idea entry: week 07: october 14

word of the week: PRESENTMan's attempt to visually depict "the present".

quotes:
"The direct experience of the present for each human is that it is what is here, now. Direct experience is of course subjective by definition yet, in this case, this same direct experience is true for all humans. For all of us, 'here' means 'where I am' and 'now' means 'when I am'. Thus, the common repeatable experience is that the present is inextricably linked to oneself.

In the time aspect, the conventional concept of 'now' is that it is some tiny point on a continuous timeline which separates past from future. It is not clear, however, that there is a universal timeline or whether, as relativity seems to indicate, the timeline is inextricably linked to the observer. Thus; is 'now' for me the same time as 'now' for you on a universal timeline, assuming a universal timeline exists? Adding to the confusion, in the physics view, there is no demonstrable reason why time should move in any one particular direction." -wiki

"What we perceive as present is the vivid fringe of memory tinged with anticipation."
– Alfred North Whitehead, The Concept of Nature

"To design a conscious creature you have to ensure two things: one, that its consciousness can be suitably embodied in a collocation of matter; and two, that three should be properties of its consciousness that it is conscious, of, i.e, introspectable properties. You have, then to build in a deep and a superficial layer. Both demands need to be met, but there is every reason to suppose that they cannot be met in the same way." (McGinn, 80)

"Thy letters have transported me beyond, this ignorant present, and I feel now, the future in the instant." - Shakespeare, Macbeth.

annotated source:
"Because time is such a slippery concept, we tend to image the future as the present with a twist, thus our imagined tomorrows inevitably look like slightly twisted versions of today. The reality of the moment is so palpable and powerful that it holds imagination in a tight orbit from which it never fully escapes. Presentism occurs because we fail to recognize that our future selves won't see the world the way we see it now. " (Gilbert, 162)

"When brains plug holes in their conceptualization of yesterday and tomorrow, they tend to use a material called today." (Gilbert, 125)

"If the past is a wall with some holes, the future is a hole with no walls. Memory uses the filling-in trick, but imagination is the filling-in trick, and if the present lightly colors our remembered pasts, it thoroughly infuses our imagined futures. More simply said, most of us have a tough time imagining a tomorrow that is terribly different from today, and we find it particularly difficult to image that we will ever think, want, or feel differently than we do now." (Gilbert, 126)

[Gilbert, Daniel. Stumbling on Happiness. United States of America: Vintage Books, 2007.]

We are broken. According to this man, we are default-ly broken, from the very start. We are like hamsters running forever in our little wheels.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/seth_godin_this_is_broken_1.html

summary:
It has been a constant struggle to feel at the most conscious; I've been on auto-pilot.
The hardest thing is not the trying to keep up with all the commotion surrounding me and words exchanged part; it is merely the fact that my body is aching to act conscious, over all the unconscious atoms in my body. It is like a candle flame trying to with stand the gusts of wind, thriving to burn bright.
And I am having trouble imagining that things will be better tomorrow, that tomorrow will differ from today in all the good sense.