THE MEMORY IS A TIME MACHINE
Time travel has long been a fantasy of sci-fi movies, the idea of time travel has been used as a device to tell stories. It's so easy to fantasize about a giant machine with quantum engines and supercomputers, but what if I told you that we time travel every day.
Let me ask you this; why is it so difficult for people to live in the moment, our mind wanders through the far depths of time, constantly thinking about the past and projecting ourselves in the predictable future.
The memory is one of our instruments of survival as a species. What sets us about apart from the rest of the animal kingdom is our acute reactionary and adaptive instincts.
We have been able to store this huge library of information which we can draw knowledge from and use the knowledge to plot future scenarios.
A simple example; when you were a kid you didn't know the dangers of hot temperatures or fire, even though you were probably fascinated by it, a little bit of curiosity and you get burned now you know that next time you touch it you will feel pain.
THE BRAIN AND TIME ILLUSION
Our brain also carries out minute time predictions every second. There is a popular experiment which can be simply done with a mirror. If you take a mirror and observe your eyes, now switch your gaze between your left eye and your right eye, you can never observe your own eyes move.Scientists were puzzled by this phenomenon known as Saccadic masking. It was discovered by Erdmann and Dodge in 1898.
Apparently, there is a gap in your vision when your eyes move you were blind for a moment but your brain stitches it up, adding a perfect loop from your previous vision to the current. your brain basically fills the gap of time.
Now let's say someone threw a dodgeball at you, you think you see the dodgeball but your vision is filled with clusters of blindness as long as your eyeball is moving.
What happens, your brain just plays a feedback of where the ball is supposed to be based on memory and understanding of basic laws of physics. It stitches the time together so you don't even know you were blind most of the time. giving more meaning to the word "the more you look the less you see."
MEMORY AND TIME
The linking chord between the past, present, and future is the memory. It's that simple, your present action is based on what you know in the past(memory of the past), your future is also based on present actions which depend on your memory.As they say "History repeats itself", Just as the brain uses the memory to give us a holistic vision, we can also use our memory to fine tune our lifestyle.
Memories can be used to simulate possible future scenarios, recording parameters of the past, understanding both the good times and the bad can be instrumental in plotting a balanced life.
Just as crypto-traders observe past trends, bull and bear market and get a fair prediction, the same principle can be used to anticipate a better future.
The memory can be used as a mental simulation of future scenarios, exploration of the mind and stretching the sizes of our current realities. we already have this cognitive ability but some notable geniuses in our society have been able to exploit and max out this ability to make groundbreaking discoveries.
Thanks for reading, see you next time...
You're right, our memories can definitely be used to predict possible scenarios in the future.
This very reason is why psychologists advice that it's better to hold on to good memories than bad ones.
I really enjoyed reading your post... Nice work
Thanks for reading :-), am glad you enjoyed it. I appreciate the feedback.
An interesting phenomena I hadn't given much thought to previously. But it is true that we can't see the eye move. The brain is an incredible organ to be able to fill int he gaps, so to speak. Will lead to even more scientific studies, i would imagine, as they start to fathom to ramifications of such a strange quirk of human nature.
Time travel indeed. So it really is possible :)
Thanks for reading @naquoya, I don't see it as time travel. but time simulation/projection 😊.
I don't know if you've heard of the Mandela effect, in which a group of people tend to remember something totally different from the rest of the world. the memory is a powerful tool that can change our reality as we know it. the brain doesn't know the difference between a memory and realtime experience.
I have heard of the Mandela Effect, although wasn't completely sure on its meaning. Why do you think some people would have a 'collective' memory (is that what it is?) different to everyone else's 'collective' memory? - I hope you don't mind the question as this truly fascinates me.
yes @naquoya you can call it "collective memory" I believe the more we delve deep into the human psyche, the more we begin to doubt our own senses. there are two ways of answering this.
firstly, based on what we know, we know that humans have poor perceptive organs, I talked about how most of our vision is artificial. The memory also can be artificial. memory is basically formed by new synaptic connections between neurons, remembering is like tracing back the same line of connection. These connections can easily be manipulated, for example, an older family member jokingly asks you "do you remember when you used to eat peanut butter with everything?" If the link between the neurons are weak to remember, the brain can begin to produce false links and you could even start to see your younger self eating cereal with peanut butter. scam artists and identity thieves use this method of manipulation a lot.
A second way of answering this is based on what we don't fully understand, talking about quantum mechanics and the many worlds theory, for example; the double slit experiment, which proved that a single photon of light fired through one of the slit appears to also pass through the other slit, so particles observed at a smaller scale appears to be in two places at once. some people have gone further to say that if true . then everything made of matter is in many places at once in time and space. that means if you open a door, there is a version of you in an alternate reality that did not open that door. which can also be used to explain deja-vu.
using that theory it can be explained that "collective memory" is the few times when different parallel realities clash and interfere.
I hope I have been able to shed some light. sorry for the lengthy paragraph, it's kind of a broad topic.
Thank you for going to such lengths to explain your understanding. No apology needed - I loved reading through that. Great insight.
That makes a lot of sense, and using the double slit experiment works for me too. That's one I think I do understand (at a rudimentary level).
Perhaps that does explain deja-vu. I have often wondered about that.
Thanks again.
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really very insightful. looking forward to more from you
Thank you for reading @willingtonjr
@abmako,
Enjoyed your post.
Salutations. I am JaiChai. Delighted to make your acquaintance.
RE: Your Post
As I get older, I can seem to lose years with a blink of an eye. But my mind can teleport my senses to the time and place of any memory I choose.
Upvoted, following, and calling on the @originalworks and @steem-untalented upvotes for your post.
Namaste (I recognize the divine in you),
JaiChai
Thanks for passing by my page @jaichai . the brain doesn't seem to know the difference between a memory and real-time event 😊. memory can shape our reality more than we know.
The @OriginalWorks bot has determined this post by @abmakko to be original material and upvoted it!
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It's true! We have all the tools we need in our hands (and minds)!
We're able to shift the reality by having the right intentions!
Thanks for a thought-provoking post!
Thanks for reading @spellmaker. mind over matter
Looking forward to your followup post from here. @abmakko ... maybe the brain and failing memory
Thanks for reading @deborism stay tuned
You're right, memories have a lot of power and using our memories and our brains to envision and bring about change and possibly a better future is definitely something to strive for.
I use my memories a lot to pull from for my creative writing as well, but I feel like maybe I need to put some more focus on improving my future as well. You have written a very thought provoking post! Great job :)
Thank you for reading @byn, I appreciate your feedback. The memory is a powerful tool.
Very good read! I have several thoughts, but wanna tell the tale of the time I was recording myself jamming a new song idea... It was on o cheap crappy netbook webcam, and the song was called Heartbeat Time Machine...
The funniest thing, though, when I played the video it got all weird halfway through until the end... Like an old cassette tape warbling! Glitchy af... Almost like time was slowing and speeding up mintutely...
wow, that's intriguing, sometimes we catch a glimpse of how our brain perceives time, just like when you look at a clock second hand for the first time, the first movement tends to slow down and last longer than the rest. Thanks for reading @occupywallets
Oh great! and I thought my mind only predicting the crypto market :) ... saccading masking is something new to me and damm I tried to look at my left eye and right eye in the mirror .. lol ... :)
lol, am glad you enjoyed reading, it's amazing we are mostly blind for 40 minutes every day, 40 minutes of our time is basically artificially produced by the brain. thanks for reading 😊