Flow and direction of time?
What underlies our sense that time flows - that there is a continuous process where the future is realized in the present and then recedes into the past? Are we directly observing a feature of the real world through the 'private door' of consciousness (Eddington) or is something else going on?
Two hypotheses about this have been added for consideration:
- That in sensing that time flows in a particular direction we are directly perceiving an aspect of the real world. This view corresponds to the passage view of time.
- That our sense of time's flow arises from the fact that at all times we have memories of a succession of past events and we also remember that the stock of remembered events is being constantly added to - a process of memory accretion.