What separates us from the "Now"?

[damenohito]

imo, what separates us from the "now" is "us" especially if you're asking about "space" without regard to a physical connection. my experience in this "now" is different than yours. my experience in this "now" would be different than my twin brother's (if i had one). also, the "now" i remember from my youth feels so abstract that it is as if it may only have been a dream. maybe it was. maybe i'm becoming dissociative.

my experience in this "now" feels like something that might be addressed with existentialism so perhaps that's why my heart aches when i think about how i cannot truly connect (in this earthly form) with a loved one in a way that makes us one. what i experience in the "now" simply just is and is mine alone (whatever that may be). it is totally subjective and i feel like that is what defines, involves and separates us with and from the "now"- ourselves.

 

[Lost Ego]

^ so in your opinion, the only now that can exist is our own?

no it isn't, the question can refer to a feeling of dissociation that occurs even when not asking distracting questions or attempting to numerically quantify things.i don't think language is the source of consciousness, but i do think most of us do most of our decision making via language (aka, verbal sequences of information program us). language is basically a mechanism by which a large amount of information content can be delivered in a small amount of information (aka, language requires encoding and decoding. this leads to advantages and disadvantages).

verbal information programs us because, i think, it's our currently most effective means of interpersonal communication. if you think about human evolution, it makes sense to say we were "conscious" before we developed language (so language is not the means by which we are conscious) but when language entered the scene, our neurology adapted and co-opted it as our primary means of brain/body control because interpersonal communication with language is so crucial (to surviving, to avoid being outcast from one's tribe, etc). once all environmental rewards and punishments exist primarily in the context of a society's system of words, the human brain adapts and consciousness exists in this context.

though you're right that consciousness would have been something quite different than we might think, before large systems of words developed.

given that switching a ferret's auditory and visual cortex allows it to literally see with its ears, yes the brain is capable of re-arranging its entire muscle-control structure so that packets of "verbal information" become the dominant kind of data processing "from the top down." and, yes it's possible that the brain changed that much due to social evolution alone (none of the evolution of the brain considered here is genetic, afaik).

The more i think about it, the more i believe thought and language are so closely tied. I think language helped us evolve more than just socially. Think about it, without language to lay the groundwork, we would never be able to learn anything conceptually stimulating - like numbers, science, PHILOSOPHY, etc. Before our language advanced do you really think we could think about anything in depth? I believe language helped evolve our thought processes. Before language i don't believe we could have possibly had so many connections between neurons. Language just seems to tie it all together o.o'