On Memory, Insight, Rebirth & Time
Memory is simply the mind's record of the past and these records maybe of absolutely anything one has experienced but the one I'm specifically interested in is ideas - memory of ideas.
Insight is defined as sudden breakthroughs or eureka moments that one experiences while tackling a usually difficult problem.
What got me thinking is there's no way one can distinguish insights from memories - they're both thoughts. Yes, memories are supposed to be recorded past experiences but I'd like to draw your attention to the fact that in terms of purely mental features, we can't tell apart insights from memories. Both of them have identical mental qualities.
One can respond by saying that the past can be corroborated with witnesses while no such supporting evidence exists for insights but then the problem is that corroboration itself is a function of memory i.e. the whole enterprise of corroborating the past with witnesses begs the question - it's like trying to confirm news on CNN by watching more CNN. Ergo, memories can't be distinguished from so-called insights or the methods available (corroboration) falls short of the mark.
The million dollar question is this:
If reincarnation is not bound by time i.e. deaths and rebirths are temporally unrestricted (people who die in the future being reborn in the past, the converse scenario being a non-issue) could insights be memories?
Insight is defined as sudden breakthroughs or eureka moments that one experiences while tackling a usually difficult problem.
What got me thinking is there's no way one can distinguish insights from memories - they're both thoughts. Yes, memories are supposed to be recorded past experiences but I'd like to draw your attention to the fact that in terms of purely mental features, we can't tell apart insights from memories. Both of them have identical mental qualities.
One can respond by saying that the past can be corroborated with witnesses while no such supporting evidence exists for insights but then the problem is that corroboration itself is a function of memory i.e. the whole enterprise of corroborating the past with witnesses begs the question - it's like trying to confirm news on CNN by watching more CNN. Ergo, memories can't be distinguished from so-called insights or the methods available (corroboration) falls short of the mark.
The million dollar question is this:
If reincarnation is not bound by time i.e. deaths and rebirths are temporally unrestricted (people who die in the future being reborn in the past, the converse scenario being a non-issue) could insights be memories?
Comments (11)
I think the distinction between memories and insights IS the temporal aspect of memories. We don’t have ‘memories of ideas’ because ideas have an indeterminate temporal aspect. Thoughts, on the other hand, are temporally located relational structures that have an indeterminate physical aspect, so it’s possible to remember a thought and locate that thought in the past - usually by an interoception of affect. But if that remembered thought was itself a remembering, then its content is atemporal, because a thought can have only one temporally located relational structure.
Insight, like ideas, have an indeterminate temporal aspect, enabling their content to be temporally located. So one can have insight into a memory, but not a memory of insight.
So, I don’t agree that memories and insight have identical mental qualities.
Quoting TheMadFool
That’s a big IF that hasn’t been explained here...
I think that insights can be memories, because most of my whole experience of memories feels like a whole series of insights, bound up with sensory experiences. One of my earliest experiences is of being in a cot and one of my mother's friends trying to offer me a biscuit and me refusing. But this was not the significant part which I remember, but of a whole awareness, 'I am coming round again'. I don't think this was just the process of waking up, and even in childhood, I did wonder if it meant something else, and at age 12, I did connect this to the idea of reincarnation, even though that was inconsistent with the belief system which I had been taught.
Obviously, that is only my personal experience and it may be explained in other ways. We could also question to what extent are thoughts and insights different. I would imagine that it is probably just the quality of thought, with insight being more about moments of awareness, or even revelation on the personal level.
I wonder how the idea of memory in this thread relates to one you started a few days ago about memory prior to birth, because when I wrote my response to that one, I was wondering about the possibility of past lives in relation to the question you were posing there. Of course, it is an area of speculation and I am open to the idea of rebirths but don't hold onto it too rigidly.
1. We know something is in the past because we have memories of that something
2. We know something is a memory because that something is in the past
It's circular. I rest my case.
ok
Well... There actually is a difference between episodic memory and declarative memory. While episodic memory deals with past experiences, declarative memory deals with information. I'm guessing you're talking about insights in regards to information analysis, not insights in the sense of emotional revelations (about past situations and the like) btw.
OK, I get what you're saying, but wouldn't it be more like comparing a CNN report with a another report from a different outlet? :brow:
As some form of anamnesis? Sure, I guess, if you're into that kind of thing. :smile:
YES.
My take is this:
Reality (existence) is. Knowledge is about perceiving a copy of reality (that which is) within the configuration we refer to as our selves. That copy/imprint is the definition of memory. Insight is just a method of copying (streaming/reorganizing) from one memory structure to another (e.g. from the reality we observe/perceive externally to the reality we identify with as ourselves).
Reincarnation is about consciousness. At that level, past, present and future is relative and according to the hierarchy of energies that are interacting. The hierarchy is determined by the quantity and quality of energies interacting within the consciousness. For example, quantity roughly translates to the extent to which a consciousness is active while quality designates the level/character of intelligence in the configurations expressed by a consciousness. Therefore, within a progression, past refers to lower/lowest (prior), present refers to intermediate/transforming/shifting (proceeding), and future refers to higher/highest (superseding).
Suppose in one lifetime a person expresses to a high degree a particular fundamental element of the perspective of reality, e.g. power. However, that person is unable to translate that advancement into other elements of perspective, e.g. wisdom/understanding, thus becoming unbalanced. It then becomes necessary to reincarnate with the aim of developing the necessary elements to achieve balance. For example, Hitler - great power to influence people and their situations but little understanding of people and their situations.
For such a recalibration, external information is not necessary, and only acts as a guide post. The only true endeavour would be the focus of one's energies along the other elements of perspective in order to become wholesome (e.g. meditation). Because of this, external factors such as technology, education, social dynamics, etc,etc, are not as important (though they may play a big part depending on the encouragement/discouragement developed in the relations). Such a discipline would entail the raising of one's dormant energies to the level of the predominant energies, thus symbolically, going to a future (mastery) one is already familiar with.
[Also what would happen if one's dominant hand was incapacitated and one was forced to train the non-dominant hand. The degree of mastery sought after would already be known and experienced, that is, even in that present, a facet of the future has already been unfolded. The work would just be to re-calibrate other energies that had not been trained to express that level of mastery (that is, energies in a 'kind of' past).]
Another example => marketing and advertising are fields that have developed based on knowledge of psychological interactions. And while psychology is a contemporary field of study, the phrase "Jesus knew their thoughts/hearts... " is millennia old. In that sense, of applying psychology in those ancient days, Jesus could be said to have been futuristic (in terms of the narrative). The same could be said of others, e.g. Buddha - Dharma (Truth, Ethics, Duty), Pythagoras - Music of the spheres (vibrational frequency), etc.
Therefore (long story, not so short), in this sense, what is insight could be memory because one is using one's knowledge to impact one's energies in an already known (unfolded) dynamic.
Archimedes discovery into the fact that his sensations were telling him something he didn't have a memory of, a law of fluid dynamics, is an example of how insight can come from sensation.
To remove insight as from memory is biologically impossible. It would be like removing the frontal cortex and than asking someone if they had concept of who they were, or getting someone to generate a step by step process having had a frontal lobotomy. The thing is, the hippocampi and the rest of the brain work dependently,. So insight without memory is like unto this.
When it comes to reincarnation I don't understand the relationship here, i.e. I have little to go on (vague memory). :) Some say there are inherited tendencies or natures based on the laws of rebirth and karma/dharma, but I don't understand them in relation to biology or in relation to some transcendental or supernatural rules..
Great question, though. I look forward to reading other responses.
Time is not linear and bidirectional, but is the experience of change, and of what is morphing into what is becoming. Memory never dies. It is embedded in the fabric of the Universe, as the light of a star.
That's far from true. Numerous experiments show how unreliable our memories are.
I think this needs more explanation. Memory was responsible for the rise of civilization -- so, when we say memory is unreliable, we need to explain in what context it is unreliable. Because we routinely go to work and back home, taking the same route, knowing the address we live in, recognizing our coworkers, family members, neighbors, and friends. I mean, our memory is a powerhouse of freakin' society. Not to mention, we rely heavily on memory for our financial activities, safety, and well-being.
In what context then is memory unreliable? When we need the crystal clear minute detail account of an event that may or may not send a person to the electric chair? This is a burden of testimony by memory that has a specific purpose. Don't come out of the courthouse feeling stupid, demented, or low-IQ just because you didn't deliver razor-sharp details of what happened on the night of December 31st on a cold winter midnight. That's for movies!
I think so. But I also think there are alternative explanations. If reincarnation exists, then maybe the insight comes from another, and not from one's previous or future self. Some artists will tell you, as will some writers, that some other power is moving their brush or their pen. For some reason they just can't credit themselves for an inspired work. If this work has no possible link to one's current life experience, then, while it could be the memory of a future or past self, it doesn't have to be. I could be another person, or animal, or plant, or rock, or god, or one's previous, or even current contact with, and participation in All. Personally, I think after you die you meld will All. We are actually currently melded with All but don't perceive it because All is perceiving itself through our perception of separateness. But every once in a while, I think All steps through the boundary and moves our brush, or our pen.