A Question of Time and Memory


I have been struck recently by a number of questions which have found their way into my mind. One of these is the question of memory. Imagine for a moment travelling back to a world that everyone believes is flat. In this place we all go about our business accepting that this is an absolute and therefore it is. But amongst us are people who question and say. "But is it, and what if it's not?" They are of course laughed at and told they are stupid.

Until we discover that the world is in fact round, well, slightly pointy at both ends to be precise. It then becomes the norm to talk about the world and imagine the world as round. Think now, imagine the world, what do you see? Probably it looks something like the pictures taken from space. You have seen these, you know they are fact, the world is round, all those people who were laughed at for believing what was in fact true have been vindicated. Imagine their leap of faith, believing the world to be round before such pictures ever existed!

Now imagine for a moment that time is a bit like that. That we are in fact the same as those who believed the world was flat and time is a more fluid and changing thing well beyond our imagining. Each moment you remember in your life, each memory exists as a separate time and separate from you. In your mind you can think of things and recall them, hear sounds, remember smells: how, why? You can travel through time back to moments painful, wonderful, important to you. What if all these moments are existing independent of us floating around somewhere in something like a giant internet and we access servers where the memories are stored. Of course you need the right address to access this information.

Now this is your own private server. But imagine for a second that with the right address you can access other peoples memories, other peoples moments, and other peoples slices of time floating around out there. This opens up a myriad of possibilities and opportunities. Can it explain how we can dream of a situation and feeling that we have never experienced in our waking life? That suddenly in moments of inspiration the idea comes to us seemingly out of the blue? I am not talking of anything mystical here but of a simple concept that we are as yet unable to grasp, prove or photograph. Who knows in time maybe it will be as simple as understanding that the world is round but until then we will just have to keep wondering, asking questions and hoping as we journey that we are brave enough to risk the abyss, to take that leap of faith.

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