Two things are being claimed in the above summation: - Memory accretion accounts for the sense of time flowing
- The subjective direction of time - the psychological arrow - is that in which the stock of memories increases.
These two claims are dealt with in separate Component nodes attached to this one. The only supportive argument that is added - or could be added, given that we are still looking at things at the phenomenal level - is an argument from introspection. A couple of issues arising from the hypothesis are considered: - How does the hypothesis account for our belief in the future?
- What implications does the hypothesis have for the debate initiated by John McTaggart about whether tensed properties or untensed relations are the right way of ordering events in time?
A feature of the hypothesis is that it is compatible with viewpoints that deny the existence of time itself - such as that of Julian Barbour - since the sense of time arises from the existence of memory structures that all-at-once give rise to the sense of temporal passage without. Barbour suggests something similar (see citation).
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