Meandering Reality.

I have spent a lot of time questioning myself, my beliefs, what is right and how things are in the last year or so. I have sometimes got to the point where I have questioned whether even the process by which I think is a good one, whether the attempt at cold-hearted objectivity and logical thought is actually a useful method to use. My foundations have shuddered, but then I come across someone who is clearly brilliant, speaks with a smiling face, and independently says pretty much all the things that I say (except with more authority, clarity and with a smashing white beard). This is enormously comforting, and confirms in myself that it is OK to continue with the process that seems largely inherent in me anyway. This person is Dan Dennett.

One of the things that Dennett points out to people is that what we think we know and perceive about reality, what we are conscious of as reality, is actually a cobbled together model from partial information. People say all the time that they believe things because they experienced them, and the sensation was so strong that they know it was true. Dennett puts forward the case that actually, people are wildly mistaken about what they perceive, how they think, and how their brains process reality. I really recommend watching this, taking 24 minutes.

For me the understanding that what we see as reality, who we are, and what we believe is muddled, imprecise and dependent on an imperfect system is much easier to arrive at than most people. This because my brain changes it's basic perceptions all the time. A week ago I was sitting in the same place, dressed in the same clothes, having imbibed the same amount of beer, and experiencing one of the greater moments of existential joy that I have ever felt. Existence was good, better than good. To have nerves was a wonder. This week I am in the experience of doom, distracting myself from the collapse of sobbing tears by writing this blog post.

The difference between the two times is simply a matter of a few words and the change in a number of ratios of chemicals in my brain. When you are someone who is fundamentally a different someone on a regular basis, your ability to understand that what many people think of as consciousness (an unchanging you, experiencing a steady reality) is flatly bunk is greatly enhanced. The truth is that you really have very little idea of what happened in your past, your memories are entirely suspect. Furthermore, what you are experiencing right now is just a non-designed system's slapdash attempt to give you a good enough sense of what is going on to eat, avoid danger and procreate with something appropriate.

An "effective" dose of LSD is somewhere between 100 and 500 micrograms, while the average weight of the human brain is 6000 grams. So a change of .01% of your brain structure can have the effect of an acid trip, in which our concept of reality is distorted enormously to the point that we see things that aren't there, and even where our basic concepts break down. Personally I have experienced a moment in which I was convinced that I was in a moment of time from which branches of time and experience spread out in different directions. For me, at that time, the reality of time was non-linear.

The truth is that you have probably have very little concept at all of how your own mind works, that what you do is mostly based on habituation of neurons to consistent stimuli. Reality exists, but our individual, singular experience of it is just a model produced in a muddled place that is the consequence of pure survival and without any trace of design whatsoever.

However, humanity is such a marvelous thing that in groups we can turn our undeniable intellect to finding out what is going on. Just as an individual ant is as intelligent as a bacteria but a colony of ants is an organism capable of warfare and architecture and animal husbandry, an individual person is a wandering piece of guesswork but science is an incredibly powerful searchlight on the true nature of reality. You will always know more about what you experience than anyone else, but as it stands, a cognitive neuro-scientist knows more about how and why you experience things than you do.

This is an enormous comfort to me in times of trouble. Now that I have some concept that my mind changes, and why it changes, I can recognize in myself the processes that are occurring and know that what I feel right now is temporary, and only one version of reality. I would also say that even now, at this moment, I would accept the consequence of the magic of last week for the hardship of this grey weight today. I am one of the music-makers, the dreamers of the dreams, and there is a price to be paid for that.