The interaction between the brain, time and consciousness.

 

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Introduction 

 In a way we are not only in time like a rock or a car, we are also with time. We are incapsulated in time and time in us. Time-consciousness is something we share with many organisms. But isn’t this a phantasm? Does time exist, do we perceive a reality? What is the character of time-consciousness, how can it be facilitated by a brain-mechanisms and how does it relate to consciousness as such? Explaining time consciousness can help explain consciousness itself (Kent & Wittmann, 2021 p. 1-2).  

Time consciousness is a complicated subject and much has been written about it. This paper cannot hope to answer these questions exhaustively but may be able to point in a direction of better understanding.

I start with a non-causal explanation why time experience is realistic, using two models of spacetime. In paragraph 3 I outline the character of time consciousness and by what mechanism it could be realised. In paragraph 4 I give a function-theoretic description of time consciousness (not a function-theoretic explanation) . In the last paragraph the relation between time consciousness and consciousness as such is explored. Finally I draw some summary conclusions. 

1.     Realism and anti-realism 

 There are many theories about time perception but generally those theories can be divided into two main visions.  

-Phenomeno-temporal realism (henceforth ‘realism’): change, succession and persistence can be directly perceived or apprehended.  

-Phenomeno-temporal antirealism (henceforth ‘antirealism’): change, succession and persistence cannot be directly perceived or apprehended (Stanford 2023, p. 3, 4). There are many theories consistent with this last view: e.g. time wouldn’t exists or time exist only in a cinematic way. This cinematic approach sees a stream of consciousness consisting of momentary phases without any significant extension; like motion free snapshots or stills. (Stanford 2023, p 11-13).  

I think the current model of spacetime has developed strongly in favour of realism. To understand this we must turn to Kant.  

2.     Why realism? 

 “The time is not something that exists on its own, or belongs to the things as objective determination, and so would be left as one would abstract from all the subjective conditions of the perception of things” (Kant 1781/2014, p. 131). Kant considered space and time as “shapes of the senses”. In this view spacetime is a mode of perception, the “Ding an sich” (thing in itself) exists outside spacetime, space and time is something our senses add to the world; time and space are “produced” in the observation act. Kant was an anti-realist (Kant 1781/2014, p. 131-133) . 

Spacetime in general, before the 20th century, was seen as a theatre in which the other phenomena were actors. It was a “theatre model” that corresponds with our intuition. Everything - gods, natural laws, matter etc - “acts” in an immutable spacetime. The model didn’t give any counterfactual information, because space and time where immutable. It was a phenomenal model. It maps space and time as phenomenon. The universe (for Kantians the transcendental universe) in this model is not with spacetime, but in spacetime. 

 

In the current model, based on Einsteins theory of relativity, the universe is with spacetime. Spacetime is theatre and actor all at once; it is inseparably intertwined with speed of light, mass and gravity; spacetime can be curved. 

This model is an explanatory model, it is useful for the purpose of control and manipulation, is predictive and empirically proven. When you counterfactually change one of the constants - i.e the speed of light, or the relation gravity, mass and space - the target domain, spacetime itself, would be different. This model not only describes how the system behaves, but also how it will behave under a variety of interventions. It gives a lot of counterfactual information (Craver 2006, p. 358). 

What does this have to do with realism and anti-realism? The question is: can a model be an explanatory model, when its sensory foundation is totally different from the facts constituting the target domain?  Although this model is very counter-intuitive, it is ultimately founded on spatiotemporal perception facilitated by our brain; because that is the only way we can experience the phenomena time and space. Our images of time and space, “when do we mean time and when do we mean space?” are substantial and irreducible concepts; the conceptual basis for statements about spatiotemporallity.  

The scientific statement, “in a black hole, time and space trade places (Markus Pösel, 2010)”, implies an underlying conception of space and of time; of space and time as we conceive by means of our brain and can be made useful for very complex calculations and derivations. Without phenomeno-spatiotemporal realism, our empirically proven model of spacetime contained in formulas, wouldn’t be internally coherent because it wouldn’t mirror the facts of the target domain and collapse. 

This explanation of the reality of time consciousness  is a non-causal explanation based on coherence. (Chirimuuta 2017, p. 6).  

 

3.     Mechanisms and the field-like character of time conscousness 

 

The realistic belief that our episodes of experience are themselves temporally extended to be able to incorporate change and persistence straightforwardly is called the extensional model. But there are problems processing this by computation and applying it in a mechanism (Stanford 2023, p. 2, 3, 5-7). 

There is succession of experience and experience of succession (Stanford 2023, p.4, 5). 

Succession of experience is easily explainable by mechanisms; in a cinematic model this would be possible. One can easily explain every snapshot experience with the help of a mechanism of a kind. The behaviour of a system, i.e. the changes of its state over time, can be interpreted as a series of points in its state space”(Gervais, R. 2015 p. 47). But experience of succession is more complicated, it doesn’t have a discrete or point-like character but is much more field-like. (Kent & Wittmann 2021, p. 11-12).  

What does this mean? I can illustrate this using an example from phenomenology, music: a form of expression much based on time-experience. When every tone would be perceived separately in its time sequence (succession of experience), music would be an uninteresting assembly of separate sounds. But music as we experience and appreciate it is more; in every present tone, the past tones resonates (retention) and there is, at the same time, expectation about the future tones (protention); that makes music exciting. In experiencing time, in music but also in other ways, story’s, events etc., every moment resonates in other moments, there are no clear cut episodes, everything is fluent, moments overlap. It’s even wrong to speak about moments, there are no outlined episodes with boundaries, it is “time-flow”; retentions, the present and protentions are at the same time^[1].  

This is a problem for the cinematic view: what kind of mechanism can combine the snapshots of this view in a unity of time flow? A memory (short term or long term) can store past sensory perceptions as discrete units, but cannot combine them into a time flow (Gallagher & Zahavi 2008, 261/839-264/839). We can try to give an explanation in terms of computational processes (Piccinini 2006, p. 350; Cummins 2000, p. 129). The whole system of computation itself is based on the processing of discrete units. It can process bounded episodes, up to a millionth part of a second or smaller. There is no slowness of perception in computation, only outlined parts/units can be computed, something or nothing can be computed. But in time experience there is, as we have seen, no case of bounded episodes^[2].

But tough there is blurring as to cause and effect, that doesn’t mean time consciousness can’t be processed. There is cause and effect, but observation takes place from different “points of view on the timescale” at the same time: past, present and expected future.  

Wittmann & Kent mentioned ideas about the continuous input from the body as part of an embodied system in addition to the spatiotemporal dynamics of the brain. This explains the continuous character of time experience (Wittmann & Kent 2023, p. 26-27).  

I see an analogy with space. A system that can process time in a similar manner as a hologram processes light. In a hologram, light waves from different viewpoints in space converge in the eye, and give a sense of depth in space. Time flow is also marked by overlap and converging, the phenomenon time flow can be considered as “depth” in time. Maybe a non-functional located “holographic” mechanism, involving the cooperation of all parts of the brain on a neural level, that facilitates the convergence of differently stored stimuli, can transform succession of experience into experience of succession. But why non-functionally located? There is a widely supported, although disputed, view that the cognitive architecture of the brain is modular, in the sense of being informatively encapsulated (Farah, 1994, p.43). But according to research of Farah this is not always the case. Maybe a functional analysis, which is a sketch of a mechanism, can provide more clarity about a possible mechanism of time-perception. Time-consciousness is a complex capacity. Showing that this complex capacity is made up of more basic capacities, organised together, is the goal of a functional analysis (Piccinini Craver 2011, p. 283-286). An extended function-theoretic explanation would be too ambitious for a short paper, so I’ll limit myself to a “function-theoretic description”; a domain-general and environmental-neutral characterisation of a functional mechanism (Egan 2018, p. 146). Maybe we can deduce some clues from such a description.

 

4.     A function-theoretic description 

 

We can ask ourselves: what is the role of spatiotemporal consciousness in evolution? According to Robert Cummins,“A source of evidence that a system really has a given function is that such a function would have constituted an adaptation”. (Cummins 2000, p. 135) 

What could be the evolutionary function of time-consciousness? It gives an organism the opportunity to make representations fastly and accurately (e.g. in a forest or plain) of phenomena that where present in the past or can become present in the future. Anticipation and reconstruction, i.e. protention and retention of phenomena in spacetime. The organism can represent things that could happen, happen and could have happened, opportunities and dangers, not in a split second but all at once because of the field like character of time perception. This is time-consciousness as an adaptation, a result of evolution. But I think another more profound interpretation is possible. 

Evolution is about survival and reproduction. No-one wants to be dead, and dead is losing time- experience. Risk of losing time-experience/being dead is accompanied by fear; I think fear and time-experience are connected, implicitly or explicitly. Organisms instinctively avoid death with all their might, and the same goes for bad times, as caused by injuries or starvation and that weaken or end their reproductive capacity. After all, their goal is to pass on their genes.  

Thus there are two function-theoretic descriptions of time-consciousness: 

-as an adaptation to represent “present, passed and possible” all at once;  

-as a motor mechanism of evolution itself.  

Both functions are intertwined also in their functioning; the motor function increases itself through the same (reproduction stimulating) adaptation of which she is the cause. It’s a case of mutual enforcement, a snowball effect, with associated development in the brain. As a motor mechanism of evolution itself, time-consciousness is profound and probably ubiquitous, in a more or less primitive form. 

The origins of brain development are very old, cells that probably are the precursors of neurons have been found in the digestive system of brainless sea-sponges, already existing in the precambrium. Genes and chemicals used by neurons predate the evolution of multicellular animals (Marshall, M. 2021). Of course there is no case of time-consciousness in the precambrium, but it is possible that the first principles of time-experience have developed early, in combination and cooperation with the development of the first brain mechanisms. Because of its profoundness, I think involvement and cooperation of many mechanisms of the brain, realised over hundreds of millions of years and on many levels, are involved in time experience. Maybe the mechanism behind time-consciousness is difficult to identify because it does not fit the (assumed) modularity of brain functions (Farah 1994, P. 1, 60). But this is of course pure speculation. 

 

5.     Time and consciousness 

 

Even if you have a identified a neural mechanism, the 1^st person experience of it remains a problem, the “hard problem”. Is spatio-temporal perception a qualia (Chalmers 2003, P. 2)?  Qualia are not instantiated in neural activity. Neurons don’t recreate the colour experience of red, but time extendedness is realistic, and instantiated in neural activity. It cannot be that time consciousness is a mechanism only giving the experience of extension (as a qualia) and not producing it. That would be anti-realism. Time is part of the perceptual field within which qualia contents are experienced (Kent & Wittmann 2021, p. 23-26).  

But maybe time-consciousness is a qualia in another sense. You can ask: describe the difference between space and time. This is impossible without using a tautology. You can say “time is going in only one direction, from past to present”, but that is not a description but a property of time; a one way street does the same regarding space. This question is analogous to, but has more sense, than the question “what is it like to be a spacetime experiencer?” There is no thinkable and conscious position from which to ask that last question. 

David Chalmers talks about intrinsic properties of fundamental physical systems in opposition to properties in relation to other physical properties and to us. Does spatio-temporality have intrinsic properties? Like red is the intrinsic property of light waves with a certain frequency. I think consciousness is the intrinsic property of spacetime. When intrinsic properties constitute phenomenal properties they are protophenomenal (Chalmers 2003, p. 36, 37). Maybe consciousness is protophenomenal for spacetime. This theory is slightly different from Chalmers protopanpsychism. It is protopsychism of spatiotemporality; you could use the term spatiotemporal-protopsychism. In this view spacetime has a potential mental property, but not necessarily realised. There is a duality between its structural dispositional properties - field like-structure, interwovenness with speed, gravity and mass etc. - and its intrinsic protophenomenal property - which is consciousness. Evolution facilitates the necessary brain infrastructure to process this property. Which does not deny the fact that other entities can have intrinsic properties too. Without e.g. the perception of red because of colour-blindness, there is still consciousness, but without time-perception, not for one second.  

 Conclusions 

 There is evidence that time consciousness as facilitated by the brain has a considerable degree of reality. Spacetime as a phenomenon is based on facts in physics, processed by the brain, not produced, as with Kant.  

The character of our temporal perception is field like. Therefore I think we need a kind of holographic neural mechanism that brings “depth in our experience” to explain time-perception. 

A function-theoretic description yields two results: time consciousness as a an adaptation and time as motor mechanism (not a goal) of the evolution. Both are intertwined and reinforce each other and brain development. Time-consciousness is profound and probably ubiquitous (more or less primitive). Probably many brain mechanisms on many levels are involved in it, therefore maybe the mechanism is difficult to identify and not fitting with the (assumed) modularity of other brain functions. 

It is not the field like extension of time-consciousness that gives it a qualia character because that would lead to spatiotemporal anti-realism, but its substantial character. Time and consciousness are connected in time consciousness. Maybe consciousness is the intrinsic property of spacetime. Then spacetime is protopsychic; evolution, with time consciousness as an accelerating force, facilitates certain developments in brains and of brains, as a result of which the protopsychic intrinsic properties of spacetime can become manifest.  

 

 

Literature 

 

Chalmers, D., Consciousness and its place in nature. Blackwell guide to the philosophy of mind 2003, p. 102-144. 

 

Chirimuuta, M., Explanations in computational neuroscience: Causal and non-causal. The British Journal for the philosophy of science, 2017. 

 

Craver, C.F., When mechanistic models explain. Synthese 2006, 153(3), p. 355-376.  

 

Craver, C.F., Introduction: Starting with neuroscience. 2007.  

 

Cummins, R., “How does it work?” versus “What are the laws”: Two conceptions of psychological explanation. In: F. Keil and R. Wilson (Eds), Explanation and Cognition. Cambridge 2000. 

 

Egan, F., Function-Theoretic Explanation and the Search for Neural Mechanisms. In: Explanation and integration in Mind and Brain science (p. 145-163). Oxford 2018. 

 

Farah, M., Neuropsychological inference with an interactive brain: A critique of the “locality” assumption. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 1994, 17(1), p. 43-61. 

 

Gervais, R., Mechanistic and non-mechanistic varieties of dynamical models in cognitive science: explanatory power, understanding, and the ‘mere description’ worry. Synthese 2015, 192 (1), p. 43-66. 

 

Gallagher, Shaun, and Dan Zahavi A phenomenology of time consciousness, in: The phenomenological mind, New York 2008, 2nd edition p. 260/839-264/839 (E-reader). 

 

Kant, Immanuel, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 1781.  

Translation: Immanuel Kant, Kritiek van de zuivere rede, Boom Amsterdam. 2014, 3^e oplage. 

 

Kent, Lachan and Wittmann. Marc, Time consciousness: the missing link in theories of consciousness. 

In: Neuroscience of consciousness, Volume 2021, issue 2. 

https://doi.org/10.1093/nc/niab011 

 

Marshall. M. Hersenloze sponzen bevatten mogelijk evolutionaire voorloper van zenuwcellen. Iin: New Scientist, 2021. 

https://www.newscientist.nl/nieuws/hersenloze-sponzen-bevatten-mogelijk-evolutionaire-voorloper-van 

 

Piccinnini, G ., Craver, C. Integrating psychology and neuroscience: functional analyses as mechanism sketches. Synthese 2011, 183 (3) 283-311. 

Piccinini, G. Computational explanation in neuroscience. Synthese 2006, 153 (3), p. 343-353. 

 

Pösel, Markus, Changing places-space and time inside a black hole, in: Einstein online band 4. Potsdam, 2010. https://www.einstein-online.info/en/spotlight/changing_places/ 

 

Temporal Consciousness, in: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy; First published Aug. 6, 2010; substantive revision March 17, 2023  Https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness-temporal/#AwarSimp. 

 

 

 

 

^[1] The origin of these ideas are from Edmund Husserl, elaborated in his book Phenomenology of temporality (Galagher & Zahavi 261/839, 262/839). 

^[2] Maybe spatio-temporality itself has a pixel-like structure on Planck scale, but I wonder whether brains can operate on this unbelievable small scale. On the other hand, everything is possible.