Time and Time Perception

Berit Brogaard • Dimitria Electra Gatzia

� Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Abstract There is little doubt that we perceive the world

as tensed—that is, as consisting of a past, present and

future each with a different ontological status—and tran-

sient—that is, as involving a passage of time. We also have

the ability to execute precisely timed behaviors that appear

to depend upon making correct temporal judgments about

which changes are truly present and which are not. A

common claim made by scientists and philosophers is that

our experiences of entities enduring through transient

changes are illusory and that our apparently accurately

timed behaviors do not reflect dynamical time. We argue

that our experiences of objects enduring through transient

changes need not be thought of as illusory even if time is

not dynamic at the fundamental level of reality. For, the

dynamic properties we experience objects as having need

not be fundamental properties. They could be weakly

emergent from static, temporal properties. Temporal

properties, on this view, are similar to ordinary properties

like that of being solid, which are correctly experienced as

properties of medium-sized material bodies even though

they are not instantiated at the fundamental level of reality.

Keywords Brain’s internal clock � Perdurantism �Temporal illusions � Time perception � Emergence �Response-dependence

1 The A-Theory Versus the B-theory of Time

Two distinct theories of time (proposed by McTaggart

1908) appear to fit current theories of physics (Monton

2010), although it is generally accepted that only one of

them is directly supported by empirical data from physics.

On the A-theory, time differs from the dimensions of

space in the sense that although there are only two-place

spatial relations such as being south of, and hence no

unary spatial properties such as being south, there are

genuine A-theoretical properties such as being present,

being one day out in the future, etc. (McTaggart 1908).

On this theory, time passes and there are genuine changes

involving material bodies. On the B-theory, time does not

differ from the dimensions of space since the only tem-

poral properties that are instantiated are space-like

B-relations such as being earlier than. On this theory, no

genuine A-theoretical properties exist and the passage of

time is only apparent (McTaggart 1908) in the sense that

it is the result of the way humans happen to perceive the

world.

One of the main challenges for B-theorists is to explain

why time is experienced as passing, if it is not. The stan-

dard claim is that our experiences of the passage of time

are illusory. However, as we shall argue, making this claim

on the grounds that physics has no need for A-theoretical

properties (e.g., temporally passing, enduring through

genuine change) does not show that our experiences of

these properties are illusory. After all, the B-theory does

not rule out the possibility that there are dynamic, temporal

properties, as the properties of physical theories are not the

only properties that are instantiated. We argue that it is

plausible that A-theoretical properties of the kind we

experience objects as having are emergent properties akin

to properties such as being solid. On this view,

B. Brogaard (&)

St. Louis, MO, USA

e-mail: brogaardb@gmail.com

D. E. Gatzia

Akron, OH, USA

e-mail: dg29@uakron.edu

123

Topoi

DOI 10.1007/s11245-014-9243-x

A-theoretical properties exist but not as fundamental or

irreducible properties.

2 The B-Theoretical Fallacy

Philosophers have offered various explanations of the

apparent passage of time (see e.g., Oaklander 1993; Mellor

1998; Skow 2011; Prosser 2012). What these explanations

have in common is that they either implicitly or explicitly

treat the ordering of experiences as forming a tenseless

B-series but the phenomenology of the experiences as gen-

erating the appearance of passage and endurance through

genuine change. To each time slice of a perceiver, it feels to

him or her as if time is passing and that his or her present

moment is present in an A-theoretical sense. The temporal

properties presented in experience are thus fundamentally

different from the temporal properties instantiated in the

external world.

One influential explanation is that of Mellor (1998), who

proposes that our experiences of time as passing are gen-

erated as an effect of memory. Each time slice of a per-

ceiver remembers the past but not the future, which

generates an experienced asymmetry. On this view, our

experiences of the passage of time are illusions generated

by our experiencing some events as occurring simulta-

neously with us and others as having occurred only pre-

viously. As Prosser (2012) points out, however, this

explanation seems implausible for two reasons. The first is

that time perception does not seem to require reflection on

the contents of our memories. The second is that while the

accumulation of memories may explain our sense that time

has a direction and that there is an asymmetry between the

past and the future, it does not by itself explain why time

perceptually seems to pass.

Upon rejecting Mellor’s account, Prosser (2012) pro-

poses another explanation of how we experience the pas-

sage of time, according to which, our sense of a passage of

time originates in our experiences of persistence. On this

view, our experiences represent objects as enduring through

genuine dynamic changes, which gives rise to the illusion

that time passes. This explanation, however, faces several

difficulties. Firstly, it explains why we seem to experience

time as passing only by raising another mystery, viz., why

do we experience objects as enduring (that is, as being

wholly present at each moment at which they exists), if they

are in fact perduring (that is, they are spatiotemporal parts

located at different spacetimes). It is hardly a satisfactory

conclusion that virtually all of the experiences we take to be

veridical are necessarily falsidical. Secondly, it does not

explain why some illusions of passage seem to be less

accurate than others, which as we shall see is an assumption

made by dominant theories of time perception. Thirdly,

Prosser’s explanation is too simplistic. It is unlikely that our

sense of a passage of time simply comes from the experi-

ence of objects enduring through changes. Our perceptual

experiences are limited to those particular times that we call

‘present moments’, moments during which we are simul-

taneously aware of the succession of several entities

undergoing endurance or change. We never perceive events

occurring at any moments other than those that we view as

the present. Yesterday you were perceiving a different slice

of the universe than you are today, and the slices of the

universe that you perceive appear to line up neatly in a

temporal series. This very fact that, perceptual experiences

mark some things as being present, seems to be the main

contributing factor to our sense of a passage of time. One

urgent problem, then, is to explain why our experiences

mark certain events as present in an A-theoretical sense.

There are numerous other authors who have suggested

that our experiences of dynamic temporal properties are

illusory (see e.g., Oaklander 1993; Mellor 1998; Dyke

2002; Skow 2011; Prosser 2012; Ingthorsson 2013; see also

Yehezkel 2013). It is not clear why they think that this

conclusion follows directly from the B-theory of time. A

plausible explanation is that the following sort of argument

is implicitly accepted1:

B-Theoretical Argument:

1. The A-theoretical temporal properties experienced in

ordinary experience are not properties to which the

theories of physics are committed.

2. If a property perceived in ordinary experience is not

one to which the theories of physics are committed,

then the experience is illusory.

3. Hence, when A-theoretical temporal properties are

perceived in ordinary experience, the experience is

illusory.

However, this argument is problematic. Premise (2)

assumes that in order for our experiences of time as

passing to be veridical, A-theoretical properties must be

irreducible or ontologically primitive. This, however, is

incorrect. For, our experiences would not be illusory if

A-theoretical properties were akin to properties such as

being solid. Physicists will tell us that the medium-sized

material bodies that we become acquainted with through

experience are not really solid but consist mostly of empty

space. However, few theorists would deny the veridicality

of all of our experiences of solid, medium-sized material

bodies. Saying that some experiences are veridical does not

require seeing into the deepest corners of reality.

1 Just to be clear, we are not arguing that the authors mentioned here

are accepting this argument. We are merely suggesting a plausible

argument that can be made in support of the claim that the passage of

time is illusory if the B-theory is true.

B. Brogaard, D. E. Gatzia

123

Our visual experiences of solid medium-sized material

bodies and their colors, shapes, and textures can be char-

acterized as veridical without us having to commit to the

claim that these properties are irreducible or ontologically

primitive. B-theorists generally agree with this character-

ization of the circumstances under which visual experience

is veridical (see e.g., Oaklander 1993; Mellor 1998; Dyke

2002; Skow 2011; Prosser 2012). They nevertheless appear

to treat time differently from properties such as space,

color, shape, texture, etc., in this regard. And although they

do not deny the veridicality of our experiences of rocks as

solid in spite of the fact that physicists say that they are

mostly empty space, they do appear to regard our experi-

ences of the passage of time as illusory. In the absence of a

good argument, this difference in assessment seems

unjustified since our experiences of A-theoretical proper-

ties can be veridical, even if the B-theory of time happens

to be true at the fundamental level of reality.

The issue of veridicality bears on the question of truth.

When we say that our experience of a rock as solid is

veridical, this is normally taken to mean that it is true that

the rock in question is solid (Siegel 2010). Regardless of

whether the veridicality of experience is cashed out in

terms of true content or obtaining facts, veridicality is a

function of truth. There can be different truths at different

levels of organization and complexity, and only some of

these truths are fundamental truths. For example, the

medium-sized objects that we experience as solid or as

having smooth surfaces are neither solid nor have smooth

surfaces at the fundamental level of reality. Similarly, even

if the B-theory is true at the fundamental level of reality,

there is still room for A-theoretical facts, such as time is

passing. Of course, in that case, these facts would not be

irreducible or ontologically primitive but would be akin to

facts such as the rock is solid. In what follows, we argue

that A-theoretical properties are best construed as weakly

emergent properties.

3 Weakly Emergent A-Theoretical Properties

Emergent properties ‘arise’ out of more fundamental

properties at a certain level of complexity or organization.

When people say that a property emerges at a certain level

of complexity, they typically mean that a property that is

absent at a lower level appears, or comes into being, at a

higher level. The emergent property is novel and unex-

pected compared to the properties of the emergence base.

There are, however, two very different versions of

emergence.

On a weak version, truths about emergent properties are

deducible, at least in principle (or by simulation), from the

low-level phenomenon. The apparent novelty of a weakly

emergent property is an artifact of the limited reasoning

skills of mortal human beings. As David Chalmers (2006)

puts it, weakly emergent properties are interesting, non-

obvious features that are interesting and non-obvious to us

relative to the perceived simplicity of the underlying

principles governing the system. Weak emergence is

uncontroversial. The property of being liquid water, for

example, weakly emerges from the low-level properties

characterizing hydrogen and oxygen molecules. Weakly

emergent properties can be derived, at least in principle,

from complete knowledge of micro-level information

(Bedau 1997).

On a strong version, truths about emergent properties are

not deducible, even in principle, from the low-level phe-

nomenon. According to C. D. Broad, in the case of strong

emergence, ‘‘the characteristic behavior of the whole could

not, even in theory, be deduced from the most complete

knowledge of the behavior of its components, taken sepa-

rately or in other combinations, and of their proportions

and arrangements in this whole’’ (1925: 59). Strongly

emergent properties are not deducible from the low-level

phenomenon because they are fundamental properties in

their own right but unlike the fundamental properties of

physics, strongly emergent properties appear at a certain

level of complexity. The view that there are strongly

emergent properties is controversial and requires a special

argument. The view that there are weakly emergent prop-

erties, by contrast, is widely accepted by scientists and

philosophers alike (Chalmers 2006; Green 2003).

The suggestion that A-theoretical properties are weakly

emergent from the properties of microphysics makes it

plausible that our experiences of time passing are some-

times veridical. Emergent properties are instantiated by

systems that have the relevant organizational complexity

and are typically thought to exert a causal influence on the

system’s behavior. The relevant systems that instantiate

A-theoretical properties appear to be events and objects

that undergo changes.

It remains to be seen how A-theoretical properties could

weakly emerge from B-theoretical properties and relations.

The least controversial idea is that A-theoretical properties

arise from static temporal properties in the sense of being

response-dependent properties, viz., dispositions to cause

experiences of passage and genuine change in normal

perceivers in normal circumstance.2 If this is correct, then

A-theoretical properties are similar to colors, on the tra-

ditional account of colors as secondary qualities. There are,

of course, familiar problems with specifying what ‘normal’

means in this context, but we can set this problem aside

2 Of course, an account of how these properties emerge from

microphysics would be needed. However, due to space constraints,

here we can only make some plausible suggestions.

Time and Time Perception

123

here. On this view, external objects literally possess

A-theoretical properties. So, statements about passage and

dynamic change can literally be true. It is literally true that

time is passing, that the present moment is special and that

there are dynamic changes. The suggestion that A-theo-

retical properties are response-dependent is compatible

with the tenet underlying weak emergence—that is,

response-dependent A-theoretical properties are deducible

at least in principle from B-theoretical properties. Whether

their appearance is novel or surprising, as the criteria for

weak emergence state, is debatable. The suggestion that

A-theoretical properties are response-dependent, however,

is plausible only if there is a credible account of how the

brain generates A-theoretical properties on the basis of a

reality in which there is only static time. In what follows,

we will show that current theories about time perception, at

least at first glance, appear to be able to account for how

the appearance of passage and genuine change is generated

on the basis of B-theoretical properties.

4 The Brain’s Internal Clock

Michel Treisman, one of the pioneers in the psychology of

time perception, rejected the commonly accepted naive

realist view about time perception in the same fashion that

Galileo, and his contemporaries, had rejected naive realism

about color and taste. On this view, we do not experience

temporal properties directly but perceive them by experi-

encing objects as enduring through transient changes.

Treisman held that the dimensions of space and time relate

to the physical world in a way similar to the way the colors

we experience objects as having relate to the external

world. Both time and color perception are constrained by

the needs they must serve. In the case of time perception, it

is constrained by the need for accurate predictions.

Treisman’s work on time perception led to the dominant

view that the brain keeps track of time in virtue of high-

level cognitive processes involving scalar-timing properties

(SET). SET theories posit the existence of an internal clock

in the brain, which generates subjective temporal values

that are typically correctly related to real time (Francois

1927; Treisman 1963; Gibbon et al. 1984). Although SET

theories were originally developed as theories of the

striking regularities in the performance of non-human

subjects (e.g., rats and pigeons) on temporally constrained

reinforcement schedules, they were subsequently repur-

posed as theories of how humans keep track of time

(Wearden and McShane 1988; Wearden 2001; Allan 1998).

This framework is consistent with our proposal that

A-theoretical properties are response-dependent properties

since the internal clock in the brain provides the mecha-

nism by which events and objects are disposed to cause

experiences of passage and genuine change to perceivers

like us.

Unlike Treisman’s theory, which postulates that the

brain’s internal clock is not self-sustaining but needs to be

initiated regularly by external stimuli, contemporary SET

theories speculate that the brain’s internal clock is con-

tinuously running and self-sustaining. SET models consist

of several modules, including a pacemaker, a switch, an

accumulator, working and reference memory, and a com-

parator (Block 2003; Grondin 2010; Klink et al. 2011). The

linear function of physical time is thought to involve both a

pacemaker that produces pulses at a fairly constant rate and

the accumulation of these pulses in working and reference

memory.

During an event, a mode switch allows the accumulator

to collect emitted pulses. At the end of the timed event, the

number of pulses in the accumulator is compared with a

reference time from memory (known as reference mem-

ory). This comparison is necessary because although the

content (i.e., the pulse rate) of the accumulator is reflected

in working memory, the representations of times, which are

necessary for temporal tasks (e.g., comparing interval

durations for similarity), and which are the source of the

scalar properties observed in time estimates, are stored in

reference memory (Gibbon et al. 1984; Wearden 2003).

Longer perceptual durations require more accumulated

pulses than shorter perceptual durations (Klink et al. 2011).

SET theories thus predict that the experience of succession

can reflect the succession of experiences. However, various

factors can affect the pace of experienced succession and

the brain’s ability to keep track of time. For example, if

subjects are exposed to a series of repetitive clicks prior to

the duration signal that they are supposed to estimate, the

speed of the internal clock increases, probably due to an

arousal effect. This results in the time interval being per-

ceived as longer compared to an interval preceded by

silence (Treisman et al. 1990; Penton-Voak et al. 1996;

Droit-Volet and Wearden 2002). This framework thus

allows us to treat some experiences as veridical and others

as falsidical.

The perception of time is also greatly affected by con-

ditions that direct attention to the passage or flow of time

(Wearden 2003: Block 2003). For example, time appears to

pass more slowly than normally when one attends to it.

Most SET theories view attention as the factor that controls

the on/off switch, where simple delays in closing the switch

are supposed to explain its effects in time perception.

The attentional-gate model is a variation on traditional

SET theories, which incorporates a cognitive module in the

form of an attentional gate, i.e., a cognitive mechanism

controlled by the allocation of attention to time (Zakay and

Block 1995; Block 1990, 2003). On this view, attention to

time is necessary for the cognitive counter to be switched on.

B. Brogaard, D. E. Gatzia

123

The more attention is allocated to time, the wider the gate

opens, and more pulses emitted by the pacemaker are trans-

ferred to the cognitive counter. The attentional-gate model

provides a better explanation of complex human timing

behavior. Timing behavior in animals depends on learned

intervals represented in reference memory. Humans, however,

are more flexible in the sense that although in some temporal

tasks such as the reproduction of an interval’s duration the

count of pulses can be compared to reference memory until a

match is achieved, in other temporal tasks reference memory

might not be used (Zakay and Block 1995).

The brain’s time-tracking mechanisms result in succes-

sive events being experienced together in what is sometimes

called the ‘specious present’ (James 1890/1981; Treisman

1963; Phillips 2008). The specious present is a short time

span (consisting of a few seconds) during which we are

simultaneously aware of several successive entities consti-

tuting endurance. The succession of events being experi-

enced together gives rise to a sense of endurance through

transient change. But, as far as SET theories go, there need

not be any fundamental endurance through transient change

in order for us to have such experiences. It follows that SET

theories can explain A-theoretical properties as a function of

B-theoretical properties. This explanation, if correct, gives

credence to our claim that A-theoretical properties are

emergent properties, e.g., response-dependent properties,

though it is compatible with many other ways of accounting

for A-theoretical properties as weakly emergent.

The view that A-theoretical properties are weakly

emergent is superior to competing explanations, i.e., Mel-

lor (1998) and Prosser (2012), for two related reasons.

Firstly, Mellor’s and Prosser’s explanations assume that

our experiences of the passing of time are illusory. As such

they are inconsistent with SET theories, which aim to

explain that our subjective experiences track real time.

Secondly, by assuming that all experiences of time passing

are illusory, neither Mellor nor Prosser’s proposals can

explain why the brain sometimes tracks the passing of time

correctly and other times incorrectly. Their views entail

that all of our experiences are non-veridical, and if theories

of time are necessary, they entail that all of our experiences

are necessarily non-veridical. This is inconsistent with

contemporary theories of perception, which treat some

experiences as veridical and others as falsidical. The pro-

posed view is consistent with both the aims and assump-

tions made by SET theories and other theories of

perception. In addition to being consistent with SET the-

ories, our proposal also plays an important explanatory

role: it explains what sorts of properties our brain clock

may in fact be tracking. By positing that the brain tracks

weakly emergent A-theoretical properties, the proposed

account adds an important piece to an otherwise puzzling

brain behavior.

5 Concluding Remarks

We have argued that even if there is no need for A-theo-

retical properties at the fundamental level of reality, since

the standard theory to time is not committed to any such

properties, it does not follow that our experiences of

A-theoretical properties are illusory and that A-theoretical

properties are not real. A-theoretical properties were lik-

ened to properties such as being solid to illustrate that there

is no need to deny that our experience of the passing of

time is, for the most part, veridical. Properties such as

being solid are weakly emergent properties that arise at a

particular level of organization and complexity. Similarly,

A-theoretical properties can be thought of as weakly

emergent even if the B-theory of time is, in fact, true.

Models of how the brain tracks time support the claim that

A-theoretical properties are at least weakly emergent

properties, more so than the claim that A-theoretical

properties have no real existence.

Although the story we painted thus far is very plausible,

a stronger conclusion might be tenable. For it might turn

out that A-theoretical properties must be treated as funda-

mental properties after all. This is because the explanation

of how the brain tracks time is gappy. SET theories do not

explain how it is possible for perceptual experience to

represent enduring objects, if A-theoretical properties are

not primitive, irreducible properties. A closer look at what

it is for endurance to be presented in experience seems to

suggest that endurance requires treating A-theoretical

properties as primitive, irreducible properties.

The argument that endurance entails that there are prim-

itive A-theoretical properties begins with David Lewis’

problem of temporary intrinsics, which is supposed to

establish that objects perdure. As is familiar from the liter-

ature on persistence, there are two potential ways that

material bodies may persist through time (Lewis 1986; Sider

1997, 2001; Rea 1998; Hawley 2010). On the endurance

view, material bodies persist through time by enduring. To a

first approximation, an object endures just in case it is wholly

present at each time at which it exists. On this view, material

objects do not have temporal parts. On the perdurance view,

objects persist through time by perduring. An object perdures

by having different temporal parts at different times. The

problem of temporary intrinsics runs as follows: John

sometimes has a straight shape and sometimes a bent shape.

So, John has both a straight and a bent shape, which is con-

tradictory. Lewis argues that presentism, a special version of

the A-theory that states that only present things exist, avoids

this problem because there is no existing time at which John

is both bent and straight. Although Lewis only mentions that

presentism blocks the argument, it is plausible that any

version the A-theory would block it. For example, the pas-

sage view that states that only present things are concrete

Time and Time Perception

123

would have the same effect. So, we can take Lewis’s argu-

ment, if sound, to establish the following entailment:

If the B-theory is true, then perdurantism is true

A common response to the argument, which Lewis

himself entertained, is to treat all apparently intrinsic

properties as relations to times (Lewis 1986). ‘John is

straight-relative-to-t1 and bent-relative-to-t2’ is not a con-

tradiction. Lewis dismissed this reply on the grounds that it

is implausible to think that all properties are extrinsic.

Lewis has a good point. Although the relational view for-

mally solves the problem, it does so only by making times

constituents of all properties, which is highly unsatisfac-

tory. An alternative reply is to argue that apparently

intrinsic properties are instantiated only relative to a time

(Brogaard 2012). This view follows from the doctrine that

the content of utterances must be evaluated for truth rela-

tive to particular times rather than just relative to the world

as a whole. Since there is no time at which John is both

straight and bent, there is no contradiction. A particular

version of this view is adverbialism, according to which

John has the property being-straight in a t1-way at t1, but he

fails to have that same property in a t2-way at t2. However

we spell out the details, this solution formally blocks

Lewis’ argument without assuming that all properties are

extrinsic.

There is, however, a variation on the argument that

cannot be dismissed as easily. The argument runs as follows:

If x is F at t1, and y is not F at t2, then x and y are dis-

cernible. However, if x = y, then x and y are indiscernible.

So, if x is F at t1, and y is not F in t2, then x is not identical to

y. But if x is not identical to y, then identity through time is

not strict identity but some mereological relation that binds

together the temporal parts of objects (Lewis 1986; Kitcher

1990: 123; Sider 2001). It follows that perdurantism is true.

Notice that, in this case, treating properties as instantiated

only relative to times does not block the argument’s first

premise if the B-theory is true. This is because a B-theo-

retical framework does not prevent us from comparing x and

y with respect to the world as a whole. But with respect to

the world as a whole, if x is F at t1 and y is not F at t2, then x

and y are discernible. It’s only within a metaphysics that

prevents cross-time comparisons, viz., a world in which

every time is not equally respectable ontologically, that the

argument can be blocked by taking properties to be instan-

tiated only relative to times. So, it is only if the B-theory is

true, that we can infer that perdurantism is true. In other

words, if each time is equally ontologically respectable, then

objects are spread out across time and hence are not

enduring. It follows that if there are any enduring entities,

then there are ontologically primitive or irreducible A-the-

oretical properties. So, if we can show that there are any

entities that endure, then it follows that the A-theory is true.

If this argument is cogent, A-theoretical properties would

not merely be weakly emergent properties but rather irre-

ducible ontological primitives.

In sum, we have argued that A-theoretical properties

might be weakly emergent properties, which, as we have

shown, is not only sufficient for explaining why we experi-

ence time as passing but also consistent with contemporary

theories on time perception. In addition, we suggested that a

stronger claim might be equally plausible, viz., that A-the-

oretical properties are fundamental or irreducible properties.

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