Special relativity's light cone & the mind's temporal perspectives
Special relativity's four zones of communication and cause & effect (the light cone) — the future light cone's surface, the future light cone's interior, the past light cone's surface, the past light cone's interior. I incorporate a generalization of that ubiquitous structure into my tetrastics, particularly in terms of modes of the psyche.

Quick review (which I just now added, then mostly deleted, from Wikipedia):
Any event E has a light cone comprised of four zones of possible communication and cause and effect:

(Outside those four zones is a strictly incommunicado zone, the (absolute) elsewhere of E. Events there never can affect or be affected by E.)

Of course, as one continues through time, one's light cone continues with one or, to put it another way, one has a more-or-less continuous succession of light cones. That event which is elsewhere and incommunicado at a given time is so for only a while for one enduring through time and, if the event be nearby, it's a very short while.

From the outer limits to the inner mind
The times “almost now,” “later,” “barely now, just now,” and “earlier”, mentioned in the above table, point to a generalization from the ubiquitous physical case of relativity’s light cone. Now, we say, generally speaking, that one’s past affects one’s future but not vice versa. Should we likewise distinguish the present which one affects and the present which affects one? Aren’t they pretty much the same zone with respect to the somewhat prolonged present which a mind actually experiences? Yet they turn out to be worth our distinguishing as times oftener than we do so.

Tetrastic 4x4 of modes of the psyche.	Will, conation:	Dealing, ability:	Affectivity:	Cognition:
(Like future light cone's surface.) For almost now:	Trying.	Testing, devising.	Desire.	Fancy, "impression."
(Like future light cone's inside.) For later:	Seeking.	Preparing, approach.	Hope, confid.	Expectation, anticip.
(Like past light cone's surface.) For just now:	Taking, picking.	Achieving.	Pleasure, satisf.	Noticing, discernment.
(Like past light cone's inside) For earlier:	Adherence, habit.	Maintaining, skill.	Attachment.	Memory.

For instance, we can distinguish four modes of will - trying, seeking, taking and adhering -, all four, in terms of four possible time orientations in a single system. And we can see, in parallel, (a) a seeking as a unity arising across successive tryings, and (b) an adhering as a unity arising across successive takings/pickings. And we can see the difference between outspreading signals (on the future light cone) and incoming signals (on the past light cone) as similar to the difference between efferent (as for example with efferent nerves carrying signals out from the brain to the muscles) and afferent (as for example with afferent nerves carrying signals to the brain from sensory receptors).  And the efferent/afferent difference also resembles the difference between the "active" faculties (will & ability) and the "receptive" faculties (affectivity & cognition), and especially that between will and affectivity.

	Admittedly simplistic comparison	Time	Human causal principle
efferent	(like force)	The almost now.	Will, conation.
	(like finesse)	The later.	Ability, dealing.
afferent	(like excitedness)	The just now.	Affectivity.
	(like supportedness)	The earlier.	Cognition.

If the will is itself "efferent," then how can it have modes correlated to all four times?  It can, because the will's objects can pertain to all four times. For instance, when one wills something as something which one has willed before, in the past, then that's adhering to the thing. Habit (in the English word's everyday sense) is steady such adherence, and is past-oriented will (pace the Scholastics) just as memory is past-oriented cognition.

It seems that some sort of generalization of the ubiquitous light cone structure (a generalization not involving a very high, exact, constant speed limit) is more illuminating in many cases than the standard past-present-future trichotomy, though I certainly don't think that the light cone idea would rightly supplant the past-present-future trichotomy in all cases.

So much also for the idea that theoretical physics should be ignored in phenomenology. Physics won't settle general phenomenological questions but it can embody some general phenomenal structures which we have simply failed to notice in doing a phenomenology.

The initial point is:
• to recognize the philosophical generality of the idea of a finite general upper speed limit and the general import, for any system of communication and cause/effect, of finite general practical upper limits on the speed of signal propagation, though the given medium’s effective speed limit be less high and exact than some ultimate physical limit like lightspeed, and
• to recognize that mutually causal relationships involved with co-present objects don’t absolutely unite outgoing potency and incoming information, don’t render them indistinguishable in a wash of instantaneity -- don’t actually so unite them any more than they phenomenologically so unite them (the phenomenological aspect is more easily noticed from the viewpoints of the objects involved; compare with Merleau-Ponty’s idea of the never completed circuit between touching and being touched and even between touching oneself and being touched by oneself). Instead, two “presents” differ like future and past, differ as the respective edges, surfaces, of future and past. The difference runs deep -Then we can see, in parallel, (a) the future as an entrainment, or as a continuous unification, of successive almost-nows, and (b) the past as an entrainment, or as a continuous unification, of successive just-nows. This can be seen systematically reflected throughout the tetrastic 4x4 table (above) of time-orientational modes of the psyche, in the columns under will, dealing, affectivity, and cognition. Again for instance, we can see (a) a seeking as a unity arising across successive tryings, and (b) an adhering as a unity arising across successive takings/pickings. Of course, also, the future holds future pasts, and the past holds past futures, invading that which is elsewhere and incommunicado at the moment, in the thickening cross-hatching of spacetime. - posted by The Tetrast @ 10:28 PM [top of post] [top of page] Copyright © BenjaminðA.ðUde11.