The Reification of Time - III
The argument in favor of linear time really boils down to the old post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy – that things make sense because they make sense; that there’s a reason why this and not that; that everyday life, our experience of waking reality, is not just a dream – a mere flood of random hypnagogic hallucinations to which we quite arbitrarily (and unskillfully) attribute sequence and causality: “First this happened, then that happened, then the other thing happened; and that’s who I am. That’s how I define my self as an individual – my sense of being centered in a body, in a world, in a reality.”
In hypnagogic hallucination – the flood of images which pass through our minds as we are dropping off to sleep – we can view the process by which we create our own dream reality; our waking reality is created analogously. In waking life, as in hypnagogic hallucination, there is no reason why this image or situation is chosen and not that one. Reasons why things are have to be cobbled together in retrospect, to provide a post hoc justification for why things are the way they are. Although causes do give rise to effects, and these effects are even predictable at times, there is in truth no reason why this and not that. In other probable realities it came out that and not this.
While brain research being carried out in neuroscience will undoubtedly lead to many useful discoveries, it has nothing to do with the study of consciousness. The so-called physical brain, like the physical body it inhabits, is merely a projection of the mind, exactly in the same fashion that the dreaming body is a projection of the mind. The only difference is that the waking body and brain are persistent enough for us to dissect. If we could make dreaming hold still long enough to examine minutely we would find that our dream bodies and brain were made out of molecules and cells and neurons and whatnot too. Or whatever. None of this actually exists, it’s all just an arbitrary hypnagogic hallucination.
In the magical model moment-to-moment decisions are not made by mind, much less by a physical brain; they are merely reflected in mind. Mind conjures up reasons after the fact to justify the decisions that have already been made on a level of feeling (dreamless sleep). In the magical view decisions are made “first”, and then circumstances arise “later” which reflect those decisions.
That is to say, mind – and the so-called physical brain – are like the scoreboard at an athletic contest. The scoreboard reflects what is happening on the field, but it doesn’t create it. Similarly, mind and the brain reflect decisions that are being made on a feeling level, but they certainly don’t create anything. They don’t even apprehend anything. They just keep count, keep score, keep tabs on what is really going on. A body – whether in dreaming or waking – is merely a counter: first this happens to it, then that happens to it, then the other happens to it, then it dies.
(continued …)