In the previous article in this series I have conclusively rejected the possibility of defining time in terms of the A-series and/or the B-series and have formalised the C-series as an atemporal constitutive sequence whose basic terms are states of some relational property P of an object. Before formulating a definitive statement of the C-theory of time I will address some phenomenological worries about the present.
Husserl (1991, 11-12) has famously argued that when we listen to music we do not perceive just the sound emitted in the present moment, but we experience the sense of melody that necessarily implicates related sounds from the immediate past. Melody must therefore be experienced in a different present to that of the physical sound. But the premise of apprehension of sound is further complicated by the fact that frequency, a distinct pitch, cannot be apprehended instantaneously, in zero duration, but requires at least one complete wave-cycle of the signal to convey the necessary information. Since it ‘takes time’ to first play and then to register the signal, the experience of physical sound (or any signal, for that matter) cannot possibly belong to any particular, objective present, insofar as the present has zero duration. If, on the other hand, the present had a finite duration, as the theory of specious present would have it, it would necessitate simultaneity of all the elements within that duration, but that is clearly not the case: we perceive melody as a sequence of tones and not as a single chord, we perceive progressive motion and not a static blur (Cf. Husserl, 1991, 11). Conversely, if the specious present had already contained motion, the end point of its movement would be in the present when the starting point had already elapsed and thus belonged to a ‘different present’, therefore not The present. If movement is real only if it happens in real-time, then the idea of movement without real temporal difference cannot possibly explain real-time.
Chuard (2011) argues that temporal continuity of consciousness may be sufficiently explained by partial overlapping of events, but this thesis must be rejected also. Assuming two nominally consecutive events A (earlier) and B (later), if there is a part of A that is non-simultaneous with any part of B, then it is necessarily ‘followed’ by another part of A which is simultaneous with a part of B, and then by a part of B that is non-simultaneous with any part of A. In effect, the two nominal events are broken up into three consecutive specious parts that are not overlapping: A alone, A and B occurring simultaneously, and B alone. Each of the consecutive parts must have positive information-content in order to be registered.
Husserl attempted to solve the continuity of consciousness problem by formulating the thesis of temporal retention. “The source-point with which the production of the enduring object begins is a primal impression. (…) But when consciousness of the tone-now, the primal impression, passes into retention, this retention itself is a now in turn, something actually existing.” (Husserl 1991, 30-31) The thesis of retention has a significant explanatory limitation: in order to retain information there must be positive information-content to start with, but if the primal impression, the source-point, has a positive information-content then it is already specious and we again face the explanatory burden associated with the specious present. If, on the other hand, speciousness of the source-point associated with the “running-off modes of the object’s duration” (melody) was meant to be the result of retention rather than its cause, then the source-point would have no duration and therefore no objective content that could be retained, therefore a contradiction.
Explaining continuity of consciousness in terms of specious present, partial overlapping of events or temporal retention may be interpreted as involving two distinct conceptions of time: the inner duration of the specious present is measured with respect to a conventional time-reference, normally registered in terms of standardised, super-fine cycles of the atomic clock, while the experiential moment refers to the subjective sense of time, which is registered in terms of subjectively construed meaningful events and their ordered relations. Since the atomic time-measure is cyclical, that is, it also consists of discrete, specious moments, we must conclude that the finest detectable duration – the signal quantum of atomic radiation – can be defined only in terms of abstract time, which is, in principle, infinitely divisible.
A logical consequence of this brief examination of the allegedly ‘missing present’ is that the object is apprehended neither in the objective present, where only infinitesimal and therefore empty instants can be said to be present; nor in the fait accompli realm of the past, where experience is said to have expired; nor in the future, which lacks realisation. The infinitesimal instants of ‘now’ carry no meaningful content, no signal, which could be defined only across a finite duration and as a comparison between durations. All experience is therefore left without a temporal home, without a place in time, and the logic of temporal succession taken to its limit demands that it ought not to appear, let alone change, but appearances persist nonetheless.
I postulate that in the absence of information-content in the objective present, appearances must arise atemporally; not ‘in’ time but ‘with’ time, as subjective moments in the constitutive order of meanings. When we refer to the present we only quantify over the existence of a definite configuration in the system of relations that presupposes the necessity of change from one configuration to another. In other words, we perceive only events, tentative unities of meaning that presuppose internal alterity of states as well as the configurational qualities of being preceded, perceived and succeeded. Our subjective sense of time is then plausibly indexed in terms of non-uniform unities of meaning which are identified as meaningful moments, as objectified ‘instants’ that are nonetheless characterised by inner duration because their meaning posits or necessitates duration. In the words of Husserl, “every act of apprehension is itself a constituted immanent duration-unity.” (Husserl 1991, 123) Cf. “We either perceive nothing, or something already there in sensible amount. This fact is what in psychology is known as the law of the ‘threshold’. Either your experience is of no content, of no change, or it is of a perceptible amount of content or change.”(James 1916, 155)
Speciousness attributed to the moment is evidently not ‘in the moment’ in the externalist, realist sense, but in the meaning of the moment, and is interpolated between reference points in the atemporal order of constitutive relations (C-structure). When we perceive a flash of light, we ascribe a short duration to the moment of its apprehension; when we experience a single tone, the duration ascribed to it may be in the order of a second; when we hear melody, the moment of its apprehension may last several seconds. It is irrelevant if the flash of light, the single tone or the melody is perceived as something objectively present or is just imagined, because in either case we are bound to interpolate a suitable duration for the perception or imagination to be meaningfully assimilated into our system of meanings. By existentially quantifying over a particular meaning we plausibly invoke a window of time for the event to be realised as the present and that constitutes the characteristic duration of its phenomenal moment. “The existential now is determined by the present of preoccupation…” (Ricoeur 1984, 63) “Because the Dasein is expectant of itself by way of the feasible, that with which it is dealing at the moment is in its present.” (Heidegger 1988, 290) As these quanta of duration are interpolated between events, into an infinitely divisible sequence of logically emplotted phenomena, the sense of time becomes a continuous presence, a background pulse that can be disrupted only by unconsciousness, but then the narrative and its inner time is seamlessly re-established upon awakening, by relying on countless indexing references within the constitutive structure of ‘resumed’ experience.
We have enough faith in the reality of time to endow it with the objective present, but the absence of information-content in any present instant indicates that the objective present is an idealisation inherent to the logic of appearing. In the final article of this series I will attempt to formulate a C-theoretic account of change that satisfies and perhaps exhausts the logic of appearing without the objective present.
- Chuard, Philippe. “Temporal Experiences and Their Parts.” Philosophers’ Imprint, 2011: 1-28.
- Heidegger, Martin. The Basic Problems of Phenomenology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988.
- Husserl, Edmund. On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time (1893-1917). Dordreht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991.
- James, William. Some Problems of Philosophy. New York: Longmans Green and Co., 1916.
- Ricoeur, Paul. Time and Narrative (Volume 1). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1984.