Perceptions
Always of the Past
The now is so short that our senses reach awareness as what once was
This is something I have reflected on and pondered more and more of late: our perceptions are always, always, always, of the past. Yes, perhaps a nanosecond or two back in time, but of the past nonetheless.
I have read and understand that perceptions — and we normally count only the five: sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, while the Buddhists add a sixth, the mind — are neural activity interpreted by the brain. They are, at core, simply neural activity — electrical impulses traveling our nerve channels to arrive in the brain where we interpret this neural activity as, yes, sight, sound, smell, taste, or touch. The mind may or may not travel our nerve channels, but we can rest assured that the sensory impressions we get from the mind are definitely of the past, too: sensory-spiked memory.
Say you touch a glass of cold water; the sense of cool touch is almost instant. Almost. Nerve impulses travel about 50 meters per second, so it will take the cold glass touch signal 1/100th of a second to travel from fingers to brain where it is interpreted (yes, let me stress this again: interpreted) as cool touch as of one-hundredth of a second ago.
Even if the nerve impulse were to travel at the speed of light, which it definitely does not, the interpreted cool touch would still be of the past. The very recent past, yes, but past nonetheless.
Why do I harp on about interpreted? Because the impulse that originates at one of our sense-doors (as the Buddha puts it), i.e. the eye, ear, tongue, et cetera, at birth is nothing but a nerve signal. An electrical-like energy. Give this signal quality any name you want, but it is not sight until it reaches the brain and we interpret that signal as sight, or we interpret that signal as sound, taste, smell, touch. Where and how we learned that this particular kind of impulse should appear like touch or smell or what have you to our awareness, I haven’t a clue.
The one thing I do know, however, is that we do not interpret the nerve signal as: ah, here’s another nerve signal. No, it’s sight, sound, smell, taste, touch for some miraculous (interpreting) reason.
And, yes, as of the recent past.
© Wolfstuff
