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- John A. Michon
- University of Groningen
- Research Master Symposium
- ‘Timed Behaviour’
- 20 April 2007
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- Mental activity takes time ð Mental Chronometry (1790)
- Timing our mind, also known as tuning, is a matter of automatic
processing external (perceptual or presented) and internal (stored =
or
represented) information; timing our minds enables us to stay in ph=
ase
with an intrinsically dynamic world
- How do we experience time? ð Time Sense (1850)
- Minding our time is a a consciously controlled way of dealing with
those aspects of the dynamic world to which we have not been tuned =
by
evolution or learning
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- Clock theories (Newton, 1687)
- “Absolute, true and mathematical time, of itself, and from its
own nature, flows equably without relation to anything external.=
221;
- Clock time is invariant under translation along the time-axis...
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- Clock theories (Newton, 1687)
- “Absolute, true and mathematical time, of itself, and from its
own nature, flows equably without relation to anything external.=
221;
- Time is invariant under translation along the time-axis... but
experienced time is not!
- Relational theories (Leibniz, 1675)
- “Time as such is not perceived; what is actually perceived is=
the
variety of objects in a changing order of relationships to each oth=
er
and to the perceiver as well.”
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- Local Time
- Leibniz’ position excludes absolute, universal time and
introduces a relativity theory avant la lettre
- Time is a local phenomenon depending on the relations between event=
s,
and on the perspective of the observer
- Time does not appear as an exogenous parameter, but as an endogenou=
s operator,
that is, as a rule of transformation which allows the system’s
dynamical relations to hold homogeneously for the entire system
(Prigogine, 1980)
- Three questions about local time:
- Encoding:
How does the local-time perspective fit the metric and topo=
logy
of time?
- Affordance:
How do we relate to the temporal affordances in the
environment?
- Rationality:
How do we acquire rational representations of local time?=
li>
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- Rosen (1985): ‘Anticipatory systems’
- ... different aspects of time capture different essential qualitie=
s of
our time-sense just as different observables capture different
qualities of natural systems. Each of them allows a different kind =
of dynamical
encoding to be built upon it.
- Port & Van Gelder (1995): ‘Mind as motion’
- ... Somehow [we] manage to handle information contained in process=
es
that unfold over time
without reliance on buffered sensory traces or on measurements in =
=09
absolute units.
- Prigogine (1980): ‘From being to becoming’
- ... events that involve such complex systems as humans must be
described as processes localized in time and space and not merely as
trajectories through phase
space as clas=
sical
physics and even quantum mechanics have it.
- Barbour (1999): ‘The end of time’
... Time is truly nothing but a measure of intrinsic change=
. I
seek to reduce the hard evidence for time and motion – our di=
rect
awareness of them in consciousness – to a time capsule struct=
ure
in our brains.
- Leyton (1992): ‘Symmetry, causality, mind’
... The mind assigns to any shape a process-history explain=
ing
how the shape was formed. Perception concerns the recovery of time =
that
is locked into the environment: Shape is Time.
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- Affordances: furniture of the temporal ‘Umwelt’
- The ‘case’ of Sir John Franklin
- The case of Gisela Leibold
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- Affordances: furniture of the temporal ‘Umwelt’
- A sampling of research topics
- ‘Natural computation’ (Richards)
- ‘Representational kinematics’ (Shepard)
- ‘Process-history recovery’ (Leyton)
- ‘Dynamic affordances’ (Freyd)
- Representational impulse
- Animated movement
- Frozen images
- ‘Dynamic attending’ (M. R. Jones)
- ‘Naive physics’ (Hayes)
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- The “dive-in-ableness” of a water surface
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- Maintenant, voici ce principe, si sage, si digne de l’Etre
suprême: Lorsqu’il arrive quelque changement dans la Nat=
ure,
la quantité d’action employée pour ce changement=
est
toujours la plus petite qu’il soit possible.
- Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis (1744)
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- Is a transdisciplinary programme feasible?
- Prominent constraints:
- Local (relational) vs. universal (absolute) time
- Affordance: unification of structure and function
- Encoding: Topology and metric
- Rationality and the Principle of Least Action
- Starting-points:
- Time is a process
- Time is inherent in cognitive systems
- Time is relational and local
- Representations of time aim for reducing the functional complexity =
of a
dynamic environment
- What next?
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- “One should eventually be able to provide the design
specifications for an intelligent system that, by dealing with a dyn=
amic
environment, could succeed in timing its mind and that also, by
explicitly manipulating its temporal experience, might be said to be=
minding
its time.”
- &nb=
sp;
John A. Michon (at The Time Summit of 1981)
- Three good reasons for such an enterprise:
- Methodological: functional theory
- Sociological: we are no longer ‘alone’ in this world
- Technological: need for ‘real time’ support
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- No add-on clocks
- No add-on ‘temporal monitor’
- Grammar for action timing
- Grammar for multitasking
- Planning strategies
- Procedural semantics for reflection
- Temporal logic
- Routines for preventing frame problem
- (computational explosion)
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