Abstract

Formal models lead beyond ordinary experience to abstractions such as black holes and quantum entanglement. Applying such models to experience itself makes it seem unfamiliar and even paradoxical. We suggest, however, that doing so also leads to insights. It shows, in particular, that the “view from nowhere” employed by the theorist is both essential and deeply paradoxical, and it suggests that experience has an unrecorded, non-reportable component in addition to its remembered, reportable component.