Time and Perception of Probabilities

Seth's Early Sessions, Vol 5, Session 227

There are several points however that I would like to make. They have to do with our discussion of time in general.

A part of the whole self is quite aware of the probabilities. Now. This is a portion of the self that exists as a perceiving participator, in the dimension which we discussed in our last session. This is fairly difficult material, and so I am giving it to you carefully.

The ego as you know it, the conscious self within your time system, this ego, let us say, arrives at and experiences event X.

Now this event X is only one of a literally numberless amount of probable events which the conscious self could experience. For its purposes however the conscious self chooses this particular event X. But again, this event X, until the conscious self experiences it, is only one of many other probable events, different in no basic manner from the others. It becomes real, actual and different from those other probable events, only when it is experienced by our conscious self, or by this conscious self.

I am making this discussion as simple as possible, and using the conscious self simply because less difficulties are presented in explanation. It is obvious, for example, that some events are experienced by the subconscious also, that may or may not be experienced by the ego.

This event X becomes real then, in your terms, only when it is experienced or perceived by our conscious self. What about all of these other probable events, however? The only difference between them and event X is that event X was perceived and experienced by our conscious individual. In other words, were it not for this perception of the event X, it would still be as valid, or as invalid, as real or as unreal, as all the other probable events that were not perceived.

This leads us then to an obvious conclusion: if event X were not perceived it would still be a probability only. By the same token, if our individual chose to perceive and experience, say, event Y, then event Y would be the reality, and event X would still be unreal.

As I have explained the ego to you, within your system it can only perceive in terms of continuity, in a straight-line fashion so to speak, one event after the other. It can only choose to experience one event out of all the probable events at a time. The ego is however the only portion of the self that is, in the main, limited to follow experience along these lines.

Since your physical time operates as it does, the physical organism does not have time within its own framework to experience any more than one probable event. It cannot focus upon two events at once. It goes without saying, again, that we are simplifying matters considerably, since each physical event is actually a gestalt of many small events.

The package of experience that you can locus upon and make sense of, is indeed composed of many small packages, but the whole package of reality is actually much larger than this. There is however a portion of the self that can and does experience events in an entirely different fashion, and this portion of the self goes off on a different tangent. For when our individual perceives event X, this other portion of the self branches off, so to speak, into all the other probable events that could have been just as easily experienced by the ego.

The ego must choose one of all these because of its physical time limitations. But this other portion of the self can, and does, delve into what you could call event XI, X2, X3, et cetera. It can pursue and experience all of these alternate events, and it can do so in the same amount of physical time that it takes for the ego to experience event X alone.

This is not as far-fetched as it might seem, for again, you perceive now more than you realize; although you may not be consciously aware of this, it still falls within the framework of your associated experience. The mere shaking of a hand may be perceived by you as a simple action. You are not consciously aware of the million small actions which make up this seemingly insignificant act.

These actions exist nevertheless. It does not take you time to perceive them one by one. You perceive them in their completed fashion. Now this other portion of the self experiences these probable events, consciously, with as much rapidity as you subconsciously perceive the million small actions that make up the handshake.

Now. These various portions of the self of which I speak are just that—portions of the whole self that simply operate in different dimensions of reality, and within different fields of activity.

There are no ultimate boundaries that divide one from another. They simply seek their experience in separate dimensions. In this particular instance, compare the various portions of the self to the various members of a family.

The man may work in a city. The woman may work in their home in the country. Of three children, all three may attend different schools. They are all still part of the same unit. They all operate out of the same house. There is no reason why any of the children could not spend his day at the office with the father of the family, basically speaking, but he would not be able to understand or perceive many of the events that occurred there.

I am trying to make this analogy clearer. The child would fit into the man's office building, for example. There would be no boundary to keep him out while letting the father enter, physically speaking. The man could also enter the school. In the same manner there is no basic reason why one self, or rather one portion of the self, has its main experiences in one dimension, while other portions of the self experience reality within different fields.

There is within the family a general realization of the experiences of its members, but these are second-handed, except for those experiences which the family shares as a unit. This is an important point, for there is an unspecialized, extremely generalized and intuitional knowledge on the part of any portion of the self, as to the nature of experience as felt by the other portions of the self.

Some experiences or events will be perceived by all layers of the self, though in their own fashion, and experienced as a unit. There are few of these, but they are extremely vivid, and serve as the family's joint experiences serve to reinforce the identity of the whole psychological structure.

The imagination can vaguely perceive, of course, some probabilities, but the physical organism can directly experience but one of these within physical time, and in terms of continuity. The probable events however are precisely as real as that one event which is chosen from them to be a physical experience. And these events therefore become "real", in quotes, within other dimensions. As a sideline here, there are some interesting episodes, not at all understood, when a severe psychological shock, or even a deep sense of unendurable futility, will cause a short circuit, so to speak, so that one portion of the self becomes aware, and begins to experience reality as it exists for another portion of the self.

I am thinking here in particular of some cases of amnesia, where the victim suddenly ends up in a different town, with a different name, sometimes even with a different occupation, and with no memory of his past.

In some such cases the individual is experiencing a probable event. But he must experience it, you see, within his own time system.