Understand yourself: When am I (1)
Edition 6: TheYMCK+ model connects different fields of science - philosophy, psychology and physics - to an integrated view of humanity, offering a different perspective on personal and social issues.
Time travel is not science fiction, but something we do every day, and even more so at night. Sound strange? It is, until it suddenly seems very logical.
This is how I see it: we connect experiences across time, in a cyclical pattern around the 'here and now'. When we remember something, we go back in time, and when we plan for the future, we go to experiences of our ancestors that are still before us. And we do this not only in our brains, but also in our bodies, in fact: every part of ourselves does this. Every cell, every organ and every process, whether it is a heart cell, a heart chamber, your heart or your circulatory system. We consist of self-repeating modules that process information cyclically. Everything that was there at any time contains information about it. Also that one quark that belongs to you. So your experiences go back a long way and are in reality everywhere. We are a vast collection of experiences, spread across space and time, like one great metabolism of information that began at the Big Bang.
But this is not what we observe. We see ourselves as a person who can move as a unit. Through linear time and along a linear path, each with its own unique thoughts and feelings. A worldview in which everything has a cause and an effect, and a beginning and an end. If you review the day before going to bed, you can tell a coherent story. You can tell where you have been, in order of what you have experienced. But how does this fit with cyclic spacetime?
Over the past three editions I have discussed the 'where' and given tips on how to know where you are, in the great universe of meaning, the boundary in your experiences and in relation to others. In this edition I discuss 'when'. You will understand that you can also use all the suggestions about 'where' to know 'when' you are, because they point to the same coordinates in spacetime. In this edition I supplement this from the perspective of the times.
DNA
I define humanity in “experiences”: a biopsychosocial entity that I call perpetual anime. This is an element and process in one, expressed as energy in spacetime. Now let's go ahead and put some of these elements together. You see that a series of experiences then arises, like a timeline. This is the story you tell yourself, because this is how reality comes to you (see Figure 1A). You experienced something, and then you experienced something else, and so on.
In edition "Where am I (2)" I described how the perpetual anime grinds our experiences until there is nothing left (cf. black hole), and then radiates it again (cf. white hole), transporting it to the membrane. That is where the qubits are located, small pieces of information, as Hawking-Hertog describes for our universe (see Figure 1B). If we translate this to ourselves, I think that our experiences, located in our DNA, form the shell around ourselves (Figure 1C).
Our DNA shapes us, in the most literal way imaginable. It is the boundary between ourselves and the outside world, and determines not only our appearance, but also our behavior. It protects you against external influences: it is a filter through which things from outside may or may not pass.
But what does this have to do with time? Imagine that the qubits, the information in the edge, are the numbers of a clock. The hourglass, which connects experiences, is the hand of the clock. If you compare Figures 1A and 1C, you may notice how we move linearly through time. And yet not, because through the wormhole we can transfer to an opposite experience. An experience that is opposite: in time and in emotion. One experience triggers the other: a future with something from the alleged past, an experience with a negative charge can be neutralized by connecting it with a positive experience.
Linear perception of time
I have now shown how we experience time linearly: we always follow the same path around the origin, like the hands of a clock, and like the earth around the sun. You can also use the analogy of a compass, where you have to turn the compass rose to see where the needle is pointing.
You may still find it difficult to imagine "reliving" the lives of your ancestors, or experiencing the same experiences over and over again. That is also difficult to imagine, because we rarely have any real insight into it. Usually we are only aware of the outer layer, and not of the smaller perpetua anima deeper within us, where information is more compressed and you have fewer qubits. That's why the world below seemed very predictable to me.
I will go into more detail about what those 'experiences' are exactly, and to what extent you experience them, in the edition 'Who or what am I experiencing', in which I describe how I believe meaning is organized in the universe. To make it understandable, I would like to point out that the most important life events - such as getting married, buying a house, having a child - you can imagine and perhaps even experience, that you unconsciously approach them as your parents did. And not just the beautiful ones: traumatic experiences unfortunately often return.
Furthermore, it may be that experiences are 'off': if a perpetual anime is blocked in the membrane and is at odds with the rest, you do not experience it. A few less is not a problem, but if there are more, the pointer may freeze. You may now understand why childhood experiences can have a greater impact, even though they may seem useless to us now. The pointer can also turn back, giving you a blind spot for your surroundings. But it may also be that you become completely out of balance.
Emotional rollercoaster
If you slide back into the past, to a growth ring below, how do you come back? That is a justified fear, which makes it difficult for us to let go. But to solve your problems and not run away from them, you will have to go back to the past.
In fact, we always go through an emotional rollercoaster: a loop of scared, angry, sad and happy. How I came up with this, and what you experience, and that this is actually quantum entanglement, I will discuss that in the next newsletter. For now, I hope you see that this connects two experiences – two circles – and that you have to go through both. We behave like the red ants from Escher's drawing.
In the previous edition I gave spatial hints, I repeat some here and add some time-related suggestions. The numbers correspond to the timespacelocation in pictured by the rollercoaster (figure 4). We start with letting go, and you fall back into spacetime.
If you see the whole rollercoaster, you may now understand why I see 'fear of failure' (Dutch: falen) as fear of falling (Dutch: vallen): it is a justified feeling that you cannot go any further. The process is, as it were, over: there is too much tension between two experiences. You have to go back first. In space and time, in thinking and feeling. Maybe you also understand that a thought like 'I want to die' no longer scares me since I translated it into 'I hear gravity.' I come back to how emotions also make you feel gravity.
Another important point: when you are on the road, you may think in (4) that you are back in the present, but in fact you have gone beyond the 'here and now': The junction between experiences: that is, after all, the middle. The two experiences have not yet been combined, more about this integration between past and present in a next edition. I will also link this to emotions, and describe how I knew how to act based on my position on the roller coaster.
Live your life story
Now if we combine this with the lifeline from Figure 1A, you may begin to understand how you can travel through time through your life story, and perhaps through your DNA.
If you look at Figure 5, you will see a lifeline of twelve experiences. Suppose you get stuck at experience 8. This activates experience 2, an old blockage. You fall (or walk back like an ant) and thus connect experience 8 with experience 2.
When are you now? I hope you see yourself traveling through time, always connecting the past and the present. Maybe you now understand why you can sometimes get a feeling of deja vu, you have indeed experienced that point before. Not only the ancestors within yourself, but also you.
And what you can also see clearly now is that when you are at experience 8, you should not use the energy to initiate new ideas. Your experienced 'here and now' is based on experience 5, you have to let yourself fall back. The processing takes time, you cannot continue immediately.
In Figure 5 I have shown a large, connecting perpetual anime. The inside is the roller coaster, the route that the ants take. I also see this as a spider casting its lines, but we do it with thinking and feeling. Because the border, the great circle, is not there yet. This happens when you (re)integrate both experiences and the quantum entanglement is complete. Maybe you can look again at figure 4, the furniture band. Imagine this is a rubber band twisted one turn. What happens if you let him go? Exactly: you have a larger circle: like the perpetual anime above. This way you turn two experiences into one big experience.
Perhaps you now see how you move between past and future, and how you are guided by the experiences of your ancestors. How to find your way by integrating and passing on your own experiences.
I'm curious what you think of this statement now that you have read this letter:
Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards (Kierkegaard)
Next time I will discuss triggers, especially when it comes to the role of the other one. What can make you go back in time? I will describe that these are not only new experiences, but can also be initiated from the past. An entity smaller in spacetime – like a virus or bacteria – can come in and push you back. I no longer see any difference between learning, phases such as puberty and menopause, processing emotions and being ill. Everything is survival (= re-living).
If you want, you can leave it in the comments, other reflections and questions are welcome!
The YMCK+ is a dynamic system model that describes human interaction in terms of energy through space-time. The six main questions on the way to a better understanding of yourself:
Why do I? What do I say and what not? What do I feel and what not? What do I see or miss in others?
Where am I? How do I relate what I feel to where I am? How do I connect different places and thus meanings? What is my position relative to others?
When am I? Where am I in time and what are the consequences? How do I go through my memories?
How much am I? How large are my feelings, and how do I mobilize strength to achieve my goal? How does my feeling evolving?
What or who am I experiencing? What does what I see, or experience, symbolize? How is meaning organized in space, and what do I notice about it?
How do processes work? Do I accelerate or slow down? Where do I get stuck, how do I notice it, and how can I adjust myself?
This model connects different fields of science and conveys how a common language can lead to new insights. In this newsletter, I describe how an integrated view of humanity offers a different perspective on personal and social issues: from the meaning of life, climate, health care to AI.