The notion of the ‘present moment’ has intrigued philosophers, physicists and psychologists alike. Here we review the literature in the physics and the neuropsychology of the ‘now’ in order to connect those two yet unrelated fields. Such a unitary perspective helps us to explain why there cannot be an objective and absolute ‘now’, and why we naïvely tend to believe in a cosmically extended present. In particular, invoking the recent identification in the Cognitive Neurosciences of various temporal integration windows underlying an individual's temporal experience within physical spacetime will help us to qualify in a more precise way in what sense the now, as frequently claimed by philosophers, is mind-dependent.
Dorato, M., Wittmann, M. (2015). The now and the passage of time. KRONOSCOPE, volume 15(2), 191-213 [10.1163/15685241-12341335].
The now and the passage of time
DORATO, Mauro
;
2015-01-01
Abstract
The notion of the ‘present moment’ has intrigued philosophers, physicists and psychologists alike. Here we review the literature in the physics and the neuropsychology of the ‘now’ in order to connect those two yet unrelated fields. Such a unitary perspective helps us to explain why there cannot be an objective and absolute ‘now’, and why we naïvely tend to believe in a cosmically extended present. In particular, invoking the recent identification in the Cognitive Neurosciences of various temporal integration windows underlying an individual's temporal experience within physical spacetime will help us to qualify in a more precise way in what sense the now, as frequently claimed by philosophers, is mind-dependent.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
