Do We Ever Really Forget Anything?

[ Pre post note: the trailer for the movie "Rememory" came out after I started writing this. As such the particulars of how they treat really technically advanced memory manipulation are not addressed here. Those may, or may not be relevant at all to this discussion, but even if they would have been very much so, this piece was pretty much a done deal already so I wanted to post it as is. If I see something pertinent after I see the movie I'll make a new post as needed]

Consideration of this notion has been part of Sci Fi, off and on, for a while now. That somehow, within the deepest structure, of structured bio electric memory, if one could get at it, all the details of every moment, would be there. And maybe someday, in the distant future of mindset, and instrumentality, we might actually achieve that; which is not to say we would necessarily want to of course, but it's still nice to have ideals, and be judicious in how we prioritize them, as well (just sayin).

When you start to speculate on speculation, however, you still need to take at least some pause in the process; especially as it relates to any statement you might want to make, and for which you want to attach reasonable meaning to. And as I do, it is incumbent upon me to stipulate automatically, in such circumstances, that what might ultimately be available is irrelevant; at least in the mid term of human planning. What we can say, however, is that there will be increasing degrees to which we will, in one practical sense or another, be able to incorporate the creation of much deeper connections into all aspects of being, and becoming (of knowing and building, but still respecting, and being a part of, interconnected life), to access not only more of memory, but of what knowing itself is, and all of the new channels that will be available, to put into mixes that feel right to you, to become aware of patterns that will certainly, and quickly, escape my ability to articulate properly, though I do think I can at least feel some of them (as they appear on a distant new horizon now, especially if we make some very important choices, and very quickly).

In any case, though, getting back to memory, I can't help but wonder upon my own subjective experience; the things I seem to have access to, at the oddest of times, without any clear recollection of ever having learned it in the first place. Amazing bits of vocabulary that I have not practiced the knowing of, though certainly, in some tomb somewhere, if only in a casual glance, at a random page, in some random book store (I used to sell my blood to buy books from the downtown Seattle used bookstores, for a time quite a while back), could have put that word, somehow, into my mind. But there have also been dreams of people, places, and situations, I have had no prior experience of; at least, of course, that I can recall; and that's where this gets even more odd.

Once, when I was in the 5th or 6th grade, at Sunnydale School in Burien, during a lunch recess, as I recall, in the middle with playing with some other boys in an activity I don't recall, I was interrupted by a shout behind me when another boy behind me was about to rush up and give me a big, surprise push.

There was nothing in the least antagonistic about this sudden, wild hair up another boy's butt, that prompted him to give into doing some mischief. Not in the least, and yet, in the moment of turning around and seeing this boy rapidly approach, something automatic clicked into place; something that took control over what my body did next. And what that "next" was was a perfect execution of a judo body toss, over one's body, using the opponent's own momentum against them, grabbing the boy by the front of his shirt, bringing my feet up to his stomach, just as I began falling back to the ground. And that poor kid went sailing over to fall quite abruptly on his back; knocking the air out him of course, scaring the bejesus not only out of him, but the rest of my friends as well.

I hasten to add here that one of the reasons this is still so clear to me is precisely because I felt really bad about hurting this boy. He was, in actual fact, a friend, and in any normal circumstance I would not have had any desire to cause him any harm. But that hurt him and I could clearly see that it did and I was as shocked with myself as the other boys were at me.

Not only did I not know how I did what I did, I did not know how whatever took control, took control; and then by implication, what the hell is taking control of me?

In later reflection, of course, it would come seem quite reasonable that this was just a fluke for a kid who'd seen a judo demonstration on TV once or twice, and somehow, because it's supposed to be a fluke, that memory just popped out. Maybe I have some small genetic disposition to super sensitive fight or flight response, and the fluke was getting such a complete muscle memory recall of it at that moment. It would also be reasonable to expect that I might not actually recall the experience of seeing any sort of the TV show in question, because why should I when I already know I have a very quirky memory to begin with.

And so this is where I need to explain that, at the oddes times, the simplest things I have actually learned (names, terms, spellings, specific facts, etc ad nauseum), simply vanish; usually for some random variation of time that would still fall within the range of "briefly." It would be gone for that random brief moment, and then it would return. And this has been the case for most of my life. A kind of running, almost cause for worrying about Alzheimer's (it was just a worry before that term came along), but never quite reaching that threshold.

Be that as it may, though here is what I want to propose to you: If everything is semipermeable, and some memories go down into deep brain structure, where you might even swear to have completely forgotten, what is possible of unexpected interaction between your deep structure, and, if, like me, you consider yourself a multipath (someone who has regular, unconscious, and/or meditative, interaction with random aspects of an infinite number of variations with yourself). What might get swapped in and out, kind of like a RNA transfer, DNA process gone ary because of some fantastic phase shifts (think of Geordy of the Enterprise trying to adjust the phase discriminators so that a past event could be seen) just when one chunk of info is getting placed in the same corresponding sockets in both realities. It may be only out there as a concept (and a possible imagining, in my case), but for my own part, I am telling you it feels very real.

And let me just also emphasize that the personal examples given so far are by no means the limit of what I have experienced myself. I could go into, say, the ability I developed at about the age 13 or 14, after reading only a few books on the subject, of being a very adept hypnotist, as my sisters, and brother will attest to, if you ever care to ask them. And I don't mean just good at it, I mean very good at it; to the point where I could do post hypnotic suggestions to pretty much everybody we knew, and was willing to let me try -- which several did only by spur of their own scepticism for such a thing from someone so young. And I always had this feeling that I was good at it not because I was good at reading, and interpreting instructions, but because it felt like I was reading a description of a process I was already quite familiar with (though not remembered until reading the books); a process the subtle art of which; by voice modulation, demeanor, and other things they may not have words for, was already a complete muscle-mind memory; something for which I could not possibly have acquired by any direct means. I could go into other such examples as well, as I was saying, but I'll leave it at that for now.

This is where I might also reiterate my contention, in other posts, that the notion of multi path and savant may be related, but rather than do that again here I'd rather draw on another interesting phenomena that people have been claiming to have experienced, and that is this theory, that's been percolating around the web for a while now, with varying levels of interest, that reality, within the past few decades, has been altered; changed somehow from one timeline, to another, leaving us mostly oblivious, save for a few who sense definite inconsistencies.

Now I know this is going to open me up to the cliches of what mental states this might suggest probability wise (and lord knows there's plenty enough going on to make people crazy, and distracted reality wise), I and understand the skepticism that would have to result from that. It is certainly justified. Still, we ought not be too hasty in dismissing any and all such accounts simply because they are not very probable. Restating the venerable Mr. Murphy, if something can happen, it will, eventually.

In any case, few though they may be now, and subjective, they might still be worth considering; especially if one takes a different viewpoint on what these perceived "reality variations" might actually be. In fact, what if what is going on here is not necessarily a movement of the realities themselves, but more a movement of the memories created from different realities. What if what people see as inconsistent is a new memory, made by another version of the claimant. One out of cinc with the claimant's former memory timeline? Something still real as a memory, because it did come from a very similar vector of association, just not the right memory from the right reality.

Then again, perhaps a very good deal more improbable than our conjecture here, but still not impossible, is the notion that, every, very rarely so often, maybe chunks of reality do swap over; some sort of super gestalt, entanglement switcheroo, that really puts some heavy duty traction to words like "fluke" and "anomaly." After all, maybe Rod Serling was Rod Serling, and had the contrast capability he did, for a good deal more than either he, or we, ever cared to admit. The same for H. P. Lovecraft.

It makes you wonder about a lot of things that come and go from what we try to remember; even when we go to great pains to try and record things in one form of historic record or another. But this was bound to become noticed; whether by natural mental causes or not. This is so because this is what happens when you come to realize just how complex things can become when it is a trifecta of meaning spaces that we operate in: Physical Space, Meaning Space for the mind, and Meaning Space for the body; which I would like to tentatively define now as the pure feeling of un objectified interaction with the other two; singularly, and in combination. All of which, I hasten to add, is the real substance of what makes "subjective" a real noodle bender now. Precisely because, at the very least, if all of it is a working whole, than can any one part of it be any less real than the other?

Or maybe it's only that some parts may need greater weights, at any given time, than the others, and that this must be decided upon by a dynamically adjustable decision process to be correctly defined at some, hopefully, sooner rather than later, currently unspecified, moment. And maybe that decision process is what is really being expressed in trying to live the tension of something you have already defined as competing necessities; two basics usually that must be kept in balance. Which is, then, obviously, why I have Mind on the one side, and The Elemental Embrace on the other.

It's all connected. That's the beauty of it, but that's also the problem with it. If everything matters how can one possibly cope. You might as well say nothing matters. But then, that's no good either. We got this far didn't we? Despite the "anything might have come from this 'form out of chaos' " process we call a reality, we ended up coming to a point where it is now possible to have a choice. A chaos to form process ended up creating an entity that not only understood what "choice" was in the first place, but had created amazing meaning systems, and meaning into form systems, and the really incredible ability to contemplate future outcomes from a host of possible new choice paths. And I sincerely think that we can do the "think-feel" balance if we both work to further understand it, as well as accept that we have to live differently, adapting ourselves to this new view of everything, if we're to have any chance to continue.

My outline of where to start is exactly that. An outline. And a place to start. Now we must talk about it more, as a nation. Like adults. Basically folks what we have now is a lot of practical that needs to be balanced with what might seem like a lot of impractical, but is just as important anyway. And we all need to be involved in talking about it. Making it happen. And keeping it going. That's the bottom line and that's why you have to have a philosophy that must be connected to a movement for social change.

It is up to all of you now to make it happen.