PRESENT (The everlasting)
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(2) |
| ID | ◀ 2619 ▶ |
| Object type | General information, Epistemology, ontology or semantics |
Our historical as well as our prospective perception of time are mental constructs based on an everlasting existencial awareness (or non-awareness!) of living at the present moment.
What happens (to me) at this present moment is an integrated result of multiple flows of events converging into my personal perception.
The past is memory , i.e. also a reconstructin phenomenon at the present moment. So are also our future expectations, which are merely (just now) a speculative mental construct.
P. VENDRYES explained the present moment as the instance of decision making by the selection of only one action possibility among many. That selection precludes the possibility of any other action that we could have selected. This selection process is repeated at any future moment.
Another significant aspect is that every individual is enclosed in his/her own present, without any possibility to be influenced at this very moment by events occuring now to others in other places, as there is always a time lag in the propagation of effects .
Moreover psychical connexions between individuals requires- also at any present moment- consensus on what was and is perceived. Such a consensus is difficult to create and still much more difficult to maintain as “the time flows”
See also
Cycle (Inclusion), Exclusion Principle, Hippocampus, Morphic field, Nervous System, Object-in-time, Perception (Time limits in), Relativity postulate, Simultaneity