The Specious Present

‘the short duration of which we are immediately and incessantly sensible’

James

Time Consciousness

SpeciousPresent

= time as it most directly and distinctively manifests in

experience

BUT: speciouspresent: particularly

controversial (& baffling)

Does it really exist?

Isn’t itparadoxical?

My aims:

• Survey the main options + comment on James’ position

• Isolate some key assumptions motivating the different positions

• Defend a neo-Jamesian conception • Counter some recent criticisms of Sean Kelly’s• Explore a few implications

Specious Present: why believe?

Primary reason: to make sense of our experience

“change itself is one of the things immediately experienced.” (James,WPE)

• Some changes = too slow to be perceived (growth of oak tree).

• Some are too fast (speeding bullet).

• Some are just right: we directly apprehend them.

Seeing motion:

Enter SP: ‘all the changes in place of a meteor seem … to be contained in the present.’ (Clay)

So: our direct perceptual awareness can’t be confined to a durationless instant

t1t2

1 sec

Further data: ‘phenomenal depth’

Strictly durationless tone = hard to conceive

Most simple sensations have some temporal depth

More generally: (typical) streams

of consciousness are continuous

each phase is experienced as

giving way to the next

A puzzle about length: ‘a core of about a

dozen seconds, up to a minute’ (James)

We’re not directlyaware of what we

experienced a minute ago

Or even a few seconds!

(Partially) plausible diagnosis:

SP proper (e.g. 1sec)

Vivid short-term memories

Vivid anticipations

James: ‘the practically cognized present is no knife-edge, but a saddleback’

Making sense of SP: two main models

• Retentionalist– immediate experience

of change occurs in a single moment

– specious present does not really extend through time

• Extensionalist– immediate experience

of change is not confined to a single moment

– specious present is spread through time

Extensionalism: 1 SP

B C

real (clock) time

specious present

Extensionalism: streams of SPs

succession of tones

succession of tones

Pulse version (Whitehead, Sprigge)

Overlap version (Russell, Foster)

Retentionalist Model: 1 SP

B C D E

E

D

C

B

clock time

less past

more past

Specious present

Retentionalist Model: 3 SPs

E

D

C

B

F

E

D

C

G

F

E

D

succession of tones in real time

Retentionalist Model: full glory

succession of tones in real time

James: Retentionalist or Extentionalist??

Sean Kelly (recent recommendation):

• ‘Specious present’ = what James was committed to

• James = Extensionalist

• So: distinguish ‘specious present’ theories from Retentionalist approaches

James = Extensionalist?

‘duration-blocks’ stream doctrine

James’ Stream doctrineexperiences

not unified(empiricism)

experiences unified by

soul-substance(rationalism)

REJECT

Experience unifies itself, synchronically & diachronically

via ‘conjunctive relations’

Conjunctive relations:• ‘The conjunctive relation that has given

most trouble to philosophy is the co-conscious transition, so to call it, by which one experience passes into another when both belong to the same self. … this sense of continuity in that most intimate of all conjunctive relations’ (WPE)

But: James = Retentionalist!

‘The knowledge of some other part of the stream, past or future, near or remote, is always mixed in with knowledge of the present thing’

Volkmann has expressed the matter admirably: ‘if A and B are to be represented as occurring in succession they must be simultaneously represented’

James’ SP diagram: pure Retentionalism!

specious

present

B C D E

E

D

C

B

clock time

‘The feeling of past time is a present feeling’

Diagnosis:

• In Principles James is pulled in different directions:– Retentionalist when in scientific mode– Extentionalist when in

phenomenological/philosophical mode

Terminological Recommendation:

• ‘Specious Present’ – for any account which attributes apparent temporal depth to experience– E.g. Retentionalism– E.g. Extensionalism

Retentionalism: main advocates

Husserl

James(/2)

Brentano

Ward

Broad (L)

Dobbs

Kant

Lockwood

Retentionalism: motivation (i)

• Can we really be directly aware of what lies in the past? (Or the future?) Or is clairvoyance commonplace?

awareness Avoid!

Past Present Future

Retentionalism: motivation (ii)

Simultaneous Unity Thesis (SUT): to be apprehended as successive, contents must be presented

together in consciousness at the same moment

– regarded as axiomatic by Volkmann, Ward, James, Husserl, Dobbs

SUT

entails

Retentionalism

Objections to Retention 1:

specious

present

B C D E

E

D

C

B

time

Why aren’t these experienced as a chord,

rather than a succession?

Main solutions:Broad’s

‘presentedness’Dobbs’ ‘gravitas’

unclear

Husserl’s retentions

implausible

No matter: it still may be possible for momentary experience to have apparent temporal depth

Objection 2: phenomenologically dubious

Are we really aware, at each moment, of a temporal spread

of content?

I’m only aware of what’s

happening now!

Objection 3: expensive and exotic

Multiplies total quantity of experience in universe

retentions

Exotic: Dobbs (& Broad): properly viewed, retention model = two-dimensional time

Ordinary (transition) time

Experiential (extensive) timeSpecious present

2-D time construal = fully justified

temporal

interval

B C D E

E

D

C

B

clock time

more past

less past

2-d time view: vulnerable

Phenomenal time

ordinary time Surprising & important discovery?

Or needless posit?

Objection 4: James’ insight lost?

Stream: adjacent phases UNIFIED

Stream: fragmented

Extensionalist Alternative?

Two Extensionalisms

stream

stream

Pulse version

Overlap version

succession of tones

succession of tones

BETTER: securescontinuity of

consciousness

Fragments stream …

Overlap Model: basic ingredients

= Jamesian duration block

Parts spread across time AND experienced together as a succession

single specious present

Diachronic co-consciousness = directly experienced succession/persistence

Doesn’t mean: hearing A and simultaneously hearing B (i.e.before it has occurred!)

A B A B

Does mean: directly hearing A-being-followed-by-B

Diachronic co-consciousness:

In consciousness together, but as a succession (not simultaneously = retentional model)

Overlap model: from blocks to streams

Stream of consciousness

Overlap: no (unwanted) duplications

C D

D E

E F

SP1

SP2

SP3

Overlapping SPs possess common parts (D in SP1 = D in SP2, etc)

What explains the apparent direction of experience?

• The asymmetric character of diachronic co-consciousness relationship?

• The intrinsic character of phenomenal contents?

More economical option

Duration-blocks inherently dynamic:

motion! motion!

Overlap but no ‘temporal modes’ (= austere)

Jamesian saddleback

presentjust past

more past

‘qualities’/intrinsic properties

“we have a constant feeling sui generis of pastness, to which every one of our experiences falls prey” James

E

D

C

B

F

E

D

C

G

F

E

D

succession of tones in real time

Modes are intelligible in Retentionalist Model

3 numerically distinct experiences - varying properties not a problem

Not in Overlap Model:

C

D

D

E

SP1

SP2

A single experience, at a particular time, can’t have different and incompatible intrinsic properties at that time!

present

just past

But: with dynamic contents, temporal modes aren’t needed to account for

perceived passage:

motion! motion!

Extension + (certain forms) of Retention

short-term memories (echoes)

anticipations

Realistic specious present

sensory core

Fringe feelings & images

Was James an Overlap Extensionalist?

• At times ….

A B C D E F G

B C D E F G H

C D E F G H I

‘lingerings of the past dropping successivelyaway, and the incomings of the future making

up the loss’

Extension/Overlap v. Retentionalism

KEY ISSUE

Simultaneous UnityThesis

Accepting Overlap = rejecting SUT

C D

Non-simultaneous

But unified: experienced together

Why accept SUT?

James: accommodate Kantian insight A metaphysical

assumption

A certain conception of time

James: ‘A succession of feelings, in and of itself, is not a feeling of succession’

True! But:

C D E C D E

CDE

Difference can be explained in Extensional way also…

Diachronic co-consciousness

2nd Motivation: a Neo-Rationalist Assumption?

• Eg: unity of consciousness requires something SIMPLE (non-extended, part-free)

- so a temporal spread of content must be unified by a non-extended experiencing

• Question: why believe this?

Antidote: a relevant spatial analogue

PHENOMENAL EXPANSE

ALL SPATIAL PARTSEXPERIENCED

TOGETHER

Unity a product of inter-experiential relations (in Jamesian style)

point of awarenessIf we

reject

then:

IF CO-CONSCIOUSESSCAN CROSS

SPACE, WHY NOT TIME?

specious present

Why SUT?

Tacit commitment to presentism?

3nd motivation

If reality is like this:

then Extensionalism can’t be true

time

No past No future

Obvious observation:

• 19th century: Presentism (probably) very common

• 21st century: less common (among philosophers)

• 4-d world-view more prevalent

4-d perspective: extension through (space)time = unproblematic

4-d hunk of wood (perduring)

4-d stream of experience

So:

• SUT: less than wholly compelling

• Hence: overlap theory remains a live option– maybe the better option (assuming we want a

SP at all)

Sean Kelly’s (main) objectionsto Extensionalism?

1. ‘how can we be aware of what’s no longer

happening?

No: only a diachronic co-consciousness relation

awareness

past future

(not as problematic as)

2. Can’t explain howsuccessive

specious presentsare related

Yes it can:via overlap

3. Can’t explain perceived change

Yes it can: viaanimated contents

within durationblocks

motion! motion!

Overlap Theory: implications

An argument (sketch) for dualism:

• There is no temporal passage in the physical world (McTaggart, relativity, etc.)

• There is temporal passage in experience.

• So: experience is non-physical.

But: Overlap Theory looks to be compatible with 4-d cosmology

2 explanations for limited span of SP:

non-existence of past & future

short-span of diachronic

co-consciousness

looks compatible with 4-d worldview

But what about flow? Doesn’t experience have a felt direction?

Yes but: phenomenal flow = intrinsic feature of experience

Doesn’t require ‘universal becoming/annihilation’

No more (or less) a problem for materialism than phenomenal colour

Objection: accounts of SP should be metaphysically neutral.

Retentionalism = compatible with all conceptions of time

Overlap Theory isn’t.

True!

Eternal block

Growing Block

Presentism

Ret Ext

Yes Yes

Yes ?

Yes No

But:

• Why must SP-theories be metaphysically neutral?

• Mightn’t SP provide empirical evidence for the nature of time in our universe?

• Why shouldn’t SP offer some clues as to the nature of time?

Illustration:

• Julian Barbour• Quantum Gravity• Wheeler-De Witt

equation• Universe = collection

of 3-d slices existing in phase space/platonia

• Our experience is confined to momentary ‘time capsules’

• Temporal unity of world = illusion

Platonia/Phase Space

‘Time Capsules’ = specious presents

However:

• If consciousness = physical

• Overlap theory refutes Barbour’s speculation

Streams of experience bridge universe-phases

Platonia/Phase Space

If dualism: unified streams sustained by disunified world-phases - maybe possible?

stream of consciousness

Final speculation:

Specious Present as a guide to the cosmos: a Jamesian Universe?

Standard alternatives to eternal 4-d cosmos

Broad-Tooley Growing Block

Presentism

What’s not to like about the Growing Block?

The PAST: it’s still THERE!

What’s not to like about Presentism?

It’s just too thinto containanything!

No unity betweensuccessive

presents

A middle way: cosmos consists of Overlapping Extended Presents

C D

D E

E F

absolute annihilations

absolute becomings

NO PAST + UNITY + (ENOUGH) BREADTH (+ explanation of why temporal breadth of experience is what it is ….)

END