not hardwired.


Any prompt could in principle be the stimulus for recall of a memory. Notably smells, such as a grandmother's fragrance, for example, drag us right back to situations in the past, which must in part be due to their idiosyncratic natures, and possibly the backseat that smell has taken in recent human evolution, in comparison to other animals.


Once you start to remember something, then its abstract truth, its particular shape, starts to fill the void in your mind that is the question, that in turn is formed by the objects of your mind, at that point, its content - what's more, its central content, as a lot of other content will go by unnoticed.


The filling process is one whereby the walls of the question; the tarot cup; the parts already in your mind that are you in the process of asking yourself to remember this thing; these parts that you already contain in your mind, and which are necessarily somewhat connected to every other icon within your mind at that point; these parts then must also start to connect to the memory being formed in that mental space, and in the process must confirm the suitability of that memory to the data that forms the question.


These are abstract processes, i.e. descriptions of a biological process that largely ignore the biological details of how the brain functions. Here we are considering mind, which has little to do with brain, in much the same way that the principles of the internal combustion engine have little to do with driving a motor car.


The confirmation of memory is entirely derived from the 'good fit' of that which is remembered, to that which prompts the memory. The mind, surfing the brain's activity as it does; riding the firing neurons as waves of conceptual icons; that mind, is both the question, the space in which the answer can sit, and the confirmation that the recalled answer is correct. The mind may generate dozens of potential answers, but only those that fit the data will be allowed consideration, and Sherlock Holmes-like, what we don't discard we assume must be correct.


This explanation of recall is also an explanation of why we cannot avoid confirmation bias. Or minds' recognition of memory during recall is dependent on confirmation for its every function.


Imagination


Imagination is simply remembering things that have not actually happened.


David Hume's missing colour blue must in principle be knowable through imagination, as it will be similar to purple, i.e. inferred from the experience of two other colours.


If you are only half-aware of something, then you cannot hope to recall it in its entirety. Our lack of awareness and understanding of things places limitations on our later ability to recall what those things were. The greater the detail we take in, then the greater our ability to recreate some of that detail when we attempt to remember. The concommitant to this is that knowledge forms the pegs on which to build a well functioning memory. The more we understand about what we are experiencing, then the more we can get out of the experience.


One important implication of this is that the greater knowledge someone has of you, then the more you are a part of them, and the more they are able to love you. This of course operates in reverse, so the same is true for you loving them. Additionally, everything else that you know, your wisdom, and your compassion, all contribute to your ability to know and love another individual.


If you fully understand something, then remembering it allows you to infer all the things that are actually implied by that thing. Wisdom is the ability to accurately predict future events, so full knowledge of someone - however impractical that may be - is in principle the way to know how they will behave in some potential future situation. This is the exercise of imagination, and it is an essential part of how we form human relationsips.


Other memories naturally/necessarily flood in behind any successful recall, because the process of recall adds the recalled memory to centre-stage of the mind, thereby creating a new gap that, in turn, calls to be filled. This process is not so dissimilar to that of addiction, when the thing addicted to is also the building blocks of the continuing requirement for more of that thing.


Memory and imagination are the realm of spirit, and really imagination is the use of memory creatively to see what might have been, or what may be, or even what is impossible, all based on what we have already experienced. What we can't do is imagine things that are constructs of potential truths that are entirely beyond our experience. However, if we use our wisdom correctly, then we can in principle construct all potential possibilities from scratch, just by use of imagination.


Dreams


The realm of dreams is a little harder to be sure of, than even the realm of imagination. The problem with dreams is that unless we develop a talent for lucid dreaming, then we are little more than spectators to our own dreams, and even then we seldom remember much more than the final installment on waking.




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