Null:Void and the Temporal Brain

I have for a while been pondering over the various philosophical, metaphysical and sociological questions that we all face about the actual substance of our life experience. I have a couple of theories that are personal conjecture and not academically qualified in any way, but which I think still require a certain degree of examination.

Introduction

Firstly I have been examining the nature of non-existence in both pre-life and post-life. There is a general assumption within most religious ideas, that once a person has existed this somehow qualifies them as already obtaining some kind of permanent immortality (soul). I have made an assumption in my theory that the pre-life (null) and post-life (void) are one of the same thing. They are states of non-consciousness, completely blank and devoid of any direct observation or measurement. This may seem like a sweeping assumption but one can suggest that if we have made no scientifically tested communication with both pre-lives (people yet to exist) or post-lives (people who are now dead) that these states are somehow separated from our conscious stream. There is no doubt that these pre- and post- lives have an effect which can be seen in our need to celebrate and study post-lives (history) and also the way we consider the future or pre-lives, however, this impact is formed by our own needs and perceptions and not by those consciences directly.

Null:Void

The null:void represents the non-existence of our consciousness. Before we were born we were not aware of anything; and I suggest that this is same state that occurs post-life. We did not experience the passing millennia that led to the events that created our awareness neither will we experience the infinity that will pass once we are dead. These states of non-consciousness the Null:Void are both exactly analogous and for the sake of my argument will be assumed to be so throughout this piece.

As we can never experience a non-conscious state or the Null:Void it would seem to make sense that we will never cease to be conscious.

Due to our inability to experience anything other than consciousness, we are, in effect, bound to our consciousness in such a way that the passing of infinity before and after our existence will be instantaneous to us. If this is true one can assume that we will never experience post-life as we did not experience pre-life. Both states only serve to create the infinity of probabilities until such time as we are conscious again. Does this sound like solipsism? Potentially to some, but yet there is a logical process in these assumptions and a fair argument to make for this interpretation of the Null:Void states.

I agree that none of us fully understand what realms our consciousness could potentially pervade and there is much discussion about the quantum relationship between our consciousness and its physical/quantum environment. However in practicable terms there is currently no evidence to suggest direct interference from pre-/-post lives, or in other terms from Null:Void states of consciousness.

So what does this mean?

My argument is simple, you have never been in a Null:Void state. Neither will you ever be in a Null:Void state and be aware of it. There is no cross over between Null:Void states and our own consciousness. This being so, I am not automatically suggesting that when you die you will suddenly open your eyes and exist again. There is the potential for you to be reconstructed but this starts entering the realms of science fiction. If we are to assume that this is effectively your ‘lot’ then what is the point of Null:Void theory if it offers nothing but the affirmation of non-existence.

I suggest that the Null:Void state confirms the perpetuation of our consciousness by our inability not to be conscious. In this I find a compelling argument, whether it is true is maybe not as important as the impact this has on our lives in ways, maybe, we had never realised. Maybe this simple assumption has been ingrained into us and forms a formative part of our psyche from which has spawned much of our social, mythological and religious narrative.

Maybe this idea drives us all in a subtle way. It may also actually embody our relationship with death and our dreams of immortality. Most if not all religion suggests eternal life, this may not be so stupid if you take into account the Null:Void argument. I am not in any way condoning the use of un-substantiated claims of ‘God’ or miracles and so forth, but I am examining the reason why in all of these religions that there is an assumption of life after death. If you take the Null:Void theory as a metaphysical conundrum, this could well be the premise by which we all consciously or sub-consciously find our own deaths incomprehensible.

The Temporal Brain

The brain has been interpreted as being an organ that either:

a) Encapsulates our consciousness and connects it with our external reality.

Or

b) Connects our consciousness with our external reality.

The first assumption is often purported by more scientific reasoning while the second is common in religious thinking.

We know that the world that surrounds us is certainly not as we ‘see’ it. It is a construction that our brain creates for us to relate and interact to external events. Our sight is not created by the eye itself but the visual stimulus the eye transmits through electrical activity to the brain which is then processed and our ‘sight’ is formed around very particular rules. (See more info). It is limited, can be fooled, and is certainly a representation of our surroundings.

I am not seeking to answer whether the brain is either argument a) or b) but it is fair to suggest that in both arguments the focus on the ‘location’ of consciousness seems to be the overriding difference.

This ‘location’ is often a key debate for philosophical thought and theological writings as well as scientific experimentation (albeit limited). Let us assume it could be either, but also consider that the brain interprets time much in the same way as the eye interprets photonic activity. Key to the interpretation of every external stimulus is a metric to put experiences into some context. This temporal ‘experience’ is often wrongly or rightly interpreted as a stream. We know now that this may not be the case and in effect our entire life existence is in one ‘slice’ of reality which is a solid state or in other terms a complete unit of conscious experience. Much like representations the eye transmits to the brain, the interpretation of the temporal may very well be constructed by our brains as a constant stream with one moment moving to the next, but this may not be the true nature of our temporal existence.

If our interpretation of time then is not an irrefutable passing from one moment to another (or stream), if this interpretation is as synthetic as our brain reconstructing visual information, then the relationship between our consciousness, time and the null:void may, in fact, be far more complex than previously assumed.

The brain has the ability to model and predict. This is true in all of us. This is based on previous experience and due to complex genetic and chemical interactions with the body. The interpretation of time as a temporal flow, we will assume, is just that, an interpretation. This interpretation enables us to use specific points of reference to construct the probable outcome of actions. This construction of probable outcomes is such an an intrinsic part of our contextualisation of experience that it forms a fundamental aspect of our interpretation of reality.

These points of reference may not come necessarily from just our experience or chemical interactions, but may be formed by the nature of the experiences themselves. When we reduce down these points of reference to choices we could granulise them into an almost infinite amount of sub-atomic interactions/choices, yet we contextualise by simplifying the experience into an essential selection of choices. Either way it is the same process. The choices that we do not make or consider could be considered Null:Void outcomes. Choices that never existed as a reality; choices that have no impact on our situation once the choice is made. Yet this non-existent choice formed an essential part of the decision making process. Its un-experiencable reality that we modeled the outcomes from to justify our final choice. In a sense the brain creates outcomes, models realities, sifts through potentials and finalises an action. It is an incredible temporal machine, a multi-versal mechanism of probability reasoning. I might go so far as to say it creates ‘Time’ experience as a mechanism for choices that initially appear from a Null:Void state. It selects preferable realities, moulds our path through the temporal maze and may in some way connect with these Null:Void potentials albeit in a completely instinctual way to contextualise the usefulness of including an alternative choice.

The Null:Void may not be the absence of consciousness but the potential for its existence. Our consciousness changes from one moment to the next and the choices that form these changes are contextualised within the relationship between ourselves and the Null:Void.

I hope you have found my discussion at the very least entertaining. I believe that our social experience and our perceptions of reality are somehow connected to some kind of basic inherent awareness of the state of our existence. However mis-guided (religion and science) our conclusions are,  there are fundamental universal reasons why we have ideas, stories, imagination, creativity and the ability to attempt to apply them, whether as an individual or as an institution. The romantic side of me would suggest that every one of our thoughts are somewhere very real and their potential is realised in someway in the Null:Void then potentially they can effect our decisions. Every narrative, story, situation, thought, moment and person (dead/or not born/or ficticious) exists in the Null:Void and it is their very existence that enables us to make choices and to conceive them within our thoughts as a potential, however whimsical or illogical. The closer these Null:Void objects are to our everyday decisions/perceptions the more probably those outcomes can be manipulated to happen. It is like a proximity of mutli-verses and temporal places (probability) that we can interact with within out mind. It could be the underpinning cause and attribute of our consciousness.

Maybe the Null:Void is the other multiverses that surround our own or the various dimensions where these conscious models form and interact with our own Universe. Maybe not. Whatever the case, the brain could well have some special property that enables it to connect with the quantum and temporal levels of our reality in ways that we never realised possible.

I acknowledge this is by no means a scientific or referenced piece, although many of the ideas involved are discussed in:

David Deutch
ttp://www.qubit.org/people/david/David.html

Philosophy of Physics
Kronz, Frederick M.

Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
Douglas R. Hofstadter

Visual Intelligence: How We Create What We See
Donald David Hoffman