Executive summary: The author outlines an argument for why subjective experience of time, rather than just objective time, should be considered in theories of well-being, and explores how different theories of well-being and consciousness relate to this question.
Key points:
There is a difference between objective duration of experience and subjective experience of time passing, which seems relevant to well-being.
Many intuitive strategies to account for the importance of subjective time to well-being are unsatisfactory.
The cognitive theory explains subjective time in terms of the rate of cognitive processes relative to stimulus, which the author argues provides a basis for factoring subjective time into well-being.
Well-being theories can be divided into those that treat individuals as “containers” of well-being versus those that are “subject-relative”. Subject-relative theories seem better equipped to justify the importance of subjective time.
Objections related to the metaphysics of “subjects” and the relationship between thought and feeling are considered. Theories of consciousness like illusionism may have implications for the subjective time question.
If the importance of subjective time to well-being is accepted, it may impact the relative plausibility of different well-being and consciousness theories.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, andcontact us if you have feedback.
Executive summary: The author outlines an argument for why subjective experience of time, rather than just objective time, should be considered in theories of well-being, and explores how different theories of well-being and consciousness relate to this question.
Key points:
There is a difference between objective duration of experience and subjective experience of time passing, which seems relevant to well-being.
Many intuitive strategies to account for the importance of subjective time to well-being are unsatisfactory.
The cognitive theory explains subjective time in terms of the rate of cognitive processes relative to stimulus, which the author argues provides a basis for factoring subjective time into well-being.
Well-being theories can be divided into those that treat individuals as “containers” of well-being versus those that are “subject-relative”. Subject-relative theories seem better equipped to justify the importance of subjective time.
Objections related to the metaphysics of “subjects” and the relationship between thought and feeling are considered. Theories of consciousness like illusionism may have implications for the subjective time question.
If the importance of subjective time to well-being is accepted, it may impact the relative plausibility of different well-being and consciousness theories.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.
Thanks, this a decent gloss and I hope it will be helpful (I apologize again for the difficulty of the outline as currently written)