The Time of Brain Science and the Time of Physics

Abstract

Abstract Buonomano and Rovelli (unpubl. manuscript, 2021) and Gruber, Block, and Montemayor (Front. Psychol., 2022, 13, art. 718505) grapple with the problem that we experience both a present moment and a flow of time, yet neither of those things seems to be recognised in physics. This paper makes three points about that. The present moment in perception is not the same as the present moment in physics because they occupy radically different time scales, 10–44 s in physics and something in the millisecond range in perception. The information about what is currently being perceived is experienced as in the present not because it is but because it is all labelled with time markers saying that it is the present; there are similar time markers identifying still active historical information as in the past. The flow of time is not generated by actual change over time but by an information structure existing at a single moment of time that represents change over connected time markers. Whether there is an actual present and an actual flow of time in the universe or not, the experienced present and experienced flow of time are perceptual constructs and nothing more.