Am I trapped yet again?

All views, even ‘right’ ones, are potential traps. The extent to which you truly don’t know is the extent to which you are free from traps. (Unless of course you make not knowing into a trap.)

So what am I saying here?.. I know that I don’t know? which have been repeated so many times.

A question comes to mind: Am I excluding in my approach? … I wonder if asking this question after a conclusion has formed up in my head, would that help?

What do you mean by “trap”?

Is this trap not simply the limitations of our thinking and feeling?

Sure, AKA memory. How do you feel about calling it ‘The body of memory’?

That sounds fine to me - I don’t know if one needs to say “body”, but that’s a secondary matter.

So - the trap is the trap of memory (of which thought and feeling are the instantaneous expressions). So long as we are living in and moving from thought, we are bound by and limited to the confines of memory.

Hi @Ayham

When we seriously look “who we are/were” - traps disappears. “thoughts” of knowing other person ends, other than for intellectual/technical conversations, and no attachments.

Looking is -

From Stone age to Modern age.
From Baby to Old age.
From Rich to Poor.
From Politicians to Slaves.
From Businessmen to Low wage employees.
From One Atom to the Expanding Universe
:slightly_smiling_face:

When we look all these - we can clearly see that,

Humans from stone age don’t know “What they are”. Only they felt 3 things,

  • energy/emotions in the form of hunger,seduction.
  • Mass before them as five elements.
  • Thoughts

By using those thoughts - they overcome their physical threats like shelter & clothes. But when the “fitness payoffs” increases - humans thought that “Time & energy should be reduced in getting something”. Because of this thoughts “experiences are used as knowledge” and Artificial creation begins.

He created instruments, while using those - he learnt many things - and from that some improvement and those are noted down. Languages and Words are created to communicate this experience & knowledge. Writting those helped to learn intellectually.

Then many improvements & side by side many desires - aroused. Humans felt “Introducing currency can replace barter problems & invented money (or) used gold/silver/aluminium coins”. It created a big attachment to earn more Money/coins and become rich. He also thought “Reducing cost - can bring more profit in agriculture and business and save more money/coins” - and it lead to many improvements and desires too.

Many disputes aroused in these exchanges and security. So protector/King is formed for a group and laws are created for them.

Now, we are here - with those expansions. These are all scientific & historical discoveries.

From this, we can clearly see that - HUMANS KNOW NOTHING ABOUT ENERGY,MASS & THOUGHTS. But they only used them and thought that “THEY KNOW”. But they actually don’t know,

  • what are these
  • from where
  • Why
    this energy,emotions,thoughts and atoms came and we perceive those.

They felt emotionally attached - and thought that as love/compassion. Even when someone begs - they will only pity them because of their previous experience and be attached with them. But they couldn’t accept the departure of their attachment. So running for another security and continued traditional practices due to fear.

As we look “No one knows anything”, we will be aware and don’t crave for “Knowing from someone” and so free from attachments.

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The introduction of the word ‘Body’ was to include feelings.

But for that, I wonder if this statement is enough. This much is clear, but when I deal and interact with people from memory. The interaction is completely controlled by memory. Hence, the memory is acting.

I wonder how does this movement sustain itself? Feels that something is missing that is driving

My question is: Does the movement of memory that is me, responds to the movement of memory that is you and by that continues indefinably?

Yes - we collude in perpetuating the content of memory. Society is that: nationalism, religion, status, identity.

But what is the source of memory - where does it come from?

It comes from the brain - right?

Memory is simply a tool that our brains use to store up perceptions and experiences, in order to use them at a later date.

Right. The brain and I personally feel that it could also be stored in the body, hence calling it the body of memory. It stored and then acted upon.

However, what I am currently really curious about is Responding? Not why do we respond, because we have an endless number of answers for that. But, What is responding?

Responding maintains the movement/ chain of memory. I imagine that if there was no response the movement of memory would seize at some point.

Yeah, I am stuck at responding.

You mean in relationship between people?

Initially, isn’t it is the senses that are responding? I see you, and there is the perception of seeing your face, etc.

A moment later, there is a process of recognition: either I remember you from before (the memory of how you looked when I last met you), or I don’t recognise you at all.

If I recognise you, then there quickly arises the like and dislike associated with that recognition, which is from memory.

If I don’t recognise you - because I haven’t met you before - then there might be an interval of space, before I eventually categorise you, like or dislike you, etc (again from previous associations, memories).

Not just relationship, I don’t know if it is before of after, but in me. What is one memory responding to another memory, in me?

Before we explore the outside maybe we can explore the inside? However, I will still go with your take

So is sensing responding?
Eyes could respond to light organically. Ears to loudness, etc. But psychologically, can there be response without recognition?
Does response come before recognition? And if so what is that response?

I think yes. If I’ve never met you before, or if I’m in a new place I’ve never been before, a new country, then there can be an interval of space for a fresh response - before it is taken up by the past as memory. - Hasn’t it happened to you sometimes when you travel or meet someone for the first time?

What is responding then - even if only for a short interval of time - is my sensitivity; the sensitivity of the senses, and the sensitivity of my vulnerability to the new, my unexamined awareness of the new.

Which after a few seconds or minutes or hours or days, is absorbed into my memory and becomes recognition.

I am sensitive, I am aware, I exist.

I don’t depend on time, place, or “label”…

That’s about as succinctly as I can describe being-conscious.

It is assumed here that I am operating from nothingness, from no position or state. As conditioned as I am memory is active. My trip and its purpose could quite possibly be a result of seeking, etc.

I don’t feel that we could be factual examining this question by looking at our interactions with the outside world just yet. I would still look at the inner movement of memory that is me before. Don’t know if we are meeting on this one?

Ayham - maybe if you could articulate your questions more clearly? After we had seemed to agree that the trap you were inquiring into was the trap of memory, you asked

That is: your question initially implied what occurs in relationship between people - right? Do you see how I could understand that from the way you phrased your question? However, you then clarified that you didn’t mean only relationship:

But you said, nevertheless, that

i.e., looking at the question of memory in relationship; and you asked

Which is what I replied to. I replied to your question in terms of the place and role of memory in our interactions with another person for the first time. This, for me, is something we can observe phenomenologically in our experience. However, this was a dead end, because the real question you seem to be wanting to ask - which is still for me something relatively vague - was:

By this I assume you are asking: what is the inner movement of memory that constitutes the “me” before I meet another in relationship?

Is that right? Earlier you had asked:

Again, your question - to me at least - is a little vague. You seem to be asking: what causes one memory to respond to (or follow on from, be associated with) another memory in the brain?

But you could equally be asking - from the grammar of your question - what is the substance or the essence of any memory that responds to another memory in the brain? - Or, why is one particular memory responding to another in a causal chain? Why that specific memory and no another?

Could you kindly clarify which of these questions you are actually asking? And if none of them fit with what you are asking, can you ask your question again in a clear and simple way - without adding extra layers of complexity?

Yes, I see how unclear and confusing my input was. Appreciate your dedication to untangle this :slight_smile:

These question, above, are exactly what I intended to ask.

This could lead us to analysis so better not delve into it

This version of the question sound good, but maybe I’d ask it (my way) like: What drives one memory to respond to another in the brain?

So, the question is:

What causes one memory to respond to (or follow on from, or be associated with) another memory in a causal chain?

One approach might begin by considering that memory works by association - right?

This associative process either begins with a response to a particular, concrete sense-experience (e.g., seeing the face of a person I know); or it can follow from an image or idea in my own mind (e.g., remembering the face of a person I know).

An individual memory must have begun with a concrete experience of some kind: seeing a face for the first time, drinking water, eating a particular fruit, getting hurt, etc. This memory - which is an abstract or simplified image of the concrete event - is then stored up for later use, and is triggered by association: either by an external event (seeing the fruit I ate before, or one that is similar), or by a psychological event (getting hurt again, or thinking about my hurt).

Does this sound right?

Yes.

This association, however, is so complex which I find myself more often than unperceptive of the reason behind what is happening right now (inside of me).

Are we asking here: Is response, in fact, the association in action?

Yes, I think so. The response from memory is association.

It is relatively mechanical. I don’t know if you’ve heard about or read about some experiments they did with people who were placed in an fMRI scanner (a machine that maps the neurological activity of the brain) and shown a series of images (of faces)? They were shown, for instance, the images of George Clooney and Jennifer Aniston, and the scientists found out that specific neurones lit up whenever those specific images were shown - which seems to imply that these images (or faces) are recorded locally in specific regions (neurones) of the brain :brain:. So they can be triggered relatively mechanically through association.

Once a chain of association has been established, it can be kept going indefinitely, until a particular chain of associations has lost energy, and then a new chain is begun.

Okay then,
It does seem mechanical, however I wonder if it is so in its entirety and there is no creative element to it.

I have experienced some memory responses (Associations) which sounded creative, as if its a new connection being made. If it is just memory showing itself, then the happening of something new (or at least seem as new) would not take place, no?

Is this an assumption? Why and how would a circuit lose energy? … It sounds logical but still we need to make sure.