If so, how do you quantify that?
The moment we experience something it certainly feels genuine and compelling. We see ourselves as permanent entities, we believe ourselves to be ever moving forward through time, but these are actually instinctive suppositions rather than knowledge which has be thoroughly proven.
Let me at least attempt to explain what I mean. Before you were reading my thread, what was it that you were doing, can you remember? Reading another thread perhaps, maybe drinking some water. Whatever it was, can you go back to that moment? I don't mean vaguely recreate it within your memory, I mean truly recapture the experience. Of course not. Even if you were to reread that thread, drink some more water, you'll never be able to visit that moment again, it's gone forever. However, do you know why? The new experience of having read my thread has forever changed the game, you'll never recapture the exact feeling and mental state which you had before, as you can't reverse the sequential chain of events. "You" are inextricably linked to that series of events, and maybe in some temporary respect, you are the the sequential chain of experience itself.
Just think about it. If you aren't your memory combined with current thoughts and sensory information, then what exactly are you? If you look inwards, can you see yourself? If you can't say that you're the culmination of all experience, then it makes the most sense to say that you don't exist at all. We imagine as if we were always present, some sort of specter occupying the body, but this simply makes no sense given the available information. Everything ever perceived has changed you, and having the capacity to access your memories doesn't mean "you" were ever really there to experience them, in fact it doesn't even mean anything has ever or will ever actually happen.
Consider your first memory, picture what you were doing, and attempt to remember where you were before that. Try to contemplate the nature of nothing, not darkness, not absence, not loss, just nothing. Now try to imagine what it's like to be dead, as far as "you're" concerned, nothing ever existed at all. Taken together, I think these two notions prove that the seemingly ephemeral state we call existence never actually occurred, meaning that it absolutely can't be happening now. As I've mentioned here before, I look at existence like a dream, and it dissipates after having concluded in a very similar manner. The only difference is that you don't wake up at the end of it, you don't exist, you never existed, you simply couldn't have existed. Existence requires perpetuity, the true nature of reality is immeasurable nothingness.
We are manifestations of the universe trapped inside decaying bodies, however the often unsettling aspect is our capacity to understand our condition and foresee our impending demise. But I think that's alright. I want to go back to what it was like before I was born, the thought is soothing to me.
The moment we experience something it certainly feels genuine and compelling. We see ourselves as permanent entities, we believe ourselves to be ever moving forward through time, but these are actually instinctive suppositions rather than knowledge which has be thoroughly proven.
Let me at least attempt to explain what I mean. Before you were reading my thread, what was it that you were doing, can you remember? Reading another thread perhaps, maybe drinking some water. Whatever it was, can you go back to that moment? I don't mean vaguely recreate it within your memory, I mean truly recapture the experience. Of course not. Even if you were to reread that thread, drink some more water, you'll never be able to visit that moment again, it's gone forever. However, do you know why? The new experience of having read my thread has forever changed the game, you'll never recapture the exact feeling and mental state which you had before, as you can't reverse the sequential chain of events. "You" are inextricably linked to that series of events, and maybe in some temporary respect, you are the the sequential chain of experience itself.
Just think about it. If you aren't your memory combined with current thoughts and sensory information, then what exactly are you? If you look inwards, can you see yourself? If you can't say that you're the culmination of all experience, then it makes the most sense to say that you don't exist at all. We imagine as if we were always present, some sort of specter occupying the body, but this simply makes no sense given the available information. Everything ever perceived has changed you, and having the capacity to access your memories doesn't mean "you" were ever really there to experience them, in fact it doesn't even mean anything has ever or will ever actually happen.
Consider your first memory, picture what you were doing, and attempt to remember where you were before that. Try to contemplate the nature of nothing, not darkness, not absence, not loss, just nothing. Now try to imagine what it's like to be dead, as far as "you're" concerned, nothing ever existed at all. Taken together, I think these two notions prove that the seemingly ephemeral state we call existence never actually occurred, meaning that it absolutely can't be happening now. As I've mentioned here before, I look at existence like a dream, and it dissipates after having concluded in a very similar manner. The only difference is that you don't wake up at the end of it, you don't exist, you never existed, you simply couldn't have existed. Existence requires perpetuity, the true nature of reality is immeasurable nothingness.
We are manifestations of the universe trapped inside decaying bodies, however the often unsettling aspect is our capacity to understand our condition and foresee our impending demise. But I think that's alright. I want to go back to what it was like before I was born, the thought is soothing to me.
