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Time

“Intense pleasure sweeps time out of mind. In rare moments – when the sun sinks into the sea, when thoughts couple to form a metaphor, when lovers come together – all awareness focuses on the here and now. When we are absorbed in thought or action, consciousness advances gracefully along the retreating edge of the present moment and we feel spontaneous and integrated” (Keen, S., & Valley-Fox, A., 1973, p. 7).

Cognitive scientist John Vervaeke describes the state of ‘being in the moment’ or ‘flow‘ as dynamically integrated with the particular environment or context in question, “characterized by a dynamic cascade of insight, coupled with enhanced implicit learning” (Ferraro, Herrera-Bennett, & Vervaeke, April 2018).

Philosopher Chris Eliasmith states cognition does not “rely on ‘clock ticks’ or on the completion of a particular task, rather it is captured by a continual evolution of interacting system parts which are always reacting to, and interacting with the environment and each other” (1998, p. 307). This echoes Henri Bergson’s observation that “automatism and repetition, which prevail everywhere except in man, should warn us that living forms are not only halts: This work of marking time is not the forward movement of life” (1920, p. 31).

“We humans exist in time; we act in time, and we cognize in time – real time. Therefore, dynamical systems theory, which has been applied successfully in other fields to predict complex temporal behaviors, should be applied to the complex temporal behavior of cognitive agents… natural cognition is indeed inherently temporal in nature” (Eliasmith, 1998, p. 310).

What would it mean to live forever, or to somehow renew oneself? If we speculate that we are someday able to capture a snapshot of the vastly complex dynamical state-space of our cognitive and biological processes, and all of their information, could we, as with our computers, reload or revert to a previous version? Could this see us then grow back into a younger, healthier version of ourselves, effectively sidestepping senescence?

Noted biologist E.O. Wilson suggests such notions of eternal life, whether as speculated, or through uploading some instantiation of our consciousness into a machine or onto a different substrate, could in fact wind up being more of an eternal hell than any notion of a sweet hereafter:

“You will exist in a state of bliss – whatever that is – forever. And those who didn’t make it are going to be consigned to darkness or hell. Now think a trillion times a trillion years. Enough time for universes like this to be born, explode, form countless star systems and planets, then fade away to entropy. You will sit there watching this happen millions and millions of times and that will just be the beginning of an eternity that you’ve been consigned to bliss in this existence”, unless, as Wilson states, “we were able to evolve into something else… But we are not something else” (2010, p. 29).

Bergson, H. (1920), Creation; The Goal in Life, in Mind-Energy, translated by H. Wildon Carr (pp. 29 – 35). New York, United States: Henry Holt and Co.

Eliasmith, C. (1998), The Third Contender: A Critical Examination of the Dynamicist Theory of Cognition, in Thagard, P. (ed.) Mind Readings: Introductory Selections on Cognitive Science (pp. 303 – 333). Cambridge, United States: The MIT Press

Ferraro, L., Herrera-Bennett, A., & Vervaeke, J. (April 2018) Flow as Spontaneous Thought: Insight and Implicit Learning, in The Oxford Handbook of Spontaneous Thought: Mind-Wandering, Creativity, and Dreaming (pp. 1 – 31) [PDF document]. Retrieved July 2021. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190464745.013.8

Keen, S., & Valley-Fox, A. (1973), The Present: It’s a Long Way to Here and Now, in Your Mythic Journey: Finding Meaning in Your Life through Writing and Storytelling. Los Angeles, United States: Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc. (1989 ed.)

Wilson, E. O. (2010), in Paulson, S. (Ed.), Atoms and Eden: Conversations on Religion & Science (pp 19 – 30). New York, United States: Oxford University Press.

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Attention

In 1964 Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan made the prescient observation:

“Rapidly, we approach the final phase of the extensions of man – the technological simulation of consciousness, when the creative process of knowing will be collectively and corporately extended to the whole of human society, much as we have already extended our senses and our nerves by the various media” (1964, p.19).

Is our awareness being hijacked by the barks and ululations echoing through the streets and civic squares of McLuhan’s Global Village, a community whose digital tentacles reach out hypnotically pulling us this way and that? Do we willfully allow ourselves to be commandeered by every other stray notion that makes its way into our head through our various sense gates and technological interfaces?

Attention, according to Wikipedia, “is the behavioral and cognitive process of selectively concentrating on a discrete aspect of information, whether considered subjective or objective, while ignoring other perceivable information. It is a state of arousal” (retrieved July 2020).

While in design school, as many hours were spent coming up with clever, often humourous word-plays and visual double-entendres to get people’s attention, as were expended on the actual technical production of such pieces of commercial art. Creativity in this sense is valued for its ability to flesh out these hooks, to find the correct lure that invites a quick z-shaped scan of a print advertisement, having one’s focus perhaps then land on a brand logo, some call to action, or otherwise imploring the eventual opening of a wallet. A firm builds up its image through consistent public displays in digital, print, televised, and outdoor media. Many digital messages we now receive are targeted, sidestepping the need for creative appeals to our attention. Data says we’re already interested in this product, service, or idea, while technology says “click here” and skip directly to the wallet-opening or sign-me-up part.

Beyond the consumer sphere, can an increased efficacy in targeting and seizing our minds using technology more generally, even pushing them to action, have any positive effects? Is the arresting of our attention through something we’ve revealed, whether publicly or privately, ethical in certain contexts? If it is, should it still be mitigated, given the truth-bending ability of technology and bad actors? Are we capable of changing our stance on a topic or idea whilst being insidiously steered in a different direction? Moreover, must the scope of our critical thinking skills widen to include scrutiny beyond the appeals to our fear and ego, beyond the truth, whether distorted, to the intentions and motives underlying the images, messages, narratives, and actions we now encounter?

McLuhan, M. (1964) Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York, United States: McGraw-Hill