Meditations on Moment
An essay. About three paperback pages.
Forever ‘til the end of time. This essay was published on January 22, 2024.
The experience of memory is a sensation, just like vision, pain, nausea, and all the rest.
By construction, all sensation is immediate. That is to say, it occurs now. To the reader, the present moment comprises all sensation, and likewise, the collection of all sensation defines the present. There cannot be sensation within the past; there can only be the sensation in the present we call recollection, which recollection pertains to, is an imperfect reflection of, sensations we’re supposed to have had in the past. We have the sensation of understanding that our recollections, if they are undisturbed, relate mostly to real past events—but that is also only a present sensation.
Likewise, there can be no sensation of the future. There can only be the present sensation of predicting what sensations the future will bring. This goes on over many time horizons at once; we have the sensation of predicting what the years to come will bring, whether that sensation is attentive imagination or stalking dread. Likewise, we experience the sensation of predicting the sensations of the next moment. The simultaneous sensation in the present of recollection over the many time horizons reaching into the past, and prediction over the many time horizons reaching into the future, together form the sensation we might call the passing of time. But the passing of time is only a name we give to another sensation happening now. There is only the moment; that is all of our existence.
My pride, regret, or some other version of the sensation of responsibility for past events is laid over the sensation of accessing knowledge I have about physics, and culture, and the other many ways that events in space and time are supposed to relate to one another. From within those sensations I have a third sensation, which is the sensation of my just inheritance in the present of sensations resulting from events that occurred in the past. Likewise, my plans, hopes, and fears are present sensations of prediction about future events, overlaid with my sensation of understanding that present events will cause them, and my sensation of some present choice or participation in the process, and that therefore my predicted pride, or regret, will be sensible.
What is the basis of my sensation that my moment is deserved? I don’t know that I experienced the past events that are supposed to have caused it, only that I have my present sensations, which include my recollections. I don’t know that I will inherit sensations in the future resulting from events about which I now have the sensation of choice, only that I have my present sensations, including my predictions and that sensation of choice.
There is only the moment, which is all of its sensations, including the sensation of stitching them together in a way that causes them to include a sensation that we call understanding. Understanding is a sensation of relating the sensation of recollecting past events to my other sensations, including the sensation of predicting future events that will result from them.
But why should the sensation we call understanding have special prior status? It’s a sensation like any other, and our name for it is arbitrary. Maybe the present moment is only a random collection of sensations, which are not fundamentally related, and any collection of sensations could include, arbitrarily, a sensation of relating the rest of them together, in whichever way that collection allowed.
Here is a string of five random letters:
F J X G R
And here is a letter chosen at random from among them:
G
In this system, we can define G as the rule:
The first letter in the string of which this letter is a part must be four places from the next letter; 18 places from the next letter; one place from the next letter; and 12 places from the next letter.
Or, more simply, as the statement:
Each letter in the string of which this letter is a part relates to each other letter.
We can give G another alias, if we like; we can call it red, or loud, or understanding.
Any collection could be construed to include one part that is defined to relate every other part in whatever way happens to be available. This moment is a collection of many sensations, including one that is defined as a statement of relationship among all the rest. But the collection is random. The names we give its parts are arbitrary. Existence is arbitrary. Existence is meaningless.
Existence is momentary.