4 Toward a meta-perspective for considering the metaphysics of first- versus third-person perspective

It is my contention that debates about how to reconcile the first- and third-person perspective on reality arise in part from the distinct vantages that different scholars take on the issue. The problem in a nutshell is that while the prevailing third-person perspective of science (material reductionism) does an admirable job of accounting for all aspects of reality that are revealed from its vantage, it robustly fails to accommodate several self-evident aspects of existence that are uniquely apparent from a first-person perspective. If one simply dismisses those aspects of the first-person perspective that are incongruent with the third-person perspective, (as most scientists and many philosophers do), then there is no problem. However, here I will argue that there exist self-evident observations derived from the first-person perspective that are as compelling as any objective fact. Such observations should not be simply dismissed as irrelevant or illusory but rather suggest the need of serious revision to current accounts of physical reality (for related arguments see Chalmers 2002; Nagel 2012). In the following section, I first review the material reductionist account suggested by the prevailing third-person perspective view. I then consider several elements of existence revealed by a first-person perspective that seem to have no place in this account, most notably subjective experience, the flow of time, and the distinctiveness of the present. Finally, I offer some speculative remarks about the nature of a meta-perspective that might be able to accommodate both vantages.

4.1 Ontological third-person
perspective—Material reductionism

When reality is conceived of strictly from the vantage of a third-person perspective, it quite naturally leads to the premise of material reductionism, namely that everything including the arising of subjective experience can be accommodated on the basis of physical principles that do not themselves make any appeal to consciousness. This account is arguably the prevailing view among both scientists (e.g., Crick 1994; Bloom 2009; Graziano 2013) and philosophers (e.g., Dennett 1993; Churchland 1989; Metzinger 2004). Its strength comes from its remarkable record of success. Having abandoned the superstitions and spiritual whimsies of the past, hard-nosed science has an amazing track record for explaining everything it has been directed toward with purely physical constructs. Aspects of reality that were once thought to be beyond the ken of the third-person perspective of science, for example the notion of some sort of mystical force of life, élan vital, have been reduced to rigorous formalisms (e.g., DNA code). Admittedly, we do not currently have a full accounting of how it is that we experience a first-person perspective on reality, but given science’s track record, it is presumed to be merely a matter of time before these experiences are explained with precisely the same type of accounts that have been used so successfully to explain so much so far (Churchland 1989). People may feel as if they have some type of privileged perspective, as if the view from within their own minds could never be reduced to and explained by the machinations of atoms, but this is just shortsightedness, perhaps fueled by some evolutionary advantage to view mind and matter as different (Bloom 2009).

There is much to be said for material reductionism, as it draws on the very assumptions that have led to the remarkable progress of science. To appeal to the existence of some other distinct realm of reality beyond the objectively physical smacks of ghosts and fairy dust (e.g., Jackson 1982). To date, while the previous analysis has revealed the marked advances to our understanding that emerge when we consider people’s first-person perspectives, no explanation in science has required abandoning an exclusive reliance on mutually verifiable third-person observations. In other words, although I will soon suggest cases that may challenge this tradition, to date there are no third-person accounts of physical phenomena that have been undermined solely because they conflict with first-person experience. Given the track record of third-person accounts, it may seem hard to justify why one scientific question (the arising of conscious experience) should challenge an ontological perspective that is not problematic for anything else.

4.2 Ontological first-person perspective—What material reductionism leaves out

Although material reductionism provides an outstanding vantage for accounting for the physical world, it comes up wanting when the mind is inspected from a first-person perspective. The essential challenge is that even if a materialistic explanation is able to account for how the mind functions, this does not explain how it is that there is a subjective experience associated with it, or why that experience is as it is. As Jackson (1982) puts it:

Tell me everything physical there is to tell about what is going on in a living brain, the kind of states, their functional role, their relation to what goes on at other times and in other brains, and so on and so forth, and be I as clever as can be in fitting it all together, you won't have told me about the hurtfulness of pains, the itchiness of itches, pangs of jealousy, or about the characteristic experience of tasting a lemon, smelling a rose, hearing a loud noise or seeing the sky. (p. 127)

Jackson introduces the canonical example of Mary the color scientist to illustrate this point. Imagine that Mary is a color scientist who has been brought up in a black and white room and has never experienced red; nevertheless, she knows all there is to know about the physical processes relevant to color vision. Jackson’s point is that if she later experiences red firsthand, she will learn a new fact (the experience of red) that all of her physical knowledge was insufficient to provide. Complete physical knowledge about a subjective experience is insufficient to entirely know all there is to know about that experience. One has to actually have the first-person experience to fully understand it.

A second criticism of material reductionism involves its inability to explain the arising of conscious experience. It is quite straightforward to imagine how physical processes could account for the structure and function of the mind in much the same way that they can explain the structure of computer hardware and the functions of computer software. But such an account would not explain how subjectivity itself arises or what it is like from the vantage of the experiencer. Similarly, even if we were to create a computer that perfectly emulated a conscious being, we could not know whether it was genuinely conscious, and if it were, “what it is like to be” (Nagel 1974) a computer.

The inherent difficulty of conceptualizing how material objects enjoy subjective experience is further illustrated by a third criticism of material reductionism, namely that it is possible to conceive of a system that has all of the physical characteristics of a conscious being, but nevertheless lacks consciousness. Philosophical zombies (Chalmers 1995) are hypothetical human beings who have no internal experience but are otherwise identical to normal people in all other physical measurements and behaviors (including claiming that they are conscious). Although there is no way of demonstrating that such creatures could ever exist, there is also no way of demonstrating that they couldn’t. Finding the neural correlates of consciousness helps not an iota, as even a zombie who reported consciousness in certain brain states would still not be actually enjoying a genuine experiential state. If zombies that are physically indistinguishable from experiencing humans could in principle exist, then there is nothing inherent in what is known about physical systems that speaks to the arising of consciousness. This presents a major problem to the prevailing material reductionist view because it offers no way to distinguish between philosophical zombies and the non-zombies.

The essential problem of the exclusively third-person perspective of material reductionism is that it is forced to ignore all aspects of experience that cannot be reduced to a third-person perspective. A thought experiment may help to provide a further “intuition pump” (Dennett 2014) for illustrating just how special that extra something might be. Consider the following science fiction variant on the classic Faustian bargain (Goethe 1867). One day, to your amazement, a flying saucer lands in front of you and a member of a clearly more advanced species emerges and says that he/she (it’s unclear) has been enjoying our debates about the mind-body problem, which his/her civilization has solved. If philosophical zombies are logically[3] possible, you can be turned into one. He/she offers you all the gold you can imagine (they’ve also mastered alchemy) if you are willing to accept the risk of becoming a zombie. If a zombie is a logical possibility, you will be transformed into one. From everyone else’s perspective (i.e., the third-person perspective), you will be exactly as you were before (just much richer). However, you will not actually have any experience at all; you will simply seem to others as if you do. Would you take the bargain? Hard-nosed material reductionists say they would (D. Dennett, personal communication, 7/15/2014; M. Graziano, 6/10/2014, personal communication), but many of the rest of us might not. What is the value of untold wealth, if there is no inner experience by which it can be enjoyed?

The Zombie Faustian Bargain serves as a useful intuition pump for illustrating the importance of the extra something that is left out of the third-person material reductionist perspective. Nevertheless, it is clearly a fanciful proposition and material reductionists might reasonably argue that there is not much to worry about if the only cost to adopting their view is not knowing how to respond to such an unlikely scenario. However, there are numerous other examples closer to home where the limits of a third-person accounting of consciousness become relevant. Issues surrounding the nature and existence of consciousness in other species, fetuses, and computers all revolve around inferences about first-person experiences that gravely exceed all known or conceived ways of reconciliation.

A less obvious domain for a clash between the current prevailing third-person perspective of science and first-person experiences arises in, of all places, physics. Although there has been some speculation, now largely disregarded by the mainstream, that consciousness could have something to do with the collapse of the wave function in quantum physics (Wigner & Margenau 1967), in general, consciousness is assumed to have little relevance to physics. However, there are two current assumptions in physics that seem to squarely contradict first-person experience. Specifically, physicists believe that the flow of time is an illusion and that there is nothing special about the present. Before considering why these claims are so problematic for the existence of subjective experience, let us first consider why physics makes this claim.

4.3 Why physicists dismiss the flow of time and the privileged present

In considering the nature of time, physicists often “spatialize” it. In other words, they attempt to place it on a similar footing to the traditional three dimensions of space (see Figure 10). Though differing from spatial dimensions in important respects (Einstein 2001), the notion of time as similar to a spatial dimension is a key feature of the prevailing Einstein/Minkowski interpretation of special relativity theory. Space and time are combined in this theory into one concept: space-time. The spatialization of time allows the depiction of a “block universe” in which the traditional spatial dimensions are reduced (for purposes of visual illustration) to two dimensions from three, and time is added as a third dimension. Such a depiction can be thought of as a space-time “loaf of bread,” where each narrow cross- section of the loaf (“slice”) constitutes a moment in time of the entire universe. According to the block universe view (widely held by today’s physicists), all slices—past, present, and future—already exist. This arises from the relativity of simultaneity, which means that “now” is different for different observers. It is simply that each individual observer is privy to only one moment (slice) at a time. From the vantage of a block universe, the only thing that seems to actually move in time is consciousness itself (i.e., the observer). This means that from the vantage of the prevailing view of physics, the flow of time is not a part of objective reality but simply an artifact of subjective experience. As Stanford physicist Linde (2004) notes: “Thus we see that without introducing an observer, we have a dead universe that does not evolve in time” (p. 25). What is more, once we conceive of the temporal dimension as the equivalent of another spatial dimension, then there are not enough degrees of freedom for the observer to move in time; that is, movement requires a rate in time, but time in the block universe is already represented as a spatial dimension, and thus cannot also be used as the metric that establishes the rate of movement through time. As the physicist Paul Davies (2002) puts it:

Nothing other than a conscious observer registers the flow of time. A clock measures durations between events much as a measuring tape measures distance between places; it does not measure the ‘speed’ with which one moment succeeds another. Therefore it appears that the flow is subjective, not objective. (p. 36)

The upshot of this reasoning is that the flow of time is an illusion, an artifact of consciousness. Again, as Davies (2002) puts it: “From the fixed past to the tangible present to the undecided future, it feels as though time flows inexorably on. But that is an illusion” (p. 32).

Figure 12: Although the conventional view derived from experience is that the present is real and moves through time, current views in physics say this is erroneous. According to the standard block universe view in physics, all moments—past, present, and future—are equally real. The flow of time and the privileged present are seen as illusions of consciousness (from Davies2002).

The characterization of reality as a block universe, with the flow of time as an illusion of consciousness, also leads to the conclusion that the privileged present is an illusion. One of the most pronounced aspects of consciousness is its extension in time. Consciousness extends in time and thereby gains the “now” in which it resides. First-person observers may remember the past or imagine the future (as often happens during mind-wandering) but ultimately mental time travel always takes place in the present. The observer perpetually and exclusively resides in the present. In this sense, it seems intuitively self-evident that the “now” is privileged. But not so from the current vantage of the block universe in physics, where the present is treated exactly the same as the past and the future. As Einstein himself observed, “The past, present and future are only illusions, even if stubborn ones” (quoted in Hoffmann & Dukas 1972, p. 258). Again, the problem is that the only thing that defines the present from the vantage of a block universe is that it is where the observer perceives itself to be at any particular moment in time. But from the vantage of a block universe, all moments of time exist simultaneously.

The notions that the flow of time and the privileged present are merely illusions of consciousness are less problematic from a third-person perspective than the first-person perspective. If there is no ultimate reality to subjectivity, then there is no problem making claims that are directly in opposition to subjective experience. At a recent public lecture, I asked the noted physicist Brian Greene how he reconciled physics’ static view of nature with the self-evidently dynamic experience of consciousness. His reply was that he “sees a psychiatrist,” that consciousness is capable of all sorts of illusions, and that the flow of time is just another example of the artifacts of consciousness.

While as detailed in the earlier section of this paper, I am the first to concede that our first-person reports can be fallible, as consciousness is capable of all sorts of illusions, it is hard for me to conceive of how consciousness could create an illusion of the flow of time, or the privileged present. There are several reasons why I am skeptical of this claim. First, just as matter must have extension in space in order to exist, so too it seems that consciousness must have extension in time. If consciousness had no “thickness” in time, then I simply do not understand how it could exist any more than an object could exist without some extension in space. Time is the dimension in which consciousness extends. Although the objective duration of the specious present (James 1918) may be rather modest (Pöppel 1997) without at least some extension in time I do not see how there can be any consciousness at all. Second, my experience is defined in terms of the flow of time and a privileged present; the stream of my consciousness is essentially a succession of “nows,” with the present always entailing the bridge between the past now and the future now. In a nutshell, from my first-person perspective I find the reality of the flow of time and the privileged present as compelling as the existence of physical reality itself (which also could in principle be an illusion, Descartes 1641/1996).

4.4 Reconciling first- and third-person perspectives of reality

Those who subscribe to a strict material reductionist perspective insist that when first-person experience suggests characteristics of reality that are not readily handled by a third-person account, that those aspects must be rejected. From a strict materialist perspective, the seemingly privileged knowledge afforded by subjective experience, the flow of time, and the unique significance of the present all must be disregarded as illusions of consciousness. But herein lies the rub. The third-person perspective on reality is adequate as long as it provides constructs that correspond to the core aspects of the first-person perspective. However, when that perspective requires me to abandon absolutely fundamental aspects of my experience, then I am forced to question the assumptions that impose that requirement.

Whether we acknowledge it or not, all of us must discern for ourselves what aspects of existence to take as axiomatic. By definition, axioms cannot be empirically proven or logically deduced, rather they are self-evident truths that must be taken as givens. Perhaps the most fundamental of all such axioms is that physical reality exists; i.e., that I am not residing in a solipsistic mirage. Ultimately, while I grant the ontological reality of the physical world, in an important sense I am less epistemologically certain of it than I am of partaking in subjective experience. Ultimately, the only thing that I can know with absolute confidence is that I am currently enjoying a first-person experience (Descartes 1996). Physical reality could be a dream, I could be a brain in a vat or the matrix, indeed even my past could be an illusion, but there is simply no question but that I am currently having an experience. It might be an illusory experience[4], but even an illusory experience is still experienced. Thus, although it is conceivable that physical reality could be an illusion, it is inconceivable (at least to me) that the occurrence of my subjective experience could be entirely baseless. This leads me to conclude that the existence of subjective experience and all premises that necessarily underpin its existence must be treated on equal ontological grounds to that of physical reality. Accordingly, if we grant subjective experience an ontological status equivalent to that of objective reality then we must seriously question any characterization of objective reality that challenges the essential qualities of subjective reality. While much of our subjective experience may be an illusion, it is very difficult to see how the privileged vantage of subjective experience, the flow of time, or the unique status of the present could be such. To quote the philosopher David Ray Griffin (2007): “The reality of time is a more fundamental and stubborn fact than the alleged facts on which its denial is based” (p. 119).

A variety of approaches has been offered to accommodate the seeming limitations of a purely physical accounting of consciousness. Idealism (Berkeley 1878; Goswami 1993; Hoffman 2008) responds to the seemingly superior ontological status of subjective experience (i.e., its existence is more certain than an inferred external reality) by suggesting that if one must be reduced to the other, then it should be physical reality that is seen to be an outgrowth of subjectivity, rather than the other way round (as the material reductionists contend). Although difficult to refute, idealism (at least in the macro sense of conscious beings creating reality with consciousness) appears to discount the independent existence of a natural world, and thus seems at odds with a scientific vantage.

Another approach for reconciling the seemingly incommensurate existence of the subjective and objective is to pose that they both exist as two interacting yet distinct realms. This approach (substance dualism) was favored by Descartes, but it has a serious logical deficiency (at least as originally formulated): if two realms are truly incommensurate and distinct, then there seems to be no way for them to interact. To posit a “ghost in the machine” (Ryle 2009) is to assume that the ghost can affect the machine, which means that they share some common ground and therefore are not entirely distinct realms. This difficulty has proven a major problem for substance dualism (Armstrong 1999), although see Chalmers (2002) for arguments as to why the challenge of understanding the causal nexus between the mental and physical is not unlike similar issues of causality observed within the physical realm.

In my view, the seeming impasse between the third- and first-person perspectives of reality strongly suggests the existence of some other meta-perspective that can accommodate them both. Like the reversible images that can initially invoke one of two entirely opposed interpretations, but that can subsequently be reconciled from a vantage that recognizes the reality of both, (even if they cannot be both apprehended simultaneously) so too it seems there must be some meta-perspective for reconciling first- and third-person vantages on reality. In other words, it seems likely that there exists a higher order outlook that simultaneously acknowledges the manner in which neither perspective can simply be reduced to the other, yet still offers a mode of resolution. It is clearly easier to recognize the need for a meta-perspective than to identify precisely what such a view might be. Nevertheless, it seems a goal well worth pursuing.

Over the years, a number of scholars have tried their hand at envisioning a vantage that neither tries to reduce the subjective to the physical, nor the physical to the subjective, but rather conceives of some common ground or property that may be reflective of both. This approach, often referred to as neutral monism (Chalmers 2002; Feigl 1958; James 1904; Russell 1927), though with close affinities to dual aspect theories (e.g., Jackson 1982; Nagel 1986; Spinoza 1677/1985; Velmans 2009), attempts to identify a neutral realm of existence that can be alternately characterized as mental, physical, or neither.

The ever-changing present represents a core element of the common ground between subjectivity and objectivity that is invoked in several accountings of neutral monism. For William James, the neutral realm was the present:

The instant field of the present is at all times what I call the ‘pure’ experience. It is only virtually or potentially either object or subject as yet. For the time being, it is plain, unqualified actuality, or existence, a simple that. (1904, p. 23)

For Bertrand Russell, the neutral realm was the event: “Everything in the world is composed of ‘events.’… An ‘event,’ as I understand it … is something occupying a small finite amount of space-time.” For Alfred North Whitehead (1929), the present also served as the nexus of conjunction between the objective and the subjective. In Whitehead’s panpsychic characterization of reality, the interface between first- and third-person perspectives occurs in the “creative advance” of the present in which time marches forward in a continual alternation among all elements of reality between subjective and objective states (for further discussions of Whitehead’s account, see Griffin 2007; Hunt 2011).

Information represents a second element that unites several efforts to find the neutral realm from which both subjectivity and objectivity arise. As Chalmers (1996) observes:

Perhaps, then, the intrinsic nature required to ground the information states is closely related to the intrinsic nature present in phenomenology. Perhaps one is even constitutive of the other. That way, we get away with a cheap and elegant ontology, and solve the two problems in a single blow. (pp. 304–305)

Sayre (1976) similarly argues that “the concept of information provides a primitive for the analysis of both the physical and the mental.” The notion that information somehow serves as the interface between the subjective and the objective is also a central component of Tononi’s (2008) recent suggestion that consciousness arises when matter produces “integrated information,” which is defined as “the amount of information generated by a complex of elements, above and beyond the information generated by its parts” (p. 216). The basic idea is that complex systems that integrate information, even potentially non-nonbiological ones, will experience some minimal amount of consciousness: something it is like to be that system (see also Koch 2012, 2013).

In sum, although there is considerable variability in the manner in which scholars have conceptualized the common ground of reality from which both the objective and subjective emerge, two common elements are 1) that the interface occurs within the ongoing march of the present, and 2) that it is constituted within the shared informational properties entailed in both objective and subjective states. A final shared aspect of many of these approaches is that subjectivity represents a fundamental attribute of the universe that either permeates all aspects of matter (panpsychism), or exists as a potentiality of matter that emerges when certain conditions are met (protopanpsychism; Chalmers 2002). Drawing on these general observations, I turn now to offering my own highly speculative conjectures regarding a meta-perspective on reality that may provide the shared foundation for first- and third-person perspectives.

4.5 The possibility of a subjective dimension of reality

Many scholars who posit that subjectivity is an essential aspect of reality argue that ultimately physics may need to be expanded to include constructs corresponding to subjective states. As the philosopher David Chalmers (1995) observed:

I propose that conscious experience be considered a fundamental feature, irreducible to anything more basic. … In the 19th century it turned out that electromagnetic phenomena could not be explained in terms of previously known principles. As a consequence, scientists introduced electromagnetic charge as a new fundamental entity and studied the associated fundamental laws. Similar reasoning should be applied to consciousness. If existing fundamental theories cannot encompass it, then something new is required. (p. 96)

Eminent physicist Andrei Linde (1990) has also speculated that consciousness may some day be recognized as part of our understanding of physics:

Could it be that consciousness is an equally important part of the consistent picture of our world, despite the fact that so far one could safely ignore it in the description of the well-studied physical processes? Will it not turn out, with the further development of science, that the study of the universe and the study of consciousness are inseparably linked, and that ultimate progress in the one will be impossible without progress in the other? (p. 27)

The critical question, of course, is: What in the physical universe might correspond to the arising of consciousness?

To recap, the physical realm as currently construed offers no place for subjective experience, the flow of time, or the uniqueness of the present. In order to bridge the gap between physical reality and subjectivity, scholars have posited the existence of a neutral realm that gives rise to both. Though varied in their emphasis, two elements have emerged as likely components of this neutral ground: the evolving present and information. Together these considerations suggest that a conjoined first-person/third-person meta-perspective will likely conceptualize subjectivity, the present, and the flow of time within an architecture that closely links information to an ever-changing now. Toward this end I offer the following conjecture: consciousness arises via the changing informational states associated with an observer’s movement through objective time relative to a currently unacknowledged dimension or dimensions of subjective time.

Although speculative and highly underspecified, the above account has intuitive appeal. The sense of moving through time from one informational state to the next is clearly central to experience. Indeed it could well be said that it is the defining aspect of our existence. It is difficult to conceive of experience without invoking movement in time and change in informational state. Recall however that the current block universe portrayal of time provides no way to conceptualize moving through time, as movement in time would require change in time at a rate that could never be specified. As the Physicist Paul Davies observes:

But what meaning can be attached to the movement of time itself? Relative to what does it move? Whereas other types of motion relate one physical process to another, the putative flow of time relates time to itself. Posing the simple question ‘How fast does time pass?’ exposes the absurdity of the very idea. The trivial answer ‘One second per second’ tells us nothing at all. (2002, p. 8)

Thus to move in time requires movement in relationship to some dimension other than time itself. The postulation of an additional temporal dimension allows observers to change information states in objective time relative to subjective time. Indeed, it seems possible (and perhaps even a mathematical necessity) that in order to extend in and move through space-time (i.e., the block universe), there needs to be at least one additional dimension to provide the degree of freedom necessary to enable such movement (Schooler et al. 2011). In other words, if we accept the block universe model[5] of reality, then in order to move through objective time, we have to move relative to something, and that something cannot itself be time because all time exists simultaneously in the block universe. A seemingly reasonable solution is to posit an additional dimension (or dimensions) of time. Although the postulation of additional dimensions of reality should not be taken lightly, it is not without precedent. In physics, string theory has postulated seven additional spatial dimensions beyond the three dimensions of space and one dimension of time that are customarily acknowledged (Greene 2004). If there can be multiple dimensions of space, then might there not also be additional dimensions of time? Indeed, some physicists have argued that an additional dimension of time might be very useful for conceptualizing various issues in physics (Bars et al. 1998). If the postulation of an additional dimension (or dimensions) of subjective time could also resolve the paradox of time and provide a realm for subjectivity, then surely that would also warrant its consideration as a possibility.

I am not the first to suggest that the failure of objective time (as it is currently conceptualized) to afford the flow of time or inner experience may require the postulation of an additional subjective dimension (or dimensions) in which the observer moves relative to physical space-time (e.g., Smythies 2003). Noting the inability of current theories of physics to account for the flow of time or the existence of subjective experience, physicist Linde speculates that dimensions of consciousness may be required to provide the necessary degrees of freedom. Linde (2004) observes:

Is it possible that consciousness, like space-time, has its own intrinsic degrees of freedom, and that neglecting these will lead to a description of the universe that is fundamentally incomplete? What if our perceptions are as real (or maybe, in a certain sense, are even more real) than material objects? What if my red, my blue, my pain, are really existing objects, not merely reflections of the really existing material world? Is it possible to introduce a ‘space of elements of consciousness’….? (p. 451)

I remain agnostic regarding precisely how many additional dimensions may be required in order to provide the degrees of freedom necessary for time to flow and consciousness to have extensions in the present. Indeed, I am not even committed to the notion that such a realm must necessarily be thought of as possessing all of the mathematical formalities of spatial dimensions. My point is simply that the current material reductionist model of reality has left no room for time to flow or now to exist. It is as if physics has built a pendulum clock but left no space for the pendulum to swing. In statistics, there always must be one more degree of freedom than the total number of subjects and conditions so as to leave the freedom for variables to vary. I believe that such degrees of freedom are similarly required to enable experience to flow through time.

A dynamic depiction of the value of adding a second temporal dimension is illustrated in the following three examples depicting a simple event of bottles breaking. The first (Figure 13; see video clip in its description) depicts the event as it would unfold from the first-person perspective, a dramatic shattering of initially intact colored bottles. The second example (Figure 14) transforms this event into a block universe depiction in which objective time is spatialized, and each slice corresponds to a separate moment of the event. Notice that in the block universe representation there is no motion (and hence no video clip), and no singular frame (i.e., slice) corresponds to “now.” However, in the third example (Figure 15; see video clip in its description), an additional temporal dimension is introduced so that the observer can move through the block universe. Frame by frame a moving “now” marches through the block universe. By adding a second temporal dimension to the block universe, the dynamical experience of events unfolding is once again achieved.

Figure 13: An event of breaking vases as it would be experienced from a first-person perspective. See http://open-mind.net/videomaterials/schooler_bootle_loaf5.mp4/view.

 

Figure 14: The breaking vases event is depicted as a block universe, with the temporal dimension spatialized, and each moment corresponding to a separate “slice.” Notice that there is no way to depict “now” and no way to move through it.

 

Figure 15: The breaking vases event is again depicted as a block universe, with the addition of a second temporal dimension. The moving present is represented as successive illuminated slices that progress from moment to moment through the block universe. Notice that witnessing movement through the block universe requires an additional dimension of time as the standard dimension of objective time is already dedicated to spatializing the block universe. See http://open-mind.net/videomaterials/schooler-bottles-loaf-1.mp4/view.

A spatialized depiction of the notion of observers moving through subjective time relative to physical space and objective time is presented in Figures 16–18. As previously, noted, in the standard presentation of the block universe the three dimensions of space are, for graphical depiction, reduced down two dimensions (Figure 16). Here, in order to provide room to depict an additional dimension, physical space is further reduced to one dimension (Figure 17). Within this characterization, it is possible to see how the introduction of an additional dimension of subjective time (Figure 18) provides the necessary degree of freedom to enable an observer to move through time, as they can now move through physical time via a succession of moments in subjective time.

Figure 16: The observer depicted in the standard block universe with two dimensions of space. In the standard block universe, the observer is static and exists simultaneously in all locations. There is an insufficient number of degrees of freedom for the existence of a genuine now or movement in time.

Figure 17: The observer depicted in a standard block universe with one dimension of space. As with the standard convention of depicting the block universe in two spatial dimensions instead of three, the reduction to one spatial dimension is useful for illustrative purposes.

Figure 18: The observer depicted moving through a dynamic block universe with one dimension of physical space and the introduction of an additional subjective temporal dimension. In this model, there are a sufficient number of degrees of freedom to enable the observer to move in objective time relative to subjective time. The present can also be depicted as a series of moments extending in subjective time, objective time, and physical space.

An interesting implication of this characterization is that observers can vary in the granularity (i.e., extent) of their moments. Notice how in Figure 17, the observer with the smaller spatial extent also occupies smaller successive moments in time.[6] Intriguingly, there is evidence to support this view: recent findings suggest that smaller vertebrates may have a different “temporal grain size” relative to larger vertebrates. Specifically, Healy et al. (2013) report a negative correlation between vertebrate size and the highest rate at which they can detect the flickering of a light (the flicker fusion rate). From the vantage of the current discussion, these findings suggest that the consciousness of smaller animals may move through subjective time relative to physical time at a faster rate than larger animals. This may be why it is so hard to swat a fly: from its vantage, we are moving in slow motion.

Figure 19: Two observers depicted moving through a dynamic block universe. Notice how this account enables varying temporal grain sizes between observers.

A critical question that arises in postulating an additional subjective dimension (or dimensions) of time is: what are the properties of this dimension? I have left the answer to this question intentionally vague as I believe under-specification leaves greater room to flesh out the rudimentary idea in various possible ways. With that said, it seems plausible that the subjective temporal dimension(s) could correspond to subjective informational states in the same way that objective informational states correspond to different moments of objective time. As noted, subjective informational states are aligned with but not identical to objective informational states (recall Mary, the color scientist). Moreover, current theories of neutral monism posit information as being one of the core potential interfaces between the objective and the subjective. Thus, characterizing subjective time as corresponding to distinct subjective informational states that are aligned with but not identical to objective informational states seems a promising characterization of the nexus between the objective and the subjective.

A further potential benefit of the conjecture that experience emerges from movement in a subjective temporal dimension relative to objective time is that it provides a potential way of conceptualizing the nature of experience in the universe. Many scholars throughout history, and particularly those sympathetic to neutral monism, have articulated some type of panpsychic vision of nature, where all elements of matter are seen as partaking in some rudimentary experience or proto-experience. Advocates of some version of panpsychism include Spinoza (1677/1985), Leibniz (1989), James (1909), Bergson (1896/1912), and Whitehead (1929). More recent adopters of this view include Hameroff & Powell (2009), Chalmers (1995), Hunt (2011, 2014), Koch 2013, Schooler et al. (2011), Skrbina (2005), and Strawson (2008). The notion that the flow of time emerges by virtue of movement in a subjective temporal dimension relative to an objective one provides a potential way of conceptualizing how all of matter may partake in experience at varying levels of complexity. Accordingly, if experience emerges by movement through a dimension of subjective time relative to objective time, then it seems quite plausible that elements associated with all of matter may be on a shared trajectory through these two (or more) temporal dimensions, and thus may be enjoying some form of experience. In other words, if consciousness emerges from something as potentially ubiquitous as movement through an additional time dimension, then it seems plausible that all matter could enjoy some modicum of experience.

Although the present view provides a way of conceptualizing how matter might partake in at least some rudimentary form of experience, it need not suggest that all objects—collections of matter—are themselves sentient beings. To use Nagel’s (1974) terminology, there need be nothing “that it is like to be” a rock, for example. Rather, the claim is that at some level, the constituent elements of a rock (and all other material objects) partake in at least some very rudimentary kind of experience, what the physicist/philosopher Alfred North Whitehead (1929) referred to as “actual entities”. In other words, according to the panpsychic tradition, matter is constituted of collections of individual elements each of which partake in some minimal experience. The subjective state of these individual experiential elements (or “actual entities”) is presumed to be extremely simple, and for the most part, when they combine, it is assumed that they form “mere aggregates” that do not entail a higher-order experience. However, under some circumstances, and in particular when present in certain organic structures, these simple actual entities may combine to form higher-order actual entities corresponding to the conscious agents that we typically acknowledge as such.

The notion of observers moving through objective time relative to a subjective temporal dimension may offer a possible direction toward solving the perennial “combination problem” of panpsychism, namely discerning how rudimentary proto-experiences of individual elements can combine to form the larger higher -order experiences that we enjoy (Hunt 2011). Accordingly, it seems possible that experience may correspond to oscillations in objective time relative to subjective time. As depicted in Figures 18 and 19, I have speculated that observers may move in subjective time relative to objective time in discrete steps. The precise timing of these steps from one moment to the next could potentially provide the foundation for a unified experience among elements (i.e., an approach to the combination problem). When elements oscillate in synchrony (i.e., when they all jump from one moment in subjective time to the next), this may produce a unity of conscious experience. Nervous systems may provide an organizational structure that enables material elements to oscillate in synchrony and thereby produce larger, more organized fields of subjective experience. In this sense, the combination problem may be addressed by, and our holistic experience may result from, the common wavelength of oscillation through objective time relative to subjective time that constituent elements of a singular experience partake in. Put colloquially, each of us may have our own unique wavelength moving through subjective time relative to objective time.

Importantly, these speculations are presented as an example of the kind of meta-perspective that might enable an acknowledgement of the reality of both first- and third-person vantages. This is far from a formal model, and leaves much unspecified. For example, although I believe it could be possible to formalize the relationship between subjective time and informational states, this remains a major conjecture. Other elements of the framework, such as the notion that observers move in discrete steps in subjective and objective time, and that the pattern of oscillation may provide a way of addressing the “combination problem,” also are merely conjectures. I suspect that there are potentially a great variety of ways of conceptualizing how observers might move in a dimension of subjective time relative to objective time. My goal in attempting a rudimentary depiction of this notion is simply to fuel the conversation.[7]

Even if scientists resist the suggestion of an additional temporal dimension of reality, characterizing how experience can reside in a physical world will require explicating how observers move in physical time relative to changes in subjectively apprehended information. In other words, to be an observer in reality is arguably to reside in a now that corresponds to a “location” within continually changing information states. Thus, conceptualizing the experience of the observer requires understanding how that observer moves between informational states over time. Given that the present prevailing view of physics does not afford the degrees of freedom to actually move in time, understanding how an observer changes informational states relative to time seems to require at a minimum the postulation of a virtual dimension of subjective time. Whether that dimension is given ontological status as a genuine aspect of reality depends on one’s perspective, but that of course is precisely the point.

For those who are willing to entertain the possibility of the kind of meta-perspective that I am envisioning, there are a number of possible ways forward. Perhaps, and most dramatically, it seems plausible that the existence of an additional temporal dimension may have empirical consequences. Although received with understandable skepticism, evidence continues to accumulate for precognition (i.e., that the mind is sensitive to events that have not yet occurred). There is a long tradition of research in this area (Honorton & Ferrari 1989). For example, Bem (2011) recently published a series of nine studies in a highly respected journal that seem to suggest evidence of genuine precognition and a subsequent meta-analysis of 90 additional findings appear to further substantiate these findings (Bem et al. 2014). Not surprisingly, these claims have been met with considerable skepticism (e.g., Ritchie et al. 2012; Wagenmakers et al. 2011). Given their profound challenge to our current scientific understanding of reality, claims of this sort will require studies that offer highly tangible evidence that cannot be attributed to artifact or statistical anomaly, e.g., taking advantage of people’s alleged precognitive capacities to make consistent future predictions of real world events, such as the future outcome of roulette wheel spins or the stock market (Franklin et al. in press). Nevertheless, the demonstration of robust findings of precognition might provide the type of data that could inform theories of how consciousness interfaces with time in a manner not currently considered in modern science.

Other approaches for fleshing out the kind of meta-perspective suggested here may include quantitative reconceptualization of existing findings. Although quantum theory is one of the most precisely predictive theories ever conceived, its explanation remains a mystery. In particular, the manner in which measurement seems to affect outcomes, and the theoretical relationship between measurement, consciousness, and the collapse of the wave function are not at all understood (Chalmers 2002). It seems possible that the postulation of an additional subjective dimension of time might lead to alternative ways of conceptualizing current formalism.[8] Indeed it seems possible that once psychological constructs (such as a dimension of subjective time) are integrated with physical principles, that new psycho/physical laws of nature may emerge (Chalmers 2002; J. N. Schooler 2010). Alternatively, the notion that subjective experience emerges from movement through another dimension of time may resist empirical documentation, but may nevertheless remain a conjecture that appeals to some intuitions but not others.

Even if ultimately there is no conclusive ways of determining whether there exists an additional subjective dimension of time this does not mean that the consideration or rejection of this view should be arbitrary. There are many judgments in life that rely on leanings that are not purely objective in nature. From ethics to art we routinely favor some views over others for reasons besides purely objective facts. Indeed the adoption or rejection of views close to those under discussion here are often based on subjective considerations. For example some physicists embrace string theory because of the elegance of its mathematics, whereas others reject it because there is no physical evidence to support it. Similarly there is great debate on how far down the phylogenetic scale we should postulate the existence of consciousness. Most of us have an opinion on this matter, but it remains entirely unclear whether there will ever be a purely objective way to resolve it. In the absence of objective evidence, our positions on these issues are far from arbitrary, rather they are based on the same sorts of sensibilities and intuitions that underpin many of our most heartfelt convictions.

In a final further effort to appeal to readers’ intuitions, let me introduce one last metaphor for the meta-perspective I am striving for: consider the allegorical tale of Flatland, written by Edwin Abbott (1885) more than a century ago. Flatland depicts a two-dimensional world that is visited by a three-dimensional being (a sphere). The sphere takes a citizen of Flatland (a square) on a journey through the third dimension, offering the square a vantage on his reality that he never had before. The story of Flatland offers a number of useful lessons for the present discussion. First, it provides a powerful metaphor for thinking about the existence of additional dimensions of reality. Long preceding relativity theory, which treats time like a fourth dimension, or string theory, which currently posits the existence of up to seven additional spatial dimensions (Greene 2004), Abbott’s tale introduces us to the concept of higher-order dimensions. Flatland describes how additional dimensions can be both embedded in and yet simultaneously transcend what we know. The parallels to consciousness are also striking: when the square is taken through the third dimension, he suddenly sees inside the objects of Flatland. Like consciousness, movement in an additional dimension in Flatland enables the perception of an inside where none could otherwise be possible. Like consciousness’s relationship to reality, an additional dimension intersects with the lower dimensions and yet is distinct from them. And like the recognition of an additional dimension in Flatland, positing consciousness as moving through objective time relative to a dimension (or dimensions) of subjective time provides an example of a meta-perspective that potentially offers observers a new way of conceptualizing their relationship with physical reality. Although I make no claims as to having fleshed out this meta-perspective, it is my hope that my arguments have persuaded at least some readers that it is a vantage worth considering.