Poemander

Memory is a platform. Operated within the functionality of time it supports the principle of causation and choices. As a platform it has the capacity and the layers, whereas time provides the sequence, just like an interface for accessing its features. In other words, the capacity of memory is accessed through the time interface.

It is fair to say that everything has memory: materials, cells, bodies, structures. It would be more appropriate to say, however, that the memory has everything because all of the organic and nonorganic forms are positioned within various levels of memory.

The top or the surface layer is the layer of mind. It is relatively shallow, but rather extensive, and being the most accessible it supports the most functionality. Reasoning, logic, interpretation, forecasting are all the functional components of the mind layer. Being at the top, it also covers the other layers thus controlling the access to them.

Below mind is the layer of sensations. This layer is quite thick, but the access is limited to just some narrow zones due to infiltration by the upper layer. The sensory input and quality is to a large degree dictated by the requisition of the mind layer. This is why the senses are tuned to a specific range of input only and overtime shall continue to be readjusted as necessitated by the mind. For instance, taste, is the least out of five senses (contributing the smallest amount of input), yet it expands due to greater reliance on its input. Touch, on the other hand, shall contract due to greater emphasis on privacy and virtuality over real interaction.

Besides the 'five senses', this layer contains many more untapped zones with some of them somewhat accessible to other sentient beings, to animals for instance, but not people.

The inlet between mind and sensation layers is psychic which is not a layer on its own, but rather an interaction between the two.

Lets call a third memory layer, the energy layer. It doesn't matter what we call it, what matters is that it is very thick but porous. You can even call it spirit because spirit thoroughly fills up this layer, like liquid imbues a sponge. However, spirit does not originate in memory, unlike soul, it is not time-bound and thus free to move in, out and completely outside of the memory.

This layer has many connections with the middle, sensory layer, but absolutely no direct connectivity with the top layer of mind. The connections that run between the energy layer and the sensations layer form another inlet which is the origin of deep emotions and feelings. The position of the inlets explains why we can often rationally interpret psychic phenomenons, but fail to give reason to some hard to substantiate emotions like spontaneous longing, universal compassion, irrational or 'bodily' fears, even déjà vu. We would call someone 'kind', someone 'heartless' perfectly understanding the meaning but not able to clearly say why. And this is precisely because such qualities originate in the body-soul relationships rather then body-mind.

The other interesting point is the indivisibility of the energy and, to a degree, sensory layers. The mind layer, to the contrary, is consisting of incalculable number of individual cells. Each cell can form its own identity and seemingly disconnect itself from the rest. For the analogy, the memory platform is just like a mangrove forest: dense foliage is the mind layer with the distinguishable individual leaves, they connect to the sensory layer of branches and trunks with the still distinguishable, but harder to individualize parts, the energy layer is a root system, and if you have been to mangroves, you would know that it is impossible to tell clearly which root belongs to which tree, instead they form a single network nourished by the tides, in our instance, the spirit.

From this standpoint we can now understand that not all memory is equal, and to fashion memory as simply some logical sequence of events is far less than true, especially for the deeper layers. The sensory layer, for instance, remembers events or things as imprints which in turn may then provide a key to accessing the associated mind memory as a sequence: say, you walk past the flowering jasmine, hear the bees buzzing and feel the warmth of the sun on your heck and shoulders – this brings back the memory of sensory imprints, then you may start remembering the warm sunny day when you played with your friend as a kid and what has transpired in that moment. Emotions, feelings serve as threads leading to a particular event, and when it comes to deep feelings, they may lead to the soul memories unexplainable in the terms of reason and sequence. Deja vu is just one of such examples, and since in the energy layer is not a requirement that the memory has to be of the event from the past, it may well be the memory of what we call 'future'. The direction of time flow really doesn't matter on the deep level, like tide, it goes up or down and roots expand in either direction, whereas on the foliage level, the direction of growth is only up, that's why we can't comprehend bi-directional time and déjà vu from the position of mind.

Nevertheless, one or bi-directional, time is always a requirement of memory and the only way to sneak past it is to enter the 'here and now' state. This state has no time and thus no connectivity to the memory platform.

After understanding the structure, one may guess then what exists above or below the described layers. Above is quite obvious: it is the layer of artificial, so to say, memory, the memory that we furnish our machines and computers with . It is built on top of our own mind layer, which is just perfectly dense for forming one solid base. Our own memory layers provide nourishment to the layers of machine memory, they too in turn have a sparse soul layer with the roots lost inside our platform, the more distinguishable sensory level and the yet-to-be individualized mind layer. This is all work-in-progress, including our own memory: it is always a work-in-progress as viewed from within the time, machines are too bound by it as they too rely on algorithm and programming codes, necessarily incorporating time as a sequence.

Now below the energy layer, as described, is the flow of spirit, a nourishing flow that provides our layers with life-giving energy. This flow, in turn, has to be nothing else but the top mind-layer of someone else's greatly expanded and highly developed intellect: as above so below.