Versions of Local Time

Abstract

In the interdisciplinary study of time we see a shift from a physicalistic paradigm, as we know it from Julius T. Fraser’s work, to a rather more cognitive-theoretical approach, as advanced, for instance, by Allen Newell, who takes mental activity to consist of a complex, active search through a problem space. In this article, I compare some recent efforts of physically oriented researchers Prigogine and Barbour with the cognitive approach taken by chronopsychologists Lakoff, Gibson, Jones, Leyton and others. It stipulates that the classical notion of temporality as an absolute property of the universe has in fact been replaced by versions of local time. Recent examples of timing on the basis of local time include temporal information processing according to the demands of metaphor, scripts, dynamic attention, and more. The common ground appears to be that time is a derived entity, based on embodied (inborn) as well as situated (acquired) processing activity.