This is not really a wordvomit, but an old post from an old blog of mine that is no more. It was originally published on 2022-10-29. I've cleaned it up a bit and added a few things, but otherwise the idea and structure are unchanged.
I don't know if it has ever happened to you, but while falling asleep, in the hypnagogic state, I sometimes find myself being absolutely and completely sure I'm somebody else. I suddenly find myself thinking as a person with a different backstory than mine, caring for people I have never met nor heard of, having distinct feelings and preconceptions about them, and life situations that are not the same as those in my waking life. In the moment, these fake backstories, with all the wishes and worries, just feel so real and complete that it doesn't even occur to me to question them, and they are revealed as clearly fictitious whenever I "come back" into myself.
It's an interesting phenomenon and it always gives me pause. In these experiences I'm usually doing mundane stuff, with none of the supernatural or magical elements or symbols that I often see in my real dreams, which makes them notably distinct. These snapshots usually last a few tens of seconds, and I experience them a handful of times a year.
The feeling of realness in these situations, I think, comes from the incredibly detailed backstory that I have in my mind at a given time. These are, let's say, fake memories that my mind has concocted to enrich the experience or somehow reassure itself that what it's perceiving is logically consistent (echoing the sentiment from this other post that the mind is extremely good at fooling itself).
This makes me wonder what would happen if I were placed in the present moment of my life with all my memories, but those memories had been artificially constructed. Would I be any different from what I am now? Would I even notice?
What if my existence just started at the very moment I'm writing this and the memories in my head have been placed there artificially, even the memory of writing the paragraphs above this one? Maybe just this letter... this one right here... that's the start of it.
What if your existence just started and all your memories before this instant are fabricated. Would you know?
I don't think we would notice. In a similar way to reincarnation, it could be that your mind is constantly switching from life to life and your memories are swapped without leaving a trace (of course your perception is shifted between the different observers/entities experiencing these lives). You would never notice.
The question is, of course, "Does the individual behavior of a 'being' depend only on the memories, or is there something deeper that makes you different?" One could argue, for example, that personality is partially based on physiological traits that cannot be modified through memory. I'm by no means knowledgeable in the area, but are we so certain that this is the case? After all, very subtle ideas about identity, our place in the world and society, what we think we like and dislike, etc., are just memories, are they not? Subtle ones, to be sure, but still memories. Or we could allow for personality to be "separate" but still our whole concept of "identity" depends on what we remember that we think about ourselves.
Now, I might be taking this a bit too far, but I'm reminded of the Hindu god Vishnu. He's often depicted as sleeping on the coils of a snake (representing time), and while he's sleeping he's dreaming all of reality into existence. So, in his dream he's dreaming that he's all beings at the same time, but none of the beings actually know that they're Vishnu (or at least they forget). Could it be that we're all a single consciousness and our memories are the only thing that makes us think we're different? That would certainly make the phrase "we're all equal" take a whole other shade of meaning.
Just for fun, we could get a sci-fi spin on the idea above by mixing it with the brain in a vat scenario, which goes something like this:
Suppose that we have a brain sitting in a box with a bunch of wires that connect it to a computer. The computer is running a simulation and some wires are transmitting sensory inputs to the brain, as well as other wires that transmit what the brain wants to do back to the computer, such that the brain is able to perfectly experience the simulation (think of the movie The Matrix). Since the brain is only able to perceive and act on what is going on inside the simulation, there is no real way for it to know that it is inside a simulation.
Now, let's extend this a bit. The simulation above feeds perceptual information for only a single individual, so that the brain is seeing from one point of view. It is supposed that the brain's internal systems maintain the working memory of that individual. But what would happen if we add a new wire that tells the brain what its working memory should be? Well, in that case the simulation itself would be able to tell the brain what its memory is at every point in time.
This ability to set the brain's memory is not that useful if we're simulating a single individual. But it would become interesting if the computer constantly alternates between different individuals, and at each moment the brain receives: sensory input of individual + memory of individual, and outputs the actions it wants that individual to perform in the simulation.
Now our hypothetical contraption is able to simulate multiple people more or less at the same time. These people would all be living inside the same simulation; they would all be seeing and interacting with each other, but none of them will have any way to realize that they're all actually the same brain.
There are many more angles to explore: how identification works, the origin of consciousness (especially the argument for panpsychism; consciousness permeates everything and can be seen as a fundamental force of nature), differences between sleeping and waking, etc. But these will have to wait for another post.
Thoughts:
- I think this is the first time I publish a "throwback post" as part of this series. I still have a handful of them saved, and it would be nice to post them again.
- These are all part of my previous blog, which I ended up scrapping because I didn't feel it was good enough. But now that I have more confidence in myself and what I do, I actually realize these are not half bad. If there's any problem, it is that I was trying too hard (ex. see all the images; I never use inline images nowadays; they look nice though, so perhaps I should).