Abstract
This thesis presents a naturalised account of time, consistent with scientific theories such as the Special Theory of Relativity (SR). However, SR leads to counterintuitive conclusions: it denies the existence of an absolute present moment and suggests that reality does not evolve as a three-dimensional space over time. Instead, reality is a four-dimensional manifold in which all moments possess the same ontological and metaphysical status. This gives rise to an explanatory gap between our ordinary temporal experiences, where the present moment appears special and time seems to flow, and the scientific view of time. To address this gap, I present a naturalised account of self-consciousness within a four-dimensional reality. I argue that the four-dimensional brain generates the seeming of being someone through distinct selfmodels whenever it is capable of doing so. This provides conceptual tools for explaining both the apparent specialness of the present and the experience of temporal passage.
First, I argue that we do not experience events as present but simply as given within a temporally extended window of awareness. As complex self-conscious beings situated in a region of spacetime, there is a shift from experience simpliciter — the presence of a world — to a temporal conceptualisation by comparing experiences simpliciter with memories of the past and anticipations of the future. In this way, we come to believe that the present moment appears more vivid, real, or actual than others.
Second, I argue that the notion of events changing their temporal position (dynamic time) and the notion of objects changing and moving (dynamic change) are distinct and consequently require a two-part explanation. I account for the dynamic time by proposing that the ‘moving now’ and the ‘moving ego’ are two conceptualisations of the same phenomenon: the appearance that events change their temporal position or that we move through spacetime. This phenomenon is explained by the cognitive illusion of an enduring self, rooted in episodic memory. Dynamic change, by contrast, is accounted for by our veridical perceptual experiences of objects moving, changing, and causing one another within a temporal window. If so, reality is dynamic, even though time itself does not pass.
By approaching these two aspects of our ordinary temporal experiences, we are a step closer to bridging the explanatory gap completely between the ordinary view and the scientific view of time.