Time and the domain of consciousness

It is often thought that there is little that seems more obvious from experience than that time objectively passes, and that time is, in this respect, quite unlike space. Yet nothing in the physical picture of the world seems to correspond to the idea of such an objective passage of time. In this pa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 2014-10, Vol.1326 (1), p.90-96
Main Author: Hoerl, Christoph
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Awareness - physiology
consciousness
Consciousness - physiology
Humans
Illusions - physiology
Illusions - psychology
memory
passage
temporal experience
time
Time Perception - physiology
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Summary:It is often thought that there is little that seems more obvious from experience than that time objectively passes, and that time is, in this respect, quite unlike space. Yet nothing in the physical picture of the world seems to correspond to the idea of such an objective passage of time. In this paper, I discuss some attempts to explain this apparent conflict between appearance and reality. I argue that existing attempts to explain the conflict as the result of a perceptual illusion fail, and that it is, in fact, the nature of memory, rather than perception, that explains why we are inclined to think of time as passing. I also offer a diagnosis as to why philosophers have sometimes been tempted to think that an objective passage of time seems to figure directly in perceptual experience, even though it does not.
ISSN:0077-8923
1749-6632
DOI:10.1111/nyas.12471