This paper provides a short historical and systematic survey of parameters, problems, and proposals concerning the theoretical treatment of indivisible temporal boundaries throughout the ages. A very early trace of thinking about them is identified in Aristophanes’ comedy The Clouds. The approach of logicians in the late Middle Ages is placed in a broad context. Links of this topic to the issues of vagueness, modality, space and quantized time are discussed.

I argue that the temporal boundaries of certain experiences — those I call ‘simple experiential events’ — have a different character than the temporal boundaries of the events most frequently associated with experience: neural events. In particular, I argue that the temporal boundaries of SEEs are more sharply defined than those of neural events. Indeed, they are sharper than the boundaries of all physical events at levels of complexity higher than that of elementary (...) particle physics. If correct, it follows that the most common forms of identity theory-functionalism and dualism events play key roles through identification or correlation) — are mistaken. More positively, the conclusion supports recent approaches that attempt to explain conciousness by appeal to quantum physics. (shrink)

I have argued elsewhere that our conception of phenomenal consciousness commits us to simple phenomenal experiences that in some sense constitute our complex experiences. In this paper I argue that the temporal boundaries of simple phenomenal experiences cannot be conceived as fuzzy or vague, but must be conceived as instantaneous or maximally sharp. The argument is based on an account of what is involved in conceiving fuzzy temporally boundaries for events generally. If the argument is right, and (...) our conception of phenomenal consciousness is assumed to reflect the facts about consciousness, then since the temporal boundaries of neurophysiological events can be conceived as fuzzy, considerable pressure can be applied to neurophysiological identity theories, as well as to dualist accounts that posit temporal correspondence with neurophysiological events. (shrink)

Temporal binding occurs when people observe two events that they believe to be causally connected: They underestimate the length of the interval between those two events, when compared with their estimates of the length of intervals between events they believe to be causally unrelated. I discuss temporal binding in the context of Dennett and Kinsbourne’s (Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 15(2), 183–201, 1992) influential argument levelled at what they call ‘Cartesian Materialism’. In particular, I argue that Dennett and Kinsbourne’s (...) argument trades on a representational conception of perceptual experience, which blurs the boundary between perception and judgement, and that temporal binding can serve as a case study for developing an alternative, relational, conception of perceptual experience and of its relation to judgement. Based on research on the mechanisms underlying temporal binding, I provide an explanation of the phenomenon in which perception and judgement play clearly distinct roles. (shrink)

In this paper we will propose an empirical analysis of spatial and temporal boundaries. Unlike other proposals, which deal mainly with the commonsense level of the subject, we will ground our explication on well-established scientific practice and language. In this way we show how to reconsider in an innovative way questions such as the distinction between the bona fide boundaries and the fiat boundaries, the thickness and the ownership of the boundaries. At the same time (...) we propose a division between ex mensura boundaries and qui vulgo dicuntur boundaries. What is it, therefore,that divides the atmosphere from the water?[Leonardo da Vinci, Notebooks]. (shrink)

Temporal binding occurs when people observe two events that they believe to be causally connected: They underestimate the length of the interval between those two events, when compared with their estimates of the length of intervals between events they believe to be causally unrelated. I discuss temporal binding in the context of Dennett and Kinsbourne’s, 183–201, 1992) influential argument levelled at what they call ‘Cartesian Materialism’. In particular, I argue that Dennett and Kinsbourne’s argument trades on a representational (...) conception of perceptual experience, which blurs the boundary between perception and judgement, and that temporal binding can serve as a case study for developing an alternative, relational, conception of perceptual experience and of its relation to judgement. Based on research on the mechanisms underlying temporal binding, I provide an explanation of the phenomenon in which perception and judgement play clearly distinct roles. (shrink)

In the early twentieth century, many philosophers in America thought that time should be taken seriously in one way or another. George P. Adams (1882-1961) argued that the past, present and future are all real but only the present is actual. I call this theory ‘actualist eternalism’. In this paper, I articulate his novel brand of eternalism as one piece of his metaphysical system and I explain how he argued for the view in light of the best explanations of (...) class='Hi'>temporal experience and the present. I argue that his exploitation of analogies between time and modality offer some lessons for current debates about time such as the importance of providing a temporal epistemology. I also extract what I call the temporal boundary problem and argue that it gives rise to an unaddressed challenge for presentists and growing block theorists. (shrink)

This paper explores the unique phenomenology of habit and temporality put forth in Beauvoir’s La Vieillesse. I situate her understanding of temporality in relation to her early work Pyrrhus and Cinéas. I extract her notion of a boundary marked future that decreases anticipation for the future and thus rigidifies habits. In the final section I appropriate the notion of a boundary mark for a cultural phenomenology where we understand boundary marks as constituted by our understandings of ourselves in time and (...) not through aging alone. This cultural boundary mark can be used to understand how societal prejudice operates at the level of lived temporality. (shrink)

The tacit standard view that development ends once reproductive capacity is acquired (reproductive boundary, or ‘‘RB,’’ thesis) has recently been challenged by biologists and philosophers of biology arguing that development continues until death (death boundary, or ‘‘DB,’’ thesis). The relevance of these two theses is difficult to assess because the fact that there is no precise definition of development makes the determination of its temporal boundaries problematic. Taking into account this difficulty, this article tries to develop a new (...) species-dependent perspective on temporal boundaries of development. This species-dependent account stands against both RB and DB theses since neither of them reflects the differences between species in the temporality of their development. In this perspective, I propose to use stem cells as a tool to analyze (1) the different developmental capacities of an organism during its life; and (2) the different developmental temporal capacities between species. In particular, I will show that stem cells enable four distinct temporal developmental patterns to be distinguished, i.e., four distinct temporal boundaries of development in the living. I show how these four patterns can be interpreted differently depending on the perspective one has on the definition of development. (shrink)

We think of a boundary whenever we think of an entity demarcated from its surroundings. There is a boundary (a line) separating Maryland and Pennsylvania. There is a boundary (a circle) isolating the interior of a disc from its exterior. There is a boundary (a surface) enclosing the bulk of this apple. Sometimes the exact location of a boundary is unclear or otherwise controversial (as when you try to trace out the margins of Mount Everest, or even the boundary of (...) your own body). Sometimes the boundary lies skew to any physical discontinuity or qualitative differentiation (as with the border of Wyoming, or the boundary between the upper and lower halves of a homogeneous sphere). But whether sharp or blurry, natural or artificial, for every object there appears to be a boundary that marks it off from the rest of the world. Events, too, have boundaries — at least temporal boundaries. Our lives are bounded by our births and by our deaths; the soccer game began at 3pm sharp and ended with the referee's final whistle at 4:45pm. It is sometimes suggested that even abstract entities, such as concepts or sets, have boundaries of their own, and Wittgenstein could emphatically proclaim that the boundaries of our language are the boundaries of our world. Whether all this boundary talk is coherent, however, and whether it reflects the structure of the world or simply the organizing activity of our mind, are matters of deep philosophical controversy. (shrink)

The concept of plasticity has always been present in the history of developmental biology, both within the theory of epigenesis and within morphogenesis studies. However this tradition relies also upon a genetic conception of plasticity. Founded upon the concepts of ‘‘phenotypic plasticity’’ and ‘‘reaction norm,’’ this genetic conception focuses on the array of possible phenotypic change in relation to diversified environments. Another concept of plasticity can be found in recent publications by some developmental biologists (Gilbert, West-Eberhard). I argue that these (...) authors adopt a ‘‘broad conception of plasticity’’ that is closely related to a notion of development as something that is ongoing throughout an organism’s lifecycle, and has no clear-cut boundaries. However, I suggest that given a narrow conception of plasticity, one can define temporal boundaries for development that are linked to specific features of the morphological process, which are different from behavioral and physiological processes. (shrink)

A great deal of progress has recently been made in characterizing the “mechanisms of aging.” A comparison with the mechanisms of development shows that the two sets of mechanisms are different; nevertheless, mechanisms of aging are conditioned by what happens during development. Aging and development also share some characteristics, such as a similar difficulty in attributing a precise temporal boundary to these processes. Other characteristics seem more specific to aging, such as the role of external (to the organism) and (...) stochastic events in its progression. In fact, both development and aging are historical processes with a mixture of stochastic events and deterministic processes, the ratio of the two being different in each process. Therefore, it is concluded that aging does not fit with a broad, lifelong conception of development. (shrink)

The paper examines both the phenomenology of the manic self as well as critical aspects of manic neurobiology, focusing, with respect to both domains, on manic temporality. We argue that the distortions of lived time in mania exceed mere acceleration and are fundamental for manic affectivity. Mania involves radical acceleration and radical asynchronicity, which result in an instantaneous existence. People with mania rebel against the facticity of reality and suffer from an existential leap towards the future, in which the self (...) abandons normal temporal boundaries. Excerpts from the interviews with persons with mania who experienced psychosis illustrate this phenomenon. Commenting upon disrupted circadian rhythms in mania and the role of lithium in its treatment the paper posits manic temporality as the link through which manic phenomenology and manic neurobiology intertwine. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been a proliferation of neuroscientific theories of consciousness. These include theories which explicitly point to EM fields, notably Operational Architectonics and, more recently, the General Resonance Theory. In phenomenological terms, human consciousness is a unified composition of contents. These contents are specific and meaningful, and they exist from a subjective point of view. Human conscious experience is temporally continuous, limited in content, and coherent. Based upon those phenomenal observations, pre-existing theories of consciousness, and a large (...) body of experimental evidence, I derived the Temporally-Integrated Causality Landscape. In brief, the TICL proposes that the neural correlate of consciousness is a structure of temporally integrated causality occurring over a large portion of the thalamocortical system. This structure is composed of a large, integrated set of neuronal elements, which contains some subsystems, defined as having a higher level of temporally-integrated causality than the System as a whole. Each Subsystem exists from the point of view of the System, in the form of meaningful content. In this article, I review the TICL and consider the importance of EM forces as a mechanism of neural causality. I compare the fundamentals of TICL to those of several other neuroscientific theories. Using five major characteristics of phenomenal consciousness as a standard, I compare the basic tenets of Integrated Information Theory, Global Neuronal Workspace, General Resonance Theory, Operational Architectonics, and the Temporo-spatial Theory of Consciousness with the framework of the TICL. While the literature concerned with these theories tends to focus on different lines of evidence, there are fundamental areas of agreement. This means that, in time, it may be possible for many of them to converge upon the truth. In this analysis, I conclude that a primary distinction which divides these theories is the feature of spatial and temporal nesting. Interestingly, this distinction does not separate along the fault line between theories explicitly concerned with EM fields and those which are not. I believe that reconciliation is possible, at least in principle, among those theories that recognize the following: just as the contents of consciousness are distinctions within consciousness, the neural correlates of conscious content should be distinguishable from but fall within the spatial and temporal boundaries of the full neural correlates of consciousness. (shrink)

The paper examines both the phenomenology of the manic self as well as critical aspects of manic neurobiology, focusing, with respect to both domains, on manic temporality. We argue that the distortions of lived time in mania exceed mere acceleration and are fundamental for manic affectivity. Mania involves radical acceleration and radical asynchronicity, which result in an instantaneous existence. People with mania rebel against the facticity of reality and suffer from an existential leap towards the future, in which the self (...) abandons normal temporal boundaries. Excerpts from the interviews with persons with mania who experienced psychosis illustrate this phenomenon. Commenting upon disrupted circadian rhythms in mania and the role of lithium in its treatment the paper posits manic temporality as the link through which manic phenomenology and manic neurobiology intertwine. (shrink)

The idea that the form of a word reflects information about its meaning has its roots in Platonic philosophy, and has been experimentally investigated for concrete, sensory-based properties since the early 20th century. Here, we provide evidence for an abstract property of ‘boundedness’ that introduces a systematic, iconic bias on the phonological expectations of a novel lexicon. We show that this abstract property is general across events and objects. In Experiment 1, we show that subjects are systematically more likely to (...) associate sign language signs that end with a gestural boundary with telic verbs (denoting events with temporal boundaries, e.g., die, arrive) and with count nouns (denoting objects with spatial boundaries, e.g., ball, coin). In Experiments 2–3, we show that this iconic mapping acts on conceptual representations, not on grammatical features. Specifically, the mapping does not carry over to psychological nouns (e.g. people are not more likely to associate a gestural boundary with idea than with knowledge). Although these psychological nouns are still syntactically encoded as either count or mass, they do not denote objects that are conceived of as having spatial boundaries. The mapping bias thus breaks down. Experiments 4–5 replicate these findings with a new set of stimuli. Finally, in Experiments 6–11, we explore possible extensions to a similar bias for spoken language stimuli, with mixed results. Generally, the results here suggest that ‘boundedness’ of words' referents (in space or time) has a powerful effect on intuitions regarding the form that the words should take. (shrink)

John Perry has argued that language, thought and experience often contain unarticulated constituents. I argue that this idea holds the key to explaining away the intuitive appeal of the A-theory of time and the endurance theory of persistence. The A-theory has seemed intuitively appealing because the nature of temporal experience makes it natural for us to use one-place predicates like past to deal with what are really two-place relations, one of whose constituents is unarticulated. The endurance view can be (...) treated in a similar way; the temporal boundaries of temporal parts of objects are unarticulated in experience and this makes it seem that the very same entity exists at different times. (shrink)

All epistemic agents physically consist of parts that must somehow comprise an integrated cognitive self. Biological individuals consist of subunits (organs, cells, molecular networks) that are themselves complex and competent in their own context. How do coherent biological Individuals result from the activity of smaller sub-agents? To understand the evolution and function of metazoan bodies and minds, it is essential to conceptually explore the origin of multicellularity and the scaling of the basal cognition of individual cells into a coherent larger (...) organism. In this paper I synthesize ideas in cognitive science, evolutionary biology, and developmental physiology toward a hypothesis about the origin of Individuality: “Scale-Free Cognition”. I propose a fundamental definition of an Individual based on the ability to pursue goals at an appropriate level of scale and organization, and suggest a formalism for defining and comparing the cognitive capacities of highly diverse types of agents. Any Self is demarcated by a computational surface – the spatio-temporal boundary of events that it can measure, model, and try to affect. This surface sets a functional boundary - a cognitive “light cone” which defines the scale and limits of its cognition. I hypothesize that higher-level goal-directed activity and agency, resulting in larger cognitive boundaries, evolve from the primal homeostatic drive of living things to reduce stress – the difference between current conditions and life-optimal conditions. The mechanisms of developmental bioelectricity - the ability of all cells to form electrical networks that process information - suggests a plausible set of gradual evolutionary steps that naturally lead from physiological homeostasis in single cells to memory, prediction, and ultimately complex cognitive agents, via scale-up of the drive of infotaxis. Recent data on the molecular mechanisms of pre-neural bioelectricity suggest a model of how increasingly sophisticated cognitive functions emerge smoothly from cell-cell communication used to guide embryogenesis and regeneration. This set of hypotheses provides a novel perspective on numerous phenomena, such as cancer, and makes several unique, testable predictions for interdisciplinary research that have implications not only for evolutionary developmental biology but also for biomedicine and perhaps artificial intelligence and exobiology. (shrink)

It is usually agreed that reality is temporal in the sense of containing entities that exist in time, but some philosophers, roughly those who have been traditionally called A-theorists, hold that reality is temporal in a far more profound sense than what is implied by the mere existence of such entities. This hypothesis of deep temporality typically involves two ideas: that reality is temporally compartmentalised into distinct present, past, and future ‘realms’, and that this compartmentalisation is temporally dynamic (...) in the sense that the boundaries of those temporal realms change from one moment to the next. The truth of something like this hypothesis is commonly thought to require that at least some of the facts that fundamentally constitute reality be tensed. While this seems plausible, realism about fundamental tensed facts does not seem to entail deep temporality. Nor is it clear exactly what realism about tense amounts to, given that no informative answer has been given to the question of what it is for a fact to be tensed. In this paper, I introduce a novel approach, perspectivalism about temporal reality, that seeks to vindicate the hypothesis of deep temporality by ascribing to reality a certain kind of temporally perspectival structure, which also provides a straightforward answer to the question of what the tensedness of facts consists in as well as to the question of what it is for reality to be constituted by such facts. (shrink)

When physical structures resonate in proximity to each other they will under certain circumstances 'sync up' in a shared resonance frequency. This is the phenomenon of spontaneous selforganization. General resonance theory (GRT), a theory of consciousness developed by Hunt and Schooler, suggests that consciousness is a product of various shared resonance frequencies at different physical scales. I suggest a heuristic for calculating the boundaries and resulting capacity for phenomenal consciousness in such resonating structures. Shared resonance results in phase transitions (...) in the speed and bandwidth of information exchange and thus richer and more complex consciousness. This approach is a solution to the 'combination problem' and 'boundary problem' of consciousness. The proposed mathematical heuristic is a practical approach for identifying potential conscious structures and the spatial and temporal boundaries of such structures over time, and also for calculating the capacity for phenomenal consciousness of any putative conscious entity. The slowest-frequency shared resonance -- the 'slowest common denominator'-- is the limiting factor for the spatial extent of any macro-consciousness. Various synchrony indexes are discussed. I describe some limitations of the proposed framework, and how it compares to Tononi's integrated information theory. IIT's constellation- qualia characterization framework is compatible with GRT and may be a useful tool in conjunction with GRT's quantification framework. (shrink)

This paper argues that, to tackle the issue of sustainability, we should pay more attention to the temporality of socioecological processes. Only thus can we better understand current subjective and institutional constraints, as well as envision new potential pathways for transformative change. Two main arguments are developed: (1) there is a uniqueness in the temporality of Earth system processes associated with planetary boundaries that deeply transforms our time horizon and the pace of change, and (2) this situation creates a (...) disruption of the temporality embodied in dominant sociopolitical conventions such as the institutional definition and operationalisation of sustainable development. New research avenues and time policies are suggested towards responding meaningfully to the alarming current socioenvironmental trends. (shrink)

Abstract“Development” suggests that there is something that is developing, or changing over time. We can ask about temporal boundaries of that developmental process, asking when development begins or ends and whether it has defined stages along the way, for example. We can ask about spatial boundaries as well: where does the developing object start and end? For this article, I ask about the boundary definition of the developing organism in particular. What is an individual organism, and what (...) defines it as the same organism as it changes over time? In particular, how has this been answered historically: how have researchers described and explained what an individual developing organism is? This article explores ideas and approaches especially starting in the late 19th century, and in particular looks at the role of “organization.”. (shrink)

This special issue of Biological Theory is focused on development; it raises the problem of the temporal and spatial boundaries of development. From a temporal point of view, when does development start and stop? From a spatial point of view, what is it exactly that "develops", and is it possible to delineate clearly the developing entity? This issue explores the possible answers to these questions, and thus sheds light on the definition of development itself.

Ontological understanding of biological units (i.e. what kinds of things are they) is crucial to their use in experimental design, analysis, and interpretation. Conceptualizing fundamental units in biology as individuals or classes is important for subsequent development of discovery operations. While the criteria for diagnosing individuals are acknowledged, temporal boundedness is often misinterpreted and temporal minima are applied to units in question. This results in misdiagnosis or abandonment of ontological interpretation altogether. Biological units such as areas of endemism (...) in biogeography and species in evolutionary biology fall victim to such problems. Our goal here is to address the misconception that biological individuals such as species and areas of endemism have a temporal minimum. Areas of endemism can persist within small temporal boundaries in the context of metapopulation dynamics, island biogeography, and range expansion and contraction. Similarly, lineage reticulation illustrates examples of short-lived species. Here, examples of known entities are provided to illustrate their persistence on short time scales in attempt to rescue future interpretation of biological units from ontological misdiagnosis, elucidate the philosophical individuality of areas of endemism and species with short lifespans, and provide justification for the “snapshot in time” diagnostic approach. (shrink)

While foregrounding the historiography of HIV and AIDS in the South African context, this article analyses AIDS as simultaneously existing in three spheres: first, virtually – as the subject matter of electronically measurable research; second, academically – as a topic of research in the discipline of History; and third, actually – as a complex health concern and signifier that, via the field of Medical and Health Humanities, could allow for new collaborations between historians and others interested in understanding AIDS. Throughout, (...) the central focus is the discipline of History and the global trends that become evident when examining metrics about AIDS research, particularly those that show the hierarchies of knowledge ‘production’, the reinforcement of disciplinary boundaries, and the discrepancy between the amount of research ‘produced’ by scientific and humanities disciplines. Overall, the article suggests that ‘post-AIDS’ is not currently helpful to health historians working on South African and other majority world contexts. More specifically, the article reflects on what AIDS histories still need to be written, and I argue that Medical and Health Humanities could provide a space for historians to work within and across disciplinary boundaries given the ever evolving remit of AIDS histories, temporalities, and narratives. (shrink)

The prominence and the importance of Aśvaghoṣa’s works and persona—to the understanding of the history of Sanskrit poetry, to the understanding of Indian Buddhism in a transitional stage and to its introduction to other parts of Asia—is well acknowledged in contemporary scholarship. But with few exceptions the existing scholarship on Aśvaghoṣa has tended to be highly specialized and focused, inviting further reading that builds on this in-depth research to offer an integrated treatment of the variegated aspects and contexts of his (...) works. This special issue of the Journal of Indian Philosophy is intended as a modest step toward a holistic exploration of Aśvaghoṣa works, which reads them across disciplinary as well as regional and temporal boundaries. This introduction is designed to highlight, very schematically, some points of interest and recurring concerns with respect to Aśvaghoṣa works; to point out how the set of articles address these concerns, and to suggest a particular order in which they can be profitably read. (shrink)

This article examines the temporal politics of the 2017 California Gender Recognition Act (CGRA). The author first offers a brief history of the dominant temporal requirements for “gender recognition” in prior legislation around sex/gender markers on identity documents in the United States and United Kingdom, focusing on how this legislation places temporal boundaries around legitimate gender identity. Then, turning directly to the CGRA, the author asks to what extent the act's emphasis on self-identification revises or intervenes (...) in these prior conceptualizations of time and identity by the state administration of sex/gender systems. The article closes with an exploration of the temporality of identity documentation itself, speculating about how this legislation might be placed more directly into conversation with the role of time in colonial and racial state building. (shrink)

This paper argues that no legal order is possible unless it is bounded in space, time, membership and content, ie that boundaries are an intrinsic feature of the concept of law. In particular, while the organisation of the inside/outside distinction in terms of domestic and foreign state orders is certainly contingent, not so the distinction between inside/outside in terms of the contrast between a space deemed to be a collective's own space and strange places, which is constitutive for any (...) possible legal order. The constitutive role of boundaries for legal order becomes apparent in the face of a-legal behaviour, ie behaviour that contests the distinction between legality and illegality as drawn in the spatial, temporal, subjective and material boundaries of the legal. (shrink)

Recent studies of gene expression in the developing fruitfly leg support a model – Meinhardt's Boundary Model – which seems to contradict the prevailing paradigm for pattern formation in the imaginal discs of Drosophila – the Polar Coordinate Model. Reasoning from geometric first principles, this article examines the strengths and weaknesses of these hypotheses, plus some baffling phenomena that neither model can comfortably explain. The deeper question at issue is: how does the fly's genome encode the three‐dimensional anatomy of the (...) adult? Does it demarcate territories and boundaries (as in a geopolitical map) and then use those boundaries and their points of intersection as a scaffolding on which to erect the anatomy (the Boundary Model)? Or does it assign cellular fates within a relatively seamless coordinate system (the Polar Coordinate Model)? The existence of hybrid Cartesian‐polar models shows that the alternatives may not be so clear‐cut: a single organ might utilize different systems that are spatially superimposed or temporally sequential. (shrink)

Emotional fluctuations are ubiquitous in everyday life, but precisely how they sculpt the temporal organisation of memories remains unclear. Here, we designed a novel task – the Emotion Boundary Task – wherein participants viewed sequences of negative and neutral images surrounded by a colour border. We manipulated perceptual context (border colour), emotional-picture valence, as well as the direction of emotional-valence shifts (i.e., shifts from neutral-to-negative and negative-to-neutral events) to create events with a shared perceptual and/or emotional context. We measured (...) memory for temporal order and temporal distances for images processed within and across events. Negative images processed within events were remembered as closer in time compared to neutral ones. In contrast, temporal distances were remembered as longer for images spanning neutral-to-negative shifts – suggesting temporal dilation in memory with the onset of a negative event following a previously-neutral state. The extent of negative-picture induced temporal dilation in memory correlated with dispositional negativity across individuals. Lastly, temporal order memory was enhanced for recently-presented negative (versus neutral) images. These findings suggest that emotional-state dynamics matters when considering emotion-temporal memory interactions: While persistent negative events may compress subjectively remembered time, dynamic shifts from neutral-to-negative events produce temporal dilation in memory, with implications for adaptive emotional functioning. (shrink)

'Epistemic' theories of vagueness notoriously claim that (despite the appearances to the contrary) all of our vague terms have sharp boundaries, it's just that we can't know what they are. Epistemic theories are typically criticized for failing to explain (1) the source of the ignorance postulated, and (2) how our terms could come to have such precise boundaries. Both of these objections will, however, be shown to rest on certain 'presentist' assumptions about the relation between use and meaning, (...) and if allows that the meaning constitutive elements of our linguistic practices can extend into the future, the possibility of a new sort of 'normative epistemicism' emerges. (shrink)

Naive mereology studies ordinary conceptions of part and whole. Parts, unlike portions, have objective boundaries and many things, such as dances and sermons have temporal parts. In order to deal with Mark Heller's claim that temporal parts "are ontologically no more or less basic than the wholes that they compose," we retell the story of Laplace's Genius, here named "Swifty." Although Swifty processes lots of information very quickly, his conceptual repertoire need not extend beyond fundamental physics. So (...) we attempt to follow Swifty's progress in the acquisition of ordinary concepts such as 'table'. (Puzzles of precision and intrusion appear along the way.) Swifty has to understand what tables are before understanding what temporal portions of tables are. This is one reason for regarding tables as ontologically prior to table portions. intrusion appear along the way.). (shrink)

As this century has found new temporalities to replace linearity, discontinuities have become commonplace. Discontinuity, if carried to a pervasive extreme, destroys linearity…There were two enormous factors, beyond the general cultural climate, that promoted composers' active pursuit of discontinuities. These influences did not cause so much as feed the dissatisfaction with linearity that many artists felt. But the impact has been profound. One factor contributing to the increase of discontinuity was the gradual absorption of music from totally different cultures, which (...) had evolved over the centuries with virtually no contact with Western ideas…Cross-cultural exchange in music will, of course, never destroy aesthetic boundaries, but music of non-Western cultures continues to show Western composers new ways to use and experience time. The second tremendous influence on twentieth-century musical discontinuity was technological rather than sociological: the invention of recording techniques. Recording has not only brought distant and ancient musics into the here and now, it has also made the home and the car environment just as viable for music listening as the concert hall. The removal of music from the ritualized behavior that surrounds concertgoing struck a blow to the internal ordering of the listening experience. Furthermore, radios, records, and, more recently, tapes allow the listener to enter and exit a composition at will. An overriding progression from beginning to end may or may not be in the music, but the listener is not captive to that completeness. We all spin the dial, and we are more immune to having missed part of the music than composers might like to think. Jonathan D. Kramer is an associate professor of music theory and composition and director of electronic music at the College-Conservatory of Music of the University of Cincinnati. The present essay is part of his book, Time and Meaning in Music. (shrink)

What is the nature of time? This new study engages with the philosophy of Henri Bergson on time and proposes a new way of thinking about the effects of future events on the past. According to Bergson, time is an integral feature of real things, just as much as their material or size. When a flower grows, it takes a period of real time for it to flourish, which cannot be quickened or slowed down, nor can it be eliminated from (...) the process of growth. Bergson named this real time 'duration' and argued that everything and everyone exist as duration, and that internal processes flow into one another, with no clear boundaries that separate one phase of duration from another. According to Bergson's philosophy, the past does not disappear but smoothly flows into the present, forming an indivisible dynamic unity. But what if the causal flow of temporal reality is not unidirectional? What if not only past events influence future ones, but future ones in their turn have retrospective effect on past occurrences? The author of this book analyses these key questions, asserts that the changeability of the past follows from Bergson's theory of time and proposes a theory of embodied time that involves the retrospective enrichment of reality. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian-Science Dialogue at the BoundariesPaul O. IngramMuch of the discussion in current science-religion dialogue focuses on "limit" or "boundary" questions.1 In the natural sciences, boundary questions are questions that arise in scientific research that cannot be answered by scientific methods. Boundary questions arise because of (1) the intentional limit of scientific methods of investigation to extremely narrow bits of physical processes while ignoring wider bodies of experience, as well (...) as (2) the resulting incompetence of scientific methods when applied to aesthetic, moral, and religious experiences. Furthermore, scientific theoretical constructions are intentionally falsifiable. Often scientific theories themselves require further theoretical explanation. For example, Isaac Newton (1642-1727) proposed a theory of gravity as a general explanation of the motion of terrestrial objects—such as falling objects like apples—and of the orbits of planets in the solar system. But Newton was unable to offer an explanatory theory of gravity itself and was deeply troubled by the notion of "action at a distance," which he believed was intrinsically impossible. Albert Einstein's (1879-1955) general theory of relativity, although maintaining Newton's three laws of motion, fills in this gap in Newton's theory by explaining gravity as the warping of space occupied by objects such as planets, stars, and galaxies rather than action at a distance.In other words, boundary questions create methodological and conceptual constraints that often lead to deeper knowledge of the universe's physical structures. At the same time, boundary questions also tend to engender metaphysical questions along with scientific questions. For example, standard Big Bang theory about the origins of the universe imposes a temporal boundary that constrains what cosmologists can know about the universe. Why is there a universe at all? The standard response is that cosmologists can describe how the universe originated with a high degree of probability, but are ignorant, or at least agnostic, about why the universe exists. Here, a boundary question generated by the application of scientific methods in cosmology generates a metaphysical question cosmology is incapable of answering. Whenever this happens, an opening is created for science-religion dialogue in general, and a science-Buddhist-Christian "trilogue" in particular.But boundary questions are not limited to the natural sciences. Religious questions [End Page 165] incapable of solution through the application of theological or philosophical methods arise at the boundaries engendered by what Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) called "the universals of human experience," meaning experiences all human beings undergo no matter what their cultural or religious environments might be. For example, the experience of suffering raises the theodicy problem for classical Christian theism. How can a loving, omnipotent creator of the universe permit unmerited suffering? Here, the assertion of God's creative power and love creates a boundary question that cannot be resolved apart from rethinking the nature of God, as in process theology.Anxiety and confrontation with death, as well as experiences of beauty, joy, hunger, fear, hope, and anger, and the need for community are also examples of universals of human experience. Buddhists and Christians theoretically interpret the meaning of such experiences according to their particular texts, doctrinal formulations, and practice traditions. Similarly, the work done by scientists is influenced by their cultural contexts, although on a shorter-term basis than is the case with religions. As in the natural sciences, religious constructs are also theory laden, so that neither Christian theology nor Buddhist philosophy can claim complete knowledge. What, exactly, is the nature of God? What, exactly, is Awakening? The standard Christian and Buddhist responses are that God or Awakening are ultimately beyond human thought because both transcend anything human beings can imagine them to be, or not to be.Still, boundary constraints do not imply that significant and reliable knowledge is impossible in the sciences or in Buddhist or Christian thought. To conclude that scientists, Buddhists, or Christians cannot achieve complete knowledge via scientific method, the practice of Buddhist philosophy, or the practice of Christian theological reflection because of boundary constraints does not imply that the sciences have not amassed an incredible body of reliable knowledge about physical reality, or that Buddhists and Christians have not accumulated large bodies of reliable knowledge... (shrink)

When a reasonable agent deliberates about what to do, she entertains only a limited range of possible courses of action. A theory of practical reasoning must therefore include an account of deliberative attention: an account that both explains the patterns of deliberative attention that reasonable agents typically display and allows us to see why these patterns of deliberative attention are reasonable. I offer such an account, built around two, central claims. A reasonable agent who cares about some end is disposed (...) to exclude courses of action which she believes to be incompatible with that end from the range of possibilities that she will entertain as options in practical deliberation. As I shall put it, an agent’s cares establish deliberative boundaries for her practical thought. The stability of a deliberative boundary varies with the depth of the care that explains it. These two claims motivate the Boundary-Driven Model of the path that a reasonable agent’s deliberative attention will take in temporally extended deliberation. If we locate the model within a maximizing conception of practical rationality, then boundary-driven deliberation, of the sort that the model describes, can be understood and justified instrumentally, as a heuristic device. But if we suppose that there is no single index of value that successful practical choice maximizes, then boundary-driven deliberation is partly constitutive of reasonableness in practical thought. It allows an agent facing plural and incommensurable values to frame her deliberative problems narrowly enough that, in conjunction with deliberative devices which are not part of the model but which are compatible with it, she may be able to reach a non-arbitrary decision – and so give a determinate, verdictive sense to the phrase “the best course of action available to me” in cases in which a determinate meaning for this phrase would otherwise be lacking. (shrink)

Events have beginnings, ends, and often overlap in time. A major question is how perceivers come to parse a stream of multimodal information into meaningful units and how different event boundaries may vary event processing. This work investigates the roles of these three types of event boundaries in constructing event temporal relations. Predictions were made based on how people would err according to the beginning state, end state, and overlap heuristic hypotheses. Participants viewed animated events that include (...) all the logical possibilities of event temporal relations, and then made temporal relation judgments. The results showed that people make use of the overlap between events and take into account the ends and beginnings, but they weight ends more than beginnings. Neural network simulations showed a self‐organized distinction when learning temporal relations between events with overlap versus those without. (shrink)

The essence of temporal universe creation is that any analytical solution has to comply with the boundary condition of our universe; dimensionality and causality constraints. The essence of this book is to show that everything has a price within our temporal (t > 0) universe; energy and time.

Based on the hypothesis that the selfhood is the last outpost of sociality within a person, consciousness and the self are considered as complex spiritual and material phenomena, they include at least three main components: neurobiological activity, intimate personal environment and social context. The author analyzes an internal materialistic perspective, which infers the reduction of self and consciousness to ordinary neural processes of the brain. With this perspective, the main thing for neural activity is to maintain homeostasis, first, within the (...) brain itself, and then within the organism as a whole. Based on the latest achievements of neuroscience and the constructions of neurophilosophy, the impossibility of a significant accentuation of the production of the self against the background of the default activity of brain activity is demonstrated. The concept of protoconsciousness is introduced. In its context, it is shown that even the simplest ones can use complex algorithms for processing information, correcting behavioral errors to ensure effective existence in the life world intended for them. As a result – there is an integrative behavior, when one or another of its elements is not just a single reaction to a stimulus but formed as a result of the execution of a certain algorithm (of yet not clear structure and origin), data and commands for which come from several sources. Attention is drawn to the fact that even for a quite simple behavior there is need for some built-in spatio-temporal matrix which will be typologically similar to Kant’s forms of perception. From the standpoint of a materialistic perspective, it is proposed to consider rationality and the self, which is associated with it, as a kind of superstructure over the outconscious interaction with reality that our biological predecessors developed. However, both rationality and the self inevitably presuppose a return to sociality, without which neither the first nor the second can be conceived. (shrink)

Our daily lives unfold continuously, yet our memories are organised into distinct events, situated in a specific context of space and time, and chunked when this context changes (at event boundaries). Previous research showed that this process, termed event segmentation, enhances object-context binding but impairs temporal order memory. Physiologically, peaks in pupil dilation index event segmentation, similar to emotion-induced bursts of autonomic arousal. Emotional arousal also modulates object-context binding and temporal order memory. Yet, these two critical factors (...) have not been systematically studied together. To address this gap, we ran a behavioural experiment using a paradigm validated to study event segmentation and extended it with emotion manipulation. During encoding, we sequentially presented greyscale objects embedded in coloured frames (colour changes defining events), with a neutral or aversive sound. During retrieval, we tested participants’ memory of temporal order memory and object-colour binding. We found opposite effects of emotion and event segmentation on episodic memory. While event segmentation enhanced object-context binding, emotion impaired it. On the contrary, event segmentation impaired temporal order memory, but emotion enhanced it. These findings increase our understanding of episodic memory organisation in laboratory settings, and potentially in real life with perceptual changes and emotion fluctuations constantly interacting. (shrink)

Based on social learning theory and the trickle-down effects, in which behavioral patterns cascade from one management level to the next, we attempt to answer whether upper-level managers’ temporal leadership can be transferred to lower-level managers to form their temporal leadership, and what the mediating mechanisms and boundary conditions for this occurrence are. By analyzing the data from 234 middle-level managers and 686 junior managers/employees, we found that top managers’ temporal leadership was positively associated with middle-level managers’ (...) temporal leadership through the mediating role of middle-level managers’ temporal leadership perspective and that the relationship was moderated by middle-level managers’ identification with the top manager. Identification with the top manager, in particular, strengthens both the top manager’s positive effect on middle-level managers’ temporal leadership and the top manager’s temporal leadership’s mediating role in this relationship through their temporal leadership perspective. The theoretical and managerial implications of these findings are investigated. (shrink)

Quantificational arguments can take scope outside of temporal adjunct clauses, in an apparent violation of locality restrictions: the sentence few secretaries cried after each executive resigned allows the quantificational NP each executive to take scope above few secretaries. I show how this scope relation is the result of local operations: the adjunct clause is a temporal generalized quantifier which takes scope over the main clause (Pratt and Francez, Linguistic and Philosophy 24(2), 187–222. [2001]), and within the adjunct clause, (...) the quantificational argument takes scope above the implicit determiner which forms the temporal generalized quantifier. The paper explores various relations among quantificational arguments across clause boundaries, including temporal clauses that are modified internally by a temporal adverbial and temporal clauses with embedded sentential complements. (shrink)

Through the application of Material Engagement Theory to enactivist analyses of social cognition, this paper seeks to examine the role of material culture in shaping the development of intersubjectivity and long-term scalar transformations in social interaction. The deep history of human sociality reveals a capacity for communities to self-organise at radically emergent scales across a variety of temporal and spatial ranges. This ability to generate and participate in heterogenous, multiscalar relationships and identities demonstrates the developmental plasticity of human intersubjectivity. (...) Perhaps human sociality’s most unique feature is this intersubjective plasticity, that is, the ability for diverse collectivities of individuals and groups to adopt and transition between numerous social identities and behaviours with profound rapidity and flexibility. However, the most influential models in the study of social cognition, the Social Intelligence Hypothesis and Theory of Mind, promote a view of intersubjectivity that is rooted in methodological individualism and primarily understood as a capacity for observation and prediction. This approach leads to significant issues when confronted with the diversity and plasticity of hominin social organisation, particularly in regards to the computational burdens and information processing bottlenecks such scalar changes imply for cognitivist models. This paper examines the metaphysical assumptions in computational models of the mind that result in representational apriorism and an epiphenomenal treatment of material culture that hinder our understanding of the evolution and development of social cognition. Specifically, this article critiques the logics of computation, information processing, representationalism, and content within Neo-Darwinian frameworks that obscure and distort the interrelationships of evolutionary, developmental, ecological and cultural processes. Through a synthesis of material engagement and enactivist approaches to social cognition, this article argues that it is possible to explain the emergent and multiscalar dynamics of hominin sociality in terms of ecologically distributed and developmentally plastic interactions between brains, bodies and material culture. (shrink)

How is time framed in corporate social responsibility (CSR) talk? The literature mostly fails to analyze how multiple CSR activities are framed from a temporal perspective. Moreover, those researchers who undertake temporal framing tend to overlook the role of home-country cultural characteristics. Using a mixed-method analysis of 2,720 CSR reports from developing country companies, we show that CSR talk is mostly framed in the future tense when firms communicate complex human rights issues such as slavery or child labor, (...) while the past and present tenses are more frequent when they report on philanthropy and other cause-related activities. We find that these effects are stronger when firms are from countries characterized by greater uncertainty avoidance. We contribute to the CSR communication literature by showing that temporal references in CSR talk tend to differ, depending on the company-level control of CSR activities, and by highlighting uncertainty avoidance’s role as a boundary condition for aspirational talk’s performativity. (shrink)

Spatio-temporal neuro-dynamics is a quickly developing field of brain research and Tsuda's work is a significant contribution toward establishing theoretical foundations in this area. It is conceivable that the fragmented attractor landscapes and dynamical memory patterns identified earlier in various K-sets are biologically plausible manifestations of attractor ruins, chaotic itinerancy, and Cantor encoding as applied to sensory information processing.

The generation of evidence is integral to the work of public health and health service providers. Traditionally, ethics has been addressed differently in research projects, compared with other forms of evidence generation, such as quality improvement, program evaluation, and surveillance, with review of non-research activities falling outside the purview of the research ethics board. However, the boundaries between research and these other evaluative activities are not distinct. Efforts to delineate a boundary – whether on grounds of primary purpose, temporality, (...) underlying legal authority, departure from usual practice, or direct benefits to participants – have been unsatisfactory. (shrink)

This paper theorizes and historicizes the ideas of modern language and translation and challenges the imperialist and nationalistic mode of worlding with the notion of ‘untranslatability’ that is embedded in the linguistic and cultural practices of colonial Taiwan and Korea. I redefine the notion of translation as a bordering system – the knowledge-production of boundaries, discrimination, and classification – that simultaneously creates the translatable and the untranslatable in asymmetrical power relations. With this, I discuss how this ambivalence is embodied (...) in the experiences of colonial writers Wu Yung-fu and Pak T’aewŏn and their novellas ‘Head and Body’ and ‘A Day in the life of Kubo the Novelist’. I illustrate two characteristics of the ambivalent untranslatability embedded in their novellas: the linguistic untranslatability and the experience of ‘unhomeness’. The linguistic untranslatability and unhomeness, I argue, result in the colonized’s dislocation in homogeneous time-space relationships, resulting to the incompletion of the modernization project through colonialism. At the same time untranslatability offers a site to explore the transnational space that crosses linguistic boundaries, and to caution against the legacy of colonialism. (shrink)

The article covers Erwin W. Straus’ views on the problem of time and temporal experience in the context of psychopathology. Beside Straus’ published scholarship, including his papers dealing exclusively with the subject of time, the sources utilized in this essay comprise several of Straus’ unpublished manuscripts on temporality, with the primary focus on the 1952 manuscript Temporal Horizons, which is discussed in greater detail and subsequently published for the first time in this journal. In the first part of (...) the article, the author introduces what he considers to be the central tension of the whole of Straus’ work on the issue of time, namely, the tension stemming from a dualistic account of time with its personal and impersonal dimensions. Interpretative developments of this tension are followed covering Straus’ early German works and his late American scholarship. The author presents Straus’ way of overcoming the dualistic account of time and his arguments in favour of what is termed here the “unified view of time”. Of critical importance for the unified view is Straus’ concept of “today”, which is extensively commented upon. In the second part of the article, the author focuses on the psychopathological consequences of the unified view as seen by Straus. A clear-cut boundary between a normal and a psychotic experience of time is supposed to lie in breaking the bond between the personal and the impersonal orders of time, leading to a fundamental estrangement. This view, it is claimed, is already present in a nutshell in Straus’ earliest work, and is elaborated upon later. In conclusion, both the merits and the weaknesses of Straus’ account of temporality are presented. A major advantage is that Straus abstains from a dualistic conception of time and reappraises the often-devalued clock time. A fundamental drawback is that Straus does not venture to explore the pathological varieties of temporal experience and fails to specify the acknowledged differences between, on the one hand, psychotic elements in depressive disorders, and, on the other hand, such elements in schizophrenic disturbances. (shrink)