Economics Dictionary of ArgumentsHome | |||
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Present: The present is the moment that is happening right now. It is the only moment that is real, and it is the only moment that we can experience directly. See also Events, Actions, Experience, Sensory impressions, Perception, Time, Past, Future, Timelessness._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
Author | Concept | Summary/Quotes | Sources |
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Marvin Minsky on Present - Dictionary of Arguments
I 155 Present/seeing/Minsky: The Immanence Illusion: Whenever you can answer a question without a noticeable delay, it seems as though that answer were already active in your mind. This is part of why we feel that what we see is present in the here and now. But it isn't really true that whenever a real object appears before our eyes, its full description is instantly available. Perceptions can evoke our memories so quickly that we can't distinguish what we've seen from what we've been led to recollect. This explains some of the subjective difference between seeing and remembering. If you first imagined a black telephone, you probably would not find it hard to reimagine it as red. But when you see a black telephone and then attempt to think of it as red, your vision-systems swiftly change it back! So the experience of seeing things has a relatively rigid character, in contrast to the experience of imagining things. Every change that the rest of your mind tries to impose upon your vision-agencies is resisted and usually reversed. >Memory/Minsky. (…) our attitudes toward things we love or loathe are often much less changeable than those things themselves — particularly in the case of other people's personalities. In instances like these, our private memories can be more rigid than reality._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Minsky I Marvin Minsky The Society of Mind New York 1985 Minsky II Marvin Minsky Semantic Information Processing Cambridge, MA 2003 |