Cracking the Neural Code of How the Brain Represents Time May Make the Dualistic Stance Obsolete

Abstract

Abstract This is an invited commentary on the position paper of Gruber, Block and Montemayor (2022). First, I oppose the premise in Gruber et al.’s proposal according to which there exists a ‘real’ and an ‘illusory’ time. Second, our knowledge about the universe is hypothesized, tested, and verified by the most complex physical systems known to date (brains) hence postulating the coexistence of an ‘absolute’ and a ‘real’, or an ‘illusory’ and a ‘nonillusory’ time might be unnecessary. Instead, and parsimoniously, (organic or atomic) measuring devices for duration, simultaneity, order, and so forth, have variable precision. The most exquisite clock is atomic, a good enough one for survival on Earth is at the scale of neural networks. A difference between measuring devices and brains is that the latter compute on stored temporal information. Last, I suggest additional gadgets for the Information Gathering and Utilizing Systems (IGUs) proposal. In sum, I oppose some of the theoretical premises while lending support to the idea that representing temporal statistics is a useful heuristics for some aspects of temporal cognition. From the cognitive neuroscience standpoint, IGUs are compatible with information-theoretic approaches, and with current Bayesian and predictive models implemented in neural systems, in which brains code information and compute on symbolic representations.