Thursday, February 13, 7:00 p.m. CT
FREE WEBCAST
This talk reviews three fundamental aspects of experienced time that are dismissed by modern physics as illusions of consciousness: the privileged present, the flow of time, and the existence of genuine alternative possibilities. A rough hewn framework is offered that may provide a way for our scientific understanding of time to be brought into greater alignment with the essential ways in which we experience it. This visualizable toy model characterizes the observer as a window moving through information space with three dimensions of time: objective time—corresponding to clock time; subjective time—the experience of the passage of time; and alternative time—the branching genuine possibilities presented by the future.
Jonathan Schooler, PhD, is a Distinguished Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of California Santa Barbara, Director of UCSB’s Center for Mindfulness and Human Potential, and Acting Director of the Sage Center for the Study of the Mind. His research intersects philosophy and psychology, including the relationship between mindfulness and mind-wandering and theories of consciousness. A former holder of a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair, Jonathan is a fellow of several psychology societies and the recipient of numerous grants from the US and Canadian governments and private foundations. His research has been featured on television shows including BBC Horizon and Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman, as well as in print media including the New York Times, the New Yorker, and Nature Magazine. With over 250 publications and more than 40,000 citations he is a five time recipient of the Clarivate Analytics Web of Science™ Highly Cited Researcher Award.
This program will be streamed on YouTube, Facebook, and our website on Thursday, February 13 at 7:00 p.m. CT.