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Time consciousness: the missing link in theories of consciousness

There are plenty of issues to be solved in order for researchers to agree on a neural model of consciousness. Here we emphasize an often under-represented aspect in the debate: time consciousness. Consciousness and the present moment both extend in time. Experience flows through a succession of mome...

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Autores principales: Kent, Lachlan, Wittmann, Marc
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8042366/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33868714
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/nc/niab011
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author Kent, Lachlan
Wittmann, Marc
author_facet Kent, Lachlan
Wittmann, Marc
author_sort Kent, Lachlan
collection PubMed
description There are plenty of issues to be solved in order for researchers to agree on a neural model of consciousness. Here we emphasize an often under-represented aspect in the debate: time consciousness. Consciousness and the present moment both extend in time. Experience flows through a succession of moments and progresses from future predictions, to present experiences, to past memories. However, a brief review finds that many dominant theories of consciousness only refer to brief, static, and discrete “functional moments” of time. Very few refer to more extended, dynamic, and continuous time, which is associated with conscious experience (cf. the “experienced moment”). This confusion between short and discrete versus long and continuous is, we argue, one of the core issues in theories of consciousness. Given the lack of work dedicated to time consciousness, its study could test novel predictions of rival theories of consciousness. It may be that different theories of consciousness are compatible/complementary if the different aspects of time are taken into account. Or, if it turns out that no existing theory can fully accommodate time consciousness, then perhaps it has something new to add. Regardless of outcome, the crucial step is to make subjective time a central object of study.
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spelling pubmed-80423662021-04-16 Time consciousness: the missing link in theories of consciousness Kent, Lachlan Wittmann, Marc Neurosci Conscious Review Article There are plenty of issues to be solved in order for researchers to agree on a neural model of consciousness. Here we emphasize an often under-represented aspect in the debate: time consciousness. Consciousness and the present moment both extend in time. Experience flows through a succession of moments and progresses from future predictions, to present experiences, to past memories. However, a brief review finds that many dominant theories of consciousness only refer to brief, static, and discrete “functional moments” of time. Very few refer to more extended, dynamic, and continuous time, which is associated with conscious experience (cf. the “experienced moment”). This confusion between short and discrete versus long and continuous is, we argue, one of the core issues in theories of consciousness. Given the lack of work dedicated to time consciousness, its study could test novel predictions of rival theories of consciousness. It may be that different theories of consciousness are compatible/complementary if the different aspects of time are taken into account. Or, if it turns out that no existing theory can fully accommodate time consciousness, then perhaps it has something new to add. Regardless of outcome, the crucial step is to make subjective time a central object of study. Oxford University Press 2021-04-12 /pmc/articles/PMC8042366/ /pubmed/33868714 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/nc/niab011 Text en © The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) ), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Review Article
Kent, Lachlan
Wittmann, Marc
Time consciousness: the missing link in theories of consciousness
title Time consciousness: the missing link in theories of consciousness
title_full Time consciousness: the missing link in theories of consciousness
title_fullStr Time consciousness: the missing link in theories of consciousness
title_full_unstemmed Time consciousness: the missing link in theories of consciousness
title_short Time consciousness: the missing link in theories of consciousness
title_sort time consciousness: the missing link in theories of consciousness
topic Review Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8042366/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33868714
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/nc/niab011
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