What Do You Bring Into the Now? · Temple Contemplations

I have been wondering what it is that we actually bring forth in each and every moment.

Not tomorrow.
Not eventually.
Now.

Figure 1 · three addresses · one of them accepts deliveries

Three places a thing can be sent. Only one of them has anybody in.

Deliveries attempted 0 · Addresses currently reachable one · Postage required none

There is an interesting idea in the Law of One of humanity developing towards a social memory complex — consciousness becoming increasingly shared rather than experienced solely as something private and separate.

Whether one takes that metaphysically or simply as a useful image, it raises a rather practical question:

What am I adding to the whole right now?

Because perhaps we underestimate how much passes through us.

Someone says something.
I hear it.

But I do not merely receive it. I interpret it.

I can meet the same words with suspicion, curiosity, humour, defensiveness, compassion, irritation or silence. And whichever one occurs changes what happens next.

Figure 2 · one sentence · seven ways for it to leave the room

The same seven words are available to all seven. Choose one and watch the far side of the room.

Sentences spoken 0 · Words changed 0 · Moments that came out different 0 · Interpretations available more than seven

The moment has passed through me and come out slightly different.

Then someone else receives that.

Without anything supernaturalA Small Machinery of Consciousness

There is already a remarkable mechanism here without requiring anything supernatural:

Attention → Meaning → Expression → Relationship → Culture

Figure 3 · the mechanism · it has been running since before you arrived

Five ordinary stages. Nothing on this diagram has ever been installed by anybody.

Turns run 0 · Supernatural components required 0 · Point at which it begins not locatable

What I attend to influences what I perceive.

What I perceive influences the meaning I give something.

Meaning influences how I act.

My actions enter relationships.

Repeated relationships form habits, expectations and norms.

And eventually those norms become part of the environment into which another consciousness wakes up.

Then the whole thing begins again.

Consciousness → World → Consciousness → World → …

Seen this way, consciousness is not merely sitting somewhere behind the eyes watching reality happen.

It participates.

A note, kept short This club has been running comfortably on stage four for several years without once achieving stage five, and has decided — after no discussion whatsoever — to record that as a feature.

An important distinctionBut Not Control

There is an important distinction here.

If everything we do participates in the whole, it can become tempting to think:

Then I must carefully control everything I think, because every thought changes the universe.

That sounds exhausting.

Perhaps participation is a better word than control.

Figure 4 · two available postures · both were tried

Control everything

Not currently running.

Reviewed 0 · Awaiting review 0
Universe still going, either way

Participate

Available.

Moments taken part in 0 · Backlog none
Effort required roughly what you were doing anyway

Universes governed 0 · Postures tested 0 · Exhaustion optional

A second note, also short The Archive attempted the left-hand column for one afternoon. It produced no observable improvement to the universe, one headache, and an unusually tidy desk.

I cannot know what becomes of everything I contribute.

Figure 5 · four things that happen to what leaves your hands · none of them announce themselves

0amplified

0misunderstood

0quietly influencing
somebody, years later

0gone without any
noticeable consequence

Something leaves. It goes somewhere. You are rarely told which.

Contributions released 0 · Outcomes governed 0 · Chain visible partially · in retrospect · occasionally

Something may be amplified.

Something may be misunderstood.

Something may quietly influence somebody years later.

Something may disappear without any noticeable consequence whatsoever.

I don't get to govern the entire chain.

I only seem to get this peculiar little interface called now.

And it has surprisingly few controls:

Figure 6 · the interface · complete, as supplied

Five controls. That is the whole panel. It is already in your hands.

Controls fitted 5 · Controls requested considerably more · Controls supplied five · Panel currently in your hands

Attention.
Interpretation.
Speech.
Action.
Restraint.

A simpler experimentLife as a Laboratory of Consciousness

So perhaps the experiment isn't:

Can my consciousness control reality?

Perhaps it is much simpler:

What quality do I bring into reality when reality passes through me?

That question changes things.

Because suddenly the smallest encounters matter without needing to become cosmically important.

Figure 7 · the smallest encounters · no cosmic importance is required to operate them

Six things, all of them small, all of them available in the next thirty seconds.

Cosmic importance required none · Encounters examined 0 · Effect on the next moment observed

What happens when I choose curiosity instead of certainty?
What happens when I don't immediately react?
What happens when I bring humour into something heavy?
What happens when I listen?
What happens when I create?

And what happens to the next moment because of it?

Maybe this is one way of understanding a collective consciousness without needing to imagine some enormous mystical cloud floating above humanity.

We are already participating in one another.

Constantly.

Figure 8 · two people, before and after · the conversation is not recorded anywhere

Both of them arrive exactly as themselves. That part is reliable.

Conversations had 0 · Participants who left exactly as they arrived 0 · Minutes taken none

Every conversation leaves both participants slightly different from how it found them.

Every creation becomes something another consciousness can encounter.

Every action modifies, however minutely, the conditions from which the next action arises.

We do not create the whole.We contribute to what the whole becomes next.

Figure 9 · the whole · already here, already going, not accepting applications for management

It was here before you arrived and it will carry on afterwards. Meanwhile, there is this.

The whole · created 0 · What the whole becomes next · contributed to 0 · Responsibility for the rest the universe's

And perhaps that is enough responsibility for one now.

The universe can handle the rest.

Nothing on this page needs to be believed, joined, adopted or completed. It describes something that has been happening all day regardless, and will continue for some time after you close the tab.