The duration of presence
pp. 101-113
in: Valtteri Arstila, Peter Øhrstrøm (eds), Philosophy and psychology of time, Berlin, Springer, 2016Abstract
Regarding the present experience in the here and now, the question arises as to what the temporal limits of conscious awareness are. At least three levels of temporal present pertaining to temporal integration with different duration can be discerned: (1) in the range of milliseconds, the functional moment defines whether events are perceived as simultaneous or as appearing temporally ordered; (2) in the range of up to 2 or 3 s, the experienced moment is related to temporal segmentation which enables the conscious awareness of the present moment; (3) in the range of multiple seconds, continuity of experience is formed by working memory processes leading to the sense of mental presence. Present experience is a single unitary state. Therefore, experiences on lower levels of temporal integration are embedded and discontinuously fused into the highest level of integration: mental presence. Events occurring within an experienced moment are phenomenally present and integrated into working memory-related mental presence.