Timey-wimey stuff

Method of Digression

Jan 1

Thoughts, feelings, actions, decisions seem to me more like timey-wimey stuff, in the sense of Doctor Who, than states of the brain. They exist a bit outside of the world and a bit outside of time.

I don't say they are states of anything, not states of mind, not states of being, not states of movement. Nor do I jump to saying they transcend time. I do not want even to say "them" as though to objectify them in any way removes a possibility of understanding. Even to say "objectify them" objectifies because of "them".

Where does that leave me in respect to this stuff? Why even try? I object to saying they are things inside the brain, and to the idea of the brain as a container and factory of such phenomena. We roll among them as we roll a bit of stuff between our fingertips. The feeling arises between the possible and the actual, in the same brushstroke in which we appear. The same stroke traverses this particular appearance and other possible ways we might appear or react and other possible ways what we experience might fall into place.

In the unfolding thought, traversing a subjective range, where the thought involves one thinking, a peak holds its shape, rooted in the ground of the physical form. This is the "I" swept up in the thought, a thought comprehended by many "I"s and divided among them.

To the extent these timey-wimey things are objects, we do not exist except as moments forming in their wakes. And likewise to the extent we are subjects, they do not exist except as moments in our wakes. And to the extent there are moments, we and they both do not exist except as formal elements of their waking, as if a moment had points of waking light surrounded by sleeping space.

Instead of brain contained in universe writing its consciousness like a comet of experience, consider a pond of moments embedded in a dreaming in which universes of possibility unfold.

We can see the brain-state model as the extension of the priority of the physical object, of the problem-obstacle, where space and time are fixed for purposes of analysis and distractions are minimized. An objective-self boundary forms in defense of the model, becoming a dreaming magic power unto itself, like an immersive simulation.