Are You Experienced? (Part 1)

What is experience?

Experience is the most fundamental thing of our existence. It is subjective, it is real, it is crucial to understand.

In the brain, neurons firing produce that which we call an experience; I am experiencing vision, sounds, thoughts, emotions, feelings. However when the neurons that produce these experiences stop firing, we experience nothing. For this reason, we clearly ARE NOT experiencing neurons, because if we were, we would continue to experience after they have stopped firing. You are not your neurons, you are not your body. You do however experience your body.

What is it exactly that we are experiencing, if it is not our neurons? We are experiencing the exchange and processing of information between neurons and the world outside of the neurons.

Information exchange is not a physical substance. The implication of this is that our existence is non-physical, with a physical substrate. The normal state of being disappears when the information exchange stops. You can't bottle it, you can't materialize it, you cannot measure it in terms of its mass, its volume, its charge.

You can, however, say that when you have an experience, a neuron fires at a certain frequency, with a certain voltage, for a certain time, but that says ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about what is being experienced by the firing of that neuron. It's like trying to decipher the meaning of the words on this blog, using only the length of the characters and the color of the font. By only observing neurons you will never, ever find what is being experienced there.

Experience has a physical manifestation, but this physical manifestation is NOT the experience itself. It's like a shadow. A shadow is what is cast from an object, but is not the object itself.

We really are living in Plato's allegory of the cave. Let's find what's outside of this cave.

Who Are You?

I ask a simple question: Who are you? How do you answer? When a friend of mine asked me this question I answered: "I am Travis. I'm a psychology major. I go to UCF. I play guitar."

While all of these things are true at the moment, none of them really define who I am at the core; they are all external labels given to me by my environment. If I stopped referring to myself as Travis, would I cease to be who I am? If I switched my major, or went to a different school, or stopped playing guitar, would I cease to exist?

The most basic and fundamental description of who you are is "I am". This is unchanging.

What exactly does this mean? It's such a simple description, yet also slightly vague. One way of looking at it is that everything that you attach to being "you" is just an externally defined illusion. Some people cling to their "individuality" fanatically. For what?

Another way I like to look at is this: we're all actors in the movie of the world who have gotten so absorbed into our roles, that we've forgotten that we're just actors. We've forgotten we can play any role in the movie that we want, but instead are stuck in the character of who we have chosen to play.

People think children stop "pretend play" when they grow up. I do not. I think our pretend play just gets restricted into narrower and narrower roles. Most of the time, I pretend to be Travis Rios, psychology major at UCF who plays guitar. It is a fun pretend play, but still pretend, nonetheless. However, I choose to break free from this specific pretend world from time to time. The other pretend people I like to be are Travis the philosopher, Travis the artist, Travis the crazy guy, Travis the friend, Travis the mentor, Travis the explorer. Each one is a different character with a different set of actions, mental states, temperaments, and ideas.

After you're done reading this, notice the artificiality and pretend in the world around you and within you. Every social interaction follows a script. Notice how absorbed people are into their role, who they think they "are". Everyone wants free will to exist, but in any case, it cannot happen until you stop being an actor.

Fear is the Mind Killer.

A few thoughts by the artist Wassily Kandinsky about the people at the top of science, art, philosophy (and the majority of their followers):

"But despite their patent and well-ordered security, despite their
infallible principles, there lurks in these higher segments a hidden
fear, a nervous trembling, a sense of insecurity. And this is due to
their upbringing. They know that the sages, statesmen and artists
whom today they revere, were yesterday spurned as swindlers
and charlatans. And the higher the segment in the triangle, the
better defined is this fear, this modern sense of insecurity. Here
and there are people with eyes which can see, minds which can
correlate. They say to themselves: 'If the science of the day before
yesterday is rejected by the people of yesterday, and that of
yesterday by us of today, is it not possible that what we call
science now will be rejected by the men of tomorrow?' And the
bravest of them answer, 'It is possible.' "

Closed mindedness is the attempt to ignore the fear that our ideas could be wrong; a coping mechanism. It prevents us from seeking more. Not facing our fear is what truly kills our minds.

The One Choice To Change the World.

Negativity breeds more negativity; positivity breeds more positivity. This is an undeniable truth about the human experience.

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An example of negativity in action:

A man's boss yelled at him to stop socializing with his coworkers and work harder. He gets home and scolds his wife for why his dinner has not yet been made. His wife, out of frustration, yells back. The two eventually stop arguing. However, the man's wife still feels emotionally hurt, so she takes it out on their child. She yells at him to stop making so much noise while playing with his toys. This continues for years. The child grows up to be an emotionally distraught adult. His emotional distress affects his work. His boss yells at him to get his act together and work harder. The cycle continues indefinitely. Nothing is furthered besides the negativity.

An example of positivity in action:

A man's boss has complimented him on trying to establish a positive social atmosphere with his coworkers, but politely, calmly, and commandingly tells him that his work is suffering, so he needs to find a better balance between the two. He realizes this, and makes the appropriate changes. He gets home and sees that dinner has not been made yet. He is very hungry, but controls his immediate impulse to say something negative about it. He asks his wife if she can help him make dinner. The two make dinner together, peacefully and happily. The next day, his wife decides to take the initiative to get a head start on the cooking before her husband gets home. Their son is being very loud playing with his toys. His parents calmly and commandingly ask him to quiet down a little bit. He does so. This continues for years. The child grows up emotionally and morally balanced. The cycle continues. Everything is furthered, including the positivity.
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As cliche as it may sound, the choice is entirely up to us as to which one we choose to spread. The jump that must be made is realizing the consequences of every single action we take, from the perspective of others, without our own prejudices. We must take full responsibility of everything we say and do, from the smallest internal thoughts, to the biggest decisions we make.

I side with positivity. While I cannot say I am perfect, I learn from my mistakes, and I get better and better at it every time. I would much rather be an agent for positivity, and spread happiness into my life and other peoples' lives, than be an agent for negativity, and spread unhappiness in my life and the lives of others.

The start is hard, but like all other things, it gets easier the more you do it. Practice is all there is.

A Glass With Water In It.

The pessimist drinks it, hoping it will last forever. As he drinks it, he regrets that it is half empty and almost gone. He isn't satisfied with what he‘s had when he has drank it all.

The optimist drinks it, hoping he can enjoy it as much as possible while it lasts. As he drinks it, he is glad that the glass is still half full. He is grateful for having had the water when he has drank it all.

We are the Leaves on the Tree of Life

We're all here in this world by choice: the choice to be with each other. "We're all in it together, Kid" (Brazil). Without the people in our life, we are nothing. We need them to survive, they need us to survive. We are symbiotic with other people. Not everyone realizes this.

The distinction between the world of dreams, and the world of waking life is that other people are present within waking life. You could say that other people are what make waking life what it is. There is an element of objectivity. We all agree that something looks, smells, feels, sounds, or tastes the way it does. Outer reality is the consensus of what the majority of people think is right.

Curiosity brings meaning to the meaningless. The example of a dead leaf blowing in the wind is fitting. A lowly leaf, own it's own, is just a piece of nothing. Leaves blow by, but few people really notice them. They're just there. But under closer inspection, a leaf suddenly becomes animated. It's an entire world of activity and intricate detail. Cities of cells, families that live, commute, eat breakfast, reproduce, die. Entire lifetimes and stories take place that would not otherwise be noticed. I want to know who the Albert Einstein's, Abraham Lincoln's, and Julius Caesar's of leaves are. I want to know their story, their meaning, their essence.

Part of life is the struggle between meaning and oblivion. Everyone wants to have lived a meaningful life that will be remembered. We all want to be important to other people. Nobody wants to be that little leaf that floats around, and isn't noticed until it's a mess on your lawn, only to be raked up and collected for the Monday morning trash men. Other people are what allow us to live on, even after we have departed from this world. Their memories of us are all that remain after the worms have had their fill, six feet under. Striving to learn more about others increases the odds of their perpetuation after death, and is one of the most generous things you can do.

Coming full circle, we all need each other, our cooperation, and mutual curiosity and generosity. We all create our shared reality together. What kind of reality we create is entirely our choice. We can make it a living hell, or we can make it the Garden of Eden.