caryoscelus:~#

there was — or so most people like to believe — a time when you didn’t exist. there was (*) a time when you were one year old; though perhaps more of a period than a moment. and yet, between these two, there was never a moment when you were one second old. i don’t even have to include word “exactly” here; you were neither 0.5s old, nor 2s old. so how is this possible and what does it all mean (**)?

first, lets see how that is actually true. lets assume there was a moment when you were one second old. that means that 1s ago there was no you. which moment can we choose for this change to occur:

• moment of conception
• moment of birth
• some specific moment in fetus development
• some specific moment in your toddlership or childhood

the first one doesn’t make much sense to anyone who isn’t a indoctrinee of certain dogmas, so i’m not even going to discuss it seriously. a lot had been written on why it’s absurd, already.

the second is a bit more curious, but fails almost as quickly to any non-mindless inquires. perhaps being birthed is a significant experience for the infant (and that may or not affect their later life), but it’s only really distinguished by new sensory input, that is, something external to the subject of study. new input does, of course, trigger changes in the brain (as well as organism as a whole), but that doesn’t happen in a span of one second.

the third and forth? biological development doesn’t happen in a span of seconds. not gonna dwell on it for too long. which means the only possible concrete moment would be “the first time you were conscious of your existence”. this is quite beautiful at a first glance, but even mild scrutiny would show that not only it leads to some socially unacceptable ethical results, but also doesn’t fit all that well.

even if you do remember that moment in your life, you may remember things that happened before. shouldn’t we count from there then? (****) you can’t be remembering stuff that didn’t happen to you, right?

but even if you don’t have earlier memories, even if i would concede to potential line of argument that would go “no, you might have forgotten your very first memory of being aware of yourself, but it MUST predate any other memories because of how human memory works” — even then i will still insist on this moment not being the ultimate answer. Why? Because on one hand, to gain an ability such as memory one must already be somewhat sentient; and on the other hand it’ll be only a start to a new kind of sentience that will emerge some time after gaining such an ability.

notice any pattern here? no change is instantaneous (perhaps rare “exclusion” could be death in extreme conditions like being teleported inside the star core, but even then there are such a concepts as femtosecond et al). you can already see where this goes.

you were never one second old. you are, indeed, a rocky beach, slowly drowning in time sand

(*) unless future technology makes it possible for humans under year old to read (***)

(**) (if anything)

(***) no, i don’t count people who listen to this as intended readers, sorry; medium matters

(****) actually, no, even if this margin is too thin to contain the proof, which is thus left as an exercise to the reader