# Experienced Temporal Passage

Enacted scaffolding and the organization of succession

Jeremy Rodgers · 2026-10-23

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23591626



## A temporal world without an outside observer

<a id="section-1"></a>
## 1. The problem of experienced passage

**A melody is experienced as an unfolding relation.** Hearing one note after another is not explained simply by listing successive physical states, drawing a chronology or storing two values. The listener experiences a transition. The explanatory task is to identify the actual organization through which that transition is lived.

Nor does the experience immediately establish a present that moves through the universe. Physical temporal structure and its experienced organization are related questions with different targets. Shadow Theory's enacted-scaffolding account connects them within the observer's own activity. There is no observer outside the world looking at an already finished display.

The problem becomes particularly sharp in a complete-history or block-universe description. Events have temporal locations, but no universal present advances through them. An embedded person still receives signals, retains contributions, anticipates continuations and changes bodily state. Those relations are the resources from which a situated temporal experience must be constituted. Adding a second observer who scans the history would relocate the problem rather than explain this person's experience.

The temporal construction developed here can also be considered within other temporal ontologies. It does not first require a proof of eternalism. The [block-universe integration](/consciousness/block-universe) develops the related physical and ontological questions separately.

<a id="table-1"></a>
### Six targets carried by the word “time”

| Target | What must be explained or measured |
| --- | --- |
| Physical elapsed time | Proper intervals along trajectories and comparisons between clocks. |
| Temporal structure | Ordering, causal accessibility and any physical temporal metric. |
| Arrow and records | Conditions supporting asymmetric preparation, record formation and memory. |
| Temporal cognition | Duration estimates, order judgments, orientation and expectations. |
| Temporal experience | Presentness, succession, continuity and felt passage or pace. |
| Fundamentality | Whether flow, a temporal metric or time itself belongs to fundamental ontology. |

These are the distinctions of source Table 1. A change in a timing response does not automatically measure proper-time dilation. A model of records does not automatically explain felt passage. A successful account of experienced succession does not automatically decide whether physical time is fundamental.

The positive claim is constructive. Within an explicitly stated constitution of experience, differentiated reception, retention, interpretation and uptake can constitute an ordered transition without an additional moving present. The account specifies that organization, proves its conditional consequences, gives finite physical components and identifies empirical contrasts that can test the mechanism. Its foundations connect directly to [whole-field constitution](/consciousness/whole-field): the experiencing occurrence is the complete qualifying enactment, including its character.

This web treatment develops the complete argument of Jeremy Rodgers's *Experienced Temporal Passage: Enacted Scaffolding and the Organization of Succession*, dated 23 October 2026. The [publication DOI](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23591626) identifies the supplied paper. The full mathematical development and substantive appendices continue through this reading path.



## Experience is the qualifying enactment

<a id="section-2"></a>
## 2. Experience as enacted scaffolding

<a id="section-2-1"></a>
### 2.1 Complete enactment and experienced character

Experience is identified here with an actual organized construction within a bounded interpretive unit. Operative distinctions, expectations, retained information, evaluative associations, bodily organization and relevant context shape how incoming information is interpreted. Implementation, causal embedding and formative history belong to that organization. The target is an actual process token, not merely a description of a possible computation.

<a id="constitutive-premise-1"></a>
<Definition title="Constitutive premise 1: complete enactment">
Experience, including felt character, is the complete qualifying organization actually enacted within the relevant interpretive unit. Once that qualifying organization occurs, no additional witness, experiential output or actualization event converts it into experience.
</Definition>

The premise supplies the constitution used throughout this argument. It does not admit every computation, representation or report. What matters is the operative organization and its actual history. A reduced analytical model can also leave out constitutively relevant facts: if $K$ denotes complete qualifying enactment, a structural temporal projection $\mathcal T(K)$ need not contain every contribution to how the experience feels. An incomplete projection is different from an experiential ingredient supposedly still missing after the complete enactment.

Two people can hear the same music differently because their organization differs. Familiarity, personal association, expectation and bodily response can all alter the construction. They are possible contributors, not mandatory autobiographical or emotional conditions for every sound experience. Basic understanding can be implicit. The listener does not need to think “this is music” in order to discriminate, retain and relate sounds.

Construction also does not mean inaccuracy. A constructed experience can track source order correctly or misidentify it. Feeling passage establishes a temporal appearance; the inference from that appearance to a fundamental external flow needs its own argument.

<a id="section-2-2"></a>
### 2.2 Actual uptake and later retrieval

**The relevant reflection is actual interpretive uptake.** It can be immediate, implicit and nonverbal, with a brief processing delay within the activity. It requires neither deliberate introspection nor a verbal description, durable autobiographical recall or recognition of the source of a response.

The paper distinguishes five functional roles:

- $D$: actual reception or internal retrieval.
- $I$: interpretation through operative scaffolding.
- $C$: consolidation of the relevant contributions.
- $M$: retention sufficient for their operative availability.
- $U$: their actual interpretive uptake within the same unit.

In uptake, an available contribution participates as content in ongoing recognition, relating, appraisal, orientation or response organization. These are roles in a construction rather than five necessarily separate serial modules. Interpretation, consolidation and uptake can overlap.

Causal influence alone is weaker. A trace can change a threshold without entering the person's construction as an interpreted contribution. Unconscious processing can nevertheless bring forward a bodily response, emotion, image or concept that is immediately taken up. The current response and its inaccessible formative cause occupy different roles; the person need not identify that earlier association for the current response to participate in experience.

<a id="equation-1"></a>
$$
\operatorname{Exp}(A,J)\iff
\operatorname{BoundedUnit}(A,J)\land
\operatorname{Enacts}_{J}(A;D,I,C,M,U)\land H(A,J).
\tag{1}
$$

Here $A$ nominates the interpretive unit and $J$ scopes the relevant activity. The enactment predicate requires the actual operations in their relevant organization. Writing the role names on a diagram does not instantiate them. Retention $M$ can be brief: its contribution must survive long enough for uptake, without becoming a durable autobiographical memory.

A capacity $R_{\mathrm{later}}$ for later addressed retrieval is **not** a universal conjunct of [equation (1)](/consciousness/temporal-passage/02-experience-as-enacted-scaffolding#equation-1). Someone can take up an occurrence now and be unable to retrieve it later. An unused retrieval route, conversely, does not establish uptake during the earlier interval. A later qualifying retrieval is another current construction concerning that event. It neither retroactively creates nor completes the earlier experience.

An addressed query can test an access route and its use. It cannot, by itself, establish every earlier unprobed uptake. The distinction therefore sharpens the reflection condition without turning one response into a consciousness detector.

<a id="section-2-3"></a>
### 2.3 History, unit and awareness

This publication retains a mandatory formative-history condition:

<a id="equation-2"></a>
$$
H(A,J)\iff
\exists B\ne A,\ J':
\operatorname{Exp}(B,J')\land
\operatorname{FormHist}(B,J';A,J).
\tag{2}
$$

The other experiencer's actual activity must have helped form scaffolding operative in $A$ during $J$. Merely imagining another person does not establish that history, while continued interpersonal contact is unnecessary. Together, [equation (1)](/consciousness/temporal-passage/02-experience-as-enacted-scaffolding#equation-1) and [equation (2)](/consciousness/temporal-passage/02-experience-as-enacted-scaffolding#equation-2) constrain assignments across a developmental history. The principal melody construction starts with an already qualifying adult and an admissible assignment under those premises. It preserves that operative history; it does not derive the origin or uniqueness of every experience assignment.

<ResultScope>
The formative condition above is the condition used by this paper. The later block-universe analysis examines the universal experiencing-contributor rule, including its well-founded-ancestry obstruction, and scopes its temporal construction to an independently qualifying adult. Those scopes are distinguished rather than silently equated. See the [block-universe article](/consciousness/block-universe), especially its formative-dependence appendix. Neither web treatment replaces published SPC-2 admission laws.
</ResultScope>

For the human example, the unit is the embodied person with the relevant state, integration and access organization. Notes, memories and event descriptions do not become additional subjects merely because they are distinguishable. Nor does $J$ impose a uniquely bounded natural packet: nested and overlapping content descriptions can belong within continuing activity.

The framework accepts thin fundamental awareness as an ontological premise. In the site's current clarification, awareness provisionally names a quality attributed to the unknown Ground. It is not a cosmic subject, universal observer or time-advancing field. The temporal argument does not derive that premise; it explains organized temporal experience within the qualifying unit. See the preserved [A0 clarification](/consciousness#a0-clarification).



## The melody is experienced while it unfolds

<a id="section-3"></a>
## 3. An enacted experience of succession

<a id="section-3-1"></a>
### 3.1 Four relations that must not collapse

A **succession of physical states** puts different states at ordered physical locations. A **record of succession** preserves order information but can remain dormant or inaccessible. **Successive experiences** occur at different stages without their mere succession guaranteeing that an ordered transition is experienced. An **experience of succession** is a qualifying enactment whose content relates distinguishable contributions as a transition.

The last case need not be assembled from isolated experiential packets. Different notes can belong within one continuing melody experience. What requires explanation is their differentiation and relation within that activity.

Consolidation alone does not supply the answer. In auditory experiments, sequential nonoverlapping formant tones can be reported as a synthetic vowel rather than as an ordered sequence (Saija et al., 2014). Response controls constrain the finding without eliminating every alternative explanation. A model making two traces jointly available still leaves open whether their content is succession, fusion or uncertainty.

<a id="section-3-2"></a>
### 3.2 Source events and current uptake

Consider an already qualifying listener with operative pitch discrimination, auditory grouping and implicit temporal relations. Let illustrative source events $C,E,G$ occur at 0, 100 and 200 milliseconds. A 10 ms reception delay and 5 ms integration delay make a $C$-to-$E$ construction available at 115 ms, before $G$ arrives at 210 ms. These chosen numbers demonstrate a schedule, not a universal human integration window.

At 115 ms, the retained contribution from $C$ and the live estimate associated with $E$ enter one auditory stream. Their directed relation is taken up as a rising continuation. The listener need neither name the note nor explicitly formulate “before.” Actual recognition and relating can shape anticipation, comparison or orientation.

<a id="equation-3"></a>
$$
\widehat C\prec_{\mathrm{rep}}\widehat E,
\qquad
\operatorname{available}(r_C,115\,\mathrm{ms}),\quad
\operatorname{available}(\ell_E,115\,\mathrm{ms}).
\tag{3}
$$

The first expression orders interpreted source references. The availability predicates locate a retained contribution $r_C$ and live estimate $\ell_E$ within present use. Their joint availability does not assign their sources a common represented time. A current reference can preserve an earlier role.

At 215 ms, the continuing construction incorporates $G$, preserves the phrase and changes the live role from $E$ to $G$. The earlier stage already experienced a directed transition. It did not wait for a completed melody to be displayed to another observer.

<a id="figure-1"></a>
![Source C, E and G occur at 0, 100 and 200 milliseconds; reception occurs ten milliseconds later; the C-before-E relation is integrated at 115 milliseconds, before G is received.](/publications/consciousness/new-papers/temporal-passage/melody-organization.svg)

*Figure 1. Source occurrence, reception and integration in the constructed example. Common availability at the integration stage preserves different source-time roles. The 115 ms transition precedes reception of the third note.*

<a id="section-3-3"></a>
### 3.3 What the temporal projection must retain

The structural projection of complete enactment is

<a id="equation-4"></a>
$$
\mathcal T(K)=
\bigl(V_{\mathrm{src}},f,\prec_{\mathrm{rep}},b,\mu,\widehat\delta,p,u\bigr).
\tag{4}
$$

Its fields carry different jobs:

- $V_{\mathrm{src}}$ supplies source references and $f$ the discriminated features, such as pitch.
- $\prec_{\mathrm{rep}}$ gives represented order; $b$ binds contributions into a continuing auditory stream.
- $\mu$ distinguishes live input, operative retention, retrieved construction and anticipated possibility.
- $\widehat\delta$ carries learned reception-to-source calibration; $p$ organizes possible continuations and expected endpoints.
- $u$ supplies actual use in ongoing uptake. A dormant code or an analyst's chronological list does not supply this field.

These distinctions obtain their meaning from learned discrimination, source coupling and actual use in the listener. A label reading “before” does not instantiate the relation if it changes none of that organization. The model specifies temporal interpretation within an already grounded person rather than deriving temporal meaning from uninterpreted data.

Complete $K$ also includes relevant bodily, evaluative and affective organization, implementation, formative embedding and associations where present. Write $\chi(K)$ for experienced character under the adopted identity. Equality of $\mathcal T(K)$ alone does not ensure equality of $\chi(K)$. Two people can take up the same ordered notes with different bodily responses or associations. This projection fixes temporal structure, not every quality numerically.

Represented order can also be mistaken. Delivery delay and calibration can change the relation between source and interpreted order without abolishing the experience. Accuracy concerns what the construction represents; occurrence concerns whether it is enacted.

<a id="section-3-4"></a>
### 3.4 Immediate understanding and later recollection

At the $E$ stage, the retained $C$ contribution participates in interpreting $E$ as a continuation. That is immediate reflection in the relevant sense. It exceeds a residue merely changing a threshold and requires no deliberate recollection of a completed performance.

An optional query can select a predecessor, compare ordered pitches or identify a retained construction's mode. Successfully using that route supplies evidence of access and current uptake. An unexecuted capacity, or a correct answer obtained by an independent later lookup, does not establish earlier uptake. Blocking later retrieval after completed uptake does not erase the earlier experience. Blocking uptake of the joint relation prevents this particular construction, while leaving other experience open.

Later recollection is a new activity that treats the earlier notes as past sources. It is current when recalled. Both the initial hearing and subsequent remembering belong to the person's interpretive operations, with no additional witness and no infinite sequence of acknowledgments.



## What a temporal construction must distinguish

<a id="section-4"></a>
## 4. Information, construction and conditional sufficiency

<a id="section-4-1"></a>
### 4.1 Order must survive the operative code

<a id="proposition-1"></a>
<Proposition title="1. Order-invariant code">
Let $a$ map input histories to all information available to a nominated order interpretation. If $a(C,E)=a(E,C)$, no fixed deterministic or stochastic readout of $a$ can discriminate these two orientations.
</Proposition>

**Proof.** Equal arguments give equal outputs to a deterministic readout and equal response distributions to a fixed stochastic kernel. That code alone therefore cannot supply orientation-dependent discrimination.

The result constrains the particular order distinction. It neither makes timestamps or language necessary nor denies experience when order is unresolved. A listener can experience features, fusion or uncertainty.

Three distinct pitch categories yield six ordered pairs and only three unordered pairs when repetitions are excluded. A lossless code separating all six requires at least six states. Under equiprobable pairs the entropy is $\log_2 6=2.58496$ bits; a fixed-length binary implementation needs three bits. Once an unordered pair is known, its orientation requires one binary distinction.

Let $Y$ denote orientation, balanced within each unordered pair $Q$, and let $X$ be the operative code. If the optimal decision from $(X,Q)$ has error $\epsilon\leq1/2$, then

<a id="equation-5"></a>
$$
I(Y;X\mid Q)\geq1-h_2(\epsilon).
\tag{5}
$$

Here $h_2$ is binary entropy. Given $(X,Q)$, the decision and its error bit determine $Y$, so $H(Y\mid X,Q)\leq h_2(\epsilon)$; subtracting from balanced orientation entropy proves the bound. At 10% error, at least 0.5310 bits are required. This is an order-discrimination constraint, not a consciousness measure.

<a id="section-4-2"></a>
### 4.2 Why the actual transition is sufficient within the framework

<a id="proposition-2"></a>
<Proposition title="2. Enacted ordered transition">
Take the qualifying human unit with an admissible formative assignment. Its actual activity receives distinguishable contributions, retains a predecessor, interprets and consolidates a directed relation to current input, and preserves that construction sufficiently for actual uptake. Suppose grounded interpretation differentiates live and retained roles. Under [equation (1)](/consciousness/temporal-passage/02-experience-as-enacted-scaffolding#equation-1) and Constitutive premise 1, this enactment constitutes an experience of the ordered transition, including its felt character.
</Proposition>

**Proof.** Reception supplies $D$; grounded discrimination and relating supply $I$; operative binding supplies $C$; retention through that relating supplies $M$; actual interpretive use supplies $U$. The nominated unit and preserved history supply the remaining admission conditions. Predecessor, successor and directed change belong to the interpreted organization in their respective modes. Under complete-enactment identity they belong to experience itself.

The role labels alone would not determine which transition occurs. The specified construction distinguishes $C$-before-$E$, reversal and fusion. A feature bag or sealed archive does not substitute for these relations. Later addressed retrieval remains possible but is unnecessary to the proof.

<a id="proposition-3"></a>
<Proposition title="3. No additional constitutive flow">
For an actual enactment meeting [Proposition 2](#proposition-2), the specified local reception, retention, directed integration and uptake are sufficient within the framework for temporal experience. An advancing-present variable, outside observer or further conversion into experience is not an additional constitutive requirement.
</Proposition>

**Proof.** [Proposition 2](#proposition-2) supplies qualification and the interpreted transition. Constitutive premise 1 identifies complete qualifying enactment with experience. The differentiated temporal roles are already realized within the activity: incoming contribution, retained predecessor, directed binding and uptake. No omitted conjunct remains for a separate observer or moving present to perform.

The finite implementation in the next chapter gives this argument physical content. It specifies realizable component functions and discriminating countermodels. Applying them to a human listener still requires their actual integration into that person's activity. A representation or detached circuit alone does not establish that integration.

<a id="section-4-3"></a>
### 4.3 Preservation of complete organization

<a id="proposition-4"></a>
<Proposition title="4. Constitutive invariance">
Let actual qualifying enactments $K,K'$ preserve the complete relevant interpreted organization, uptake, implementation, and causal, source and formative embedding. Within this framework, an added property $F$ changing none of those constitutive facts cannot change experiential admission or character.
</Proposition>

**Proof.** Preserving the right-hand side of [equation (1)](/consciousness/temporal-passage/02-experience-as-enacted-scaffolding#equation-1) preserves admission. Constitutive premise 1 places character within complete qualifying organization, so preserving that organization preserves character. The occurrences can nevertheless remain numerically different tokens.

This premise is stronger than an equal report, neural snapshot or temporal projection $\mathcal T(K)$. Changing appraisal, calibration, bodily organization or uptake can alter experience without contradicting it. A rival claiming changed character at fixed **complete** enactment rejects the constitutive identity. A missing variable in a partial model instead motivates improving that model. The two objections have different targets.



## A finite mechanism for an ordered transition

<a id="section-5"></a>
## 5. A finite physical implementation scheme

<a id="section-5-1"></a>
### 5.1 Order-sensitive local operations

An onset in channel $C$ can load a trace $r_C$. A later $E$ onset samples that trace through a $C$-then-$E$ detector; reversing the order recruits a converse route. Edge detection or refractory logic prevents an onset from counting as its own predecessor. Inputs within a finite coincidence band remain unresolved. Assigning arbitrary identifiers would not establish their temporal order.

One retention component is an RC trace:

<a id="equation-6"></a>
$$
\frac{dr}{d\tau}=-\frac{r}{RC},
\qquad
r(\Delta\tau)=V_0\exp\!\left(-\frac{\Delta\tau}{RC}\right).
\tag{6}
$$

The clock variable $\tau$ is local proper time. Propagation paths are finite, switches take positive duration, and prepared states, power and noise margins are required. These are physical dynamical commitments, not an advancing present added to a table.

For $R=250\,\mathrm{k\Omega}$, $C=1\,\mathrm{\mu F}$, $V_0=1\,\mathrm V$ and threshold $V_{\mathrm{th}}=0.4\,\mathrm V$, the time constant is $RC=0.25\,\mathrm s$. The maximum detectable gap is

<a id="equation-7"></a>
$$
\Delta\tau_{\max}=RC\ln(V_0/V_{\mathrm{th}})=0.229073\,\mathrm s.
\tag{7}
$$

At 100 ms, the trace is 0.670320 V; at 300 ms, it is 0.301194 V. Allowing each of $R$ and $C$ to vary by $\pm5\%$, and the threshold from 0.38 to 0.42 V, gives a minimum short-gap trace of 0.641970 V and a maximum long-gap trace of 0.336743 V. Both classifications retain a margin. Initial capacitor energy is $CV_0^2/2=0.5\,\mathrm{\mu J}$, which is not the energy requirement of the entire device.

<a id="figure-2"></a>
![Exponential RC voltage decay from one volt crosses the 0.4 volt threshold at 229.073 milliseconds; the 100 millisecond trace is above threshold and the 300 millisecond trace below.](/publications/consciousness/new-papers/temporal-passage/retention-window.svg)

*Figure 2. The chosen finite trace and threshold establish component margins. They do not set a universal human integration window or constitute a completed order circuit.*

Standard electronic components already implement leakage, integration and finite retention in leaky-integrate-and-fire circuits (Rozenberg et al., 2019). Building the full architecture and integrating its output into a person's interpretation are further claims. Trace survival through 100 ms does not itself establish perceived order: auditory fusion demonstrates the difference. The detector preserves one necessary type of information rather than supplying the entire experience.

<a id="section-5-2"></a>
### 5.2 Source order and calibrated order

Source separation $\Delta_s$ and delivery delays $\delta_1,\delta_2$ produce arrival separation

<a id="equation-8"></a>
$$
\Delta_a=\Delta_s+\delta_2-\delta_1.
\tag{8}
$$

Let $C$ occur at 0 ms with 80 ms delay, and $E$ at 50 ms with 10 ms delay. Then $E$ arrives at 60 ms and $C$ at 80 ms. Arrival order is $E$-before-$C$. Learned estimates $\widehat\delta_i$ can instead assign received events the calibrated times $a_i-\widehat\delta_i$ and recover $C$-before-$E$ once both inputs have arrived. Correct calibration is stipulated in this computational example; a real calibration carries uncertainty.

The operation uses received signals and retained estimates, not true source timestamps supplied as an oracle. It receives no future signal early and reverses no cause. Motor-sensory recalibration experiments show that judged order can change after learned delay while physical source order remains fixed (Stetson et al., 2006). A common strictly increasing rescaling cannot reverse the order of the same events. A rate-only account with a fixed order readout is therefore insufficient for that contrast.

<a id="section-5-3"></a>
### 5.3 Representation, realization and actual use

Five explanatory levels remain distinct. A typed graph represents operations. A finite circuit scheme supports physical admissibility. Enactment requires the relevant operations actually to occur within the person. A report can follow from that activity. Under the constitutive identity, experience is the qualifying complete enactment itself.

A computational record can expose directed order, source modes and optional retrieval without manufacturing a listener. Attaching an order detector does not automatically recruit its state into the person's uptake. That connection is an empirical integration obligation. It is not an unexplained experiential conversion left over after complete enactment.

Nor must the historical representation run in a second time. Under a monotone reparameterization $\tau=\tau(\lambda)$,

<a id="equation-9"></a>
$$
\frac{dr}{d\lambda}=\frac{d\tau}{d\lambda}\left(-\frac{r}{RC}\right).
\tag{9}
$$

The physical process and dimensionless interval $\Delta\tau/(RC)$ remain the same. Derivatives, indices and intervals express physical relations; they do not independently add a flowing clock. The construction preserves physical dynamics and change.



## A local present inside continuing activity

<a id="section-6"></a>
## 6. Presentness, continuity and anticipation

<a id="section-6-1"></a>
### 6.1 A local present

**Presentness is a live role within interpreted activity.** Incoming source coupling, bodily organization, learned calibration and uptake anchor that role. It is not necessarily the last raw signal received: a delayed input can represent an earlier source event. A current interpretation can concern the past or an anticipated possibility while preserving those modes.

Hartle's information-gathering and utilizing systems provide a physical account of local present organization (2005). The present construction adds its explicit experiential constitution and differentiated live, retained and anticipated contributions. Its local present is no universal spacelike surface. An absolute-present selector beyond those relations adds an ontological condition that needs independent warrant.

<a id="section-6-2"></a>
### 6.2 Nested and continuing experience

The $C$-to-$E$ and $E$-to-$G$ relations can be distinguishable within a continuing melody experience. Stable stream binding, retention and anticipation organize them without first making isolated experiential packets and later assembling them. Humming several notes within one breath does not multiply subjects.

Write an attribution as $(A,J;e)$: $A$ is the person, $J$ supports interpretive activity, and $e$ is an event or content taken up. Their extents need not coincide. A long event can be experienced while unfolding and again in recollection. A walk can be one experience with encounters with rain or another person within it. Such nested or overlapping descriptions are permitted where relevant portions are actually interpreted. A description neither creates a subject nor guarantees uptake for every subdivision an analyst can draw.

Overlap is weaker than integration. Pair constructions containing $\{C,E\}$ and $\{E,G\}$ do not establish an integrated phrase by set union alone. The computational construction explicitly consolidates the three-note phrase at its third stage. Pair and phrase descriptions can both be legitimate without making every past contribution part of an unbounded simultaneous field.

Continuity of the person, continuity of an auditory source, mathematical continuity and absence of a perceived gap are different predicates. The proposed mechanism supplies lineage, binding and continuing uptake. It does not need a universal partition into naturally bounded experiential packets before integration can be investigated. Auditory continuity studies, including different percepts for acoustically identical stimuli, constrain constructive grouping and its cortical correlates (Riecke et al., 2007). They show why experienced continuation is not simply uninterrupted stimulus energy, without resolving its complete causal implementation.

<a id="section-6-3"></a>
### 6.3 Retention, later loss and records

Operative retention can support ongoing integration without durable episodic recall. In a severely amnesic patient, narrative responses indicated integration over tens of seconds despite major memory impairment (Zuo et al., 2020). Residual tissue, scanner differences and reused controls limit the inference. The finding does not demonstrate experience without any retention or certify uptake at every moment.

Later deletion changes access. It does not change whether an earlier construction was actually taken up. If the source event is first taken up during later reconstruction, that is a later experience concerning the event, not an experience created retrospectively. Equally, asserting that an earlier experience occurred does not assert that it is ongoing at the later stage. Occurrence and ongoingness are different questions.

Records require more than correlation. Causal history, prepared resources and physical boundary conditions support usable memory; thermodynamic accounts make some of these conditions explicit (Mlodinow and Brun, 2014). Reversible record mechanisms remain possible. The argument assumes no universal dissipation charge for each memory operation, and it does not derive the cosmological low-entropy boundary from this local construction.

<a id="section-6-4"></a>
### 6.4 Anticipation without access to the actual future

<a id="proposition-5"></a>
<Proposition title="5. Shared local prefix">
In a causal deterministic temporal model, equal relevant local state, received input history, operative uptake and learned parameters through stage $v$ give equal modeled current content and prediction at $v$, even if later inputs differ. For a stochastic model with the same relevant conditional law, the same premises give equal conditional distributions. Equal realized samples additionally require equal realized random inputs.
</Proposition>

**Proof.** Deterministic update and content maps receive equal arguments. Stochastic transition and content kernels receive equal conditioning arguments. Differences in later input enter only after reception or after endogenous activity registers an unmet expectation.

The prefix is observer-local. It is not an identical complete global state assumed to branch under deterministic laws. Different environments can preserve the same local organization and later supply different inputs.

The constructed $C$-to-$E$ prefix therefore has identical present content before a continuation with $G$ or one with $D$. A chosen learned distribution assigns probabilities 0.75 and 0.25. Subsequent surprises are $-\ln0.75=0.287682$ and $-\ln0.25=1.386294$ nats. An omission produces an “expected note not received” state without counting the absent note as received. These probabilities and deadlines are model choices.

Context-dependent responses to physically identical omissions distinguish predictive organization from received sound (Wacongne et al., 2011). Mismatch does not alone establish experiential admission. Even if a block description is adopted, the embedded participant does not thereby receive the actual future: retention and anticipation retain different causal and interpretive roles.



## Why a longer interval can feel faster

<a id="section-7"></a>
## 7. Felt duration and pace

Succession and the feeling that time passes quickly are distinct aspects of temporal experience. Both belong within complete enactment, but its admission conditions do not determine their values. Many constructions satisfy the same conditions with different event densities, expectations, bodily states, goals and affect.

Matched train-station video tasks used intervals of 17–23 seconds and either three or seven events. Greater event density increased duration estimates **and** accelerated passage judgments (Lamprou-Kokolaki et al., 2024). Participant-count discrepancies and condition-level psychometric exclusions limit pooled interpretations, but the qualitative contrast constrains an equation of faster passage with shorter estimated duration. A separate five-minute activity found passage judgments sensitive to announced endpoint expectations (Tanaka and Yotsumoto, 2017). Reused comparison groups and possible criterion or demand effects remain relevant.

Let $B$ denote an internal elapsed estimate, $N$ interpreted event boundaries and $E$ an expected endpoint. The proposed partial model is

<a id="equation-10"></a>
$$
\begin{aligned}
D&=\alpha B+\beta N,\\
J&=\kappa\ln\left(\frac{N/B}{\rho_0}\right)+\eta\ln(E/B),
\qquad B,N,E\gt0.
\end{aligned}
\tag{10}
$$

$D$ is a duration readout. $J$ is a relative pace descriptor, positive for faster passage against learned baselines. The reference rate $\rho_0$ makes the rate ratio dimensionless. These are states and interpreted relations within the observer. The model gives no outside clock and no access to future completion. Its logarithmic form is proposed, and does not imply consciously performing logarithms.

For the illustrative values $B=20\,\mathrm s$, $\alpha=0.8$, $\beta=0.4\,\mathrm s$ per boundary, $\kappa=\eta=1$ and $\rho_0=0.15\,\mathrm{s}^{-1}$, the same physical interval of 20 seconds gives:

<a id="table-2"></a>
| Condition | $N$ | $E$ (s) | $D$ (s) | $J$ |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Baseline | 3 | 20 | 17.2 | 0 |
| More interpreted events | 7 | 20 | 18.8 | +0.84730 |
| Earlier expected endpoint | 3 | 10 | 17.2 | −0.69315 |
| Later expected endpoint | 3 | 40 | 17.2 | +0.69315 |

*Table 2. Constructed outputs, not fitted human observations.*

Increasing event boundaries can increase both duration estimate and pace; changing the expected endpoint can move pace without moving the duration readout. At fixed $B$, the response Jacobian is

<a id="equation-11"></a>
$$
\frac{\partial(D,J)}{\partial(N,\ln E)}=
\begin{pmatrix}\beta&0\\\kappa/N&\eta\end{pmatrix},
\qquad \det=\beta\eta.
\tag{11}
$$

The chosen nonzero coefficients give rank two in this model. This is not a measured rank-two human response. Opposite slopes under one manipulation alone do not establish dimensionality: two fixed readouts of a single scalar can have opposite slopes.

While waiting, a person can take up the relation between ongoing activity and expected completion before the endpoint occurs. A later pace rating can describe that construction. [Equation (10)](/consciousness/temporal-passage/07-felt-duration-and-pace#equation-10) makes some shaping relations explicit; it does not exhaust bodily or affective contributions. Complete-enactment identity locates felt pace within the actual organization. Empirical work must identify which differences in organization realize particular qualities and test their quantitative predictions.



## Independent constraints on one temporal organization

<a id="section-8"></a>
## 8. What the domains jointly contribute

The evidence makes the candidate organization more specific. It does not offer repeated votes for one metaphysical conclusion. Fusion shows why retention and joint availability do not determine succession. Auditory encoding differentiates pitch, signed change and contextual expectation. Recalibration separates source, arrival and interpreted order. Omission responses separate prediction from reception. Amnesia separates ongoing integration from durable recall. Together they motivate differentiated roles, interpreted relations and continuing uptake.

<a id="table-3"></a>
| Connection | Independent constraint | Consequence for the combined model |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Fusion and melody encoding | Successive tones can fuse; pitch change and expectation have different neural correlates. | Consolidation needs specified relational content, not retained identities alone. |
| Calibration and source roles | Learned delay can alter judged order. | Internal ordering can change without reversing a cause or changing the temporal metric. |
| Memory and uptake | Online integration and durable recall can dissociate. | Operative retention, current uptake and later retrieval require separate variables. |
| Prediction and omissions | Physically equal omissions can have context-dependent responses. | Current anticipation does not require reception of a future event. |
| Duration and passage tasks | Density and expectation constrain different judgments. | Pace is not defined as inverse estimated duration; multiple components are testable. |
| Clock theory and mechanism | Proper intervals constrain trajectories; local operations require finite delays. | Physical elapsed time and interpreted temporal character are different quantities. |

*Table 3. Cross-domain constraints on a candidate organization. They do not independently verify complete-enactment identity.*

In Sankaran et al. (2024), the main melody recordings involved eight epilepsy patients. One additional control participant heard part of the music set. Electrodes are not independent participants, and correlational encoding establishes neither necessity nor a complete mechanism of experience. The useful conclusion is specific: input order, retained identities and integration do not uniquely determine temporal appearance. A candidate must also represent source roles, calibration, expectation and interpretation. Under the adopted constitution, their enacted relations are constituents of experience.

Pharmacological and clinical findings broaden those constraints while measuring different things. Ketamine, LSD and psilocybin studies concern particular timing, memory and motor measures (Coull et al., 2011; Yanakieva et al., 2019; Wittmann et al., 2007), rather than all directly measuring felt passage. Depression and schizophrenia work covers heterogeneous orientation, judgment and performance targets. Primary studies, reviews and meta-analyses overlap (Vogel et al., 2018; Ueda et al., 2018; Ciullo et al., 2016; Ren et al., 2023), so their counts cannot be treated as independent replications.

Meditative timelessness and psychedelic accounts similarly require distinctions among presence, duration, orientation and succession (Berkovich-Ohana et al., 2013; Miceli McMillan et al., 2025; Gruber et al., 2018; Jiang et al., 2025). Neurological and bodily reviews motivate implementation variables without determining a complete temporal-content map (Ochi and Kawamura, 2026; Teghil and Wittmann, 2025; Muller and Nobre, 2014). Context sensitivity supports differentiated mechanisms. Variability alone does not prove that the perceived feature lacks an external counterpart.

Spaceflight makes the measurement distinction especially clear. Requested-minute production changed from 74.5 seconds before flight to 59.6 seconds in flight, approaching the 60-second target (Navarro Morales et al., 2023). That task is not a direct observation of proper-time dilation. The NASA Twins Study measured molecular and physiological changes in one twin pair, not percentage-scale relativistic aging or passage (Garrett-Bakelman et al., 2019). Precision-clock modeling and hardware-preparation papers address their own comparison and projected-performance targets (Turyshev et al., 2016; Cacciapuoti et al., 2024). The clock appendix below preserves the relevant magnitudes and assumptions.



## What an additional flow would have to explain

<a id="section-9"></a>
## 9. Objective-passage alternatives

<a id="section-9-1"></a>
### 9.1 A flow that changes organization

A rival theory can introduce a variable $F$ with a physical role, for example

$$
\frac{dx}{d\tau}=f(x,i,F).
$$

If $F$ changes dynamics, access, calibration or bodily organization, it is a physical hypothesis requiring a law and independent evidence. It is not a counterexample at fixed enactment: it changes the organization constituting the experience. A successful coupling could improve the mechanism without showing that experiencing succession itself requires additional flow.

<a id="section-9-2"></a>
### 9.2 An experiential gate or a different character

Another rival accepts all enacted conditions in [equation (1)](/consciousness/temporal-passage/02-experience-as-enacted-scaffolding#equation-1) but requires a further presentness gate. If that gate can fail while complete qualification remains, it rejects the sufficient direction of the adopted admission identity. It does not identify an unnamed operation still needed by the present constitution.

A rival can instead preserve admission while assigning different felt character at fixed complete enactment. That rejects Constitutive premise 1. A difference at fixed **partial projection** is weaker: if $\mathcal T$ omits attention, bodily state or affect, including that variable improves the model within the account. It does not establish an experiential ingredient beyond a complete organization already preserved by the comparison.

<a id="section-9-3"></a>
### 9.3 Primitive becoming and actuality

A stronger rival makes becoming the condition that renders an admissible organization actual. It locates the addition within actuality itself, rather than adding consciousness after processing. The distinction between an actual process and its description is already accepted here. A further ingredient beyond actual operations and their embedding is an additional ontological commitment that must establish both warrant and explanatory contribution.

Once qualifying organization actually occurs, the present account requires no further actualization event. A rival can disagree with that constitution, but proposing an alternative does not establish an internal deficit. This response does not depend on a universal regress of clocks. Primitive becoming need not use a literal second time; moving-spotlight approaches can use primitive tense and treat supertime as a representational device (Skow, 2009).

Ordinary change and local event occurrence can themselves be called “passage.” Both are preserved. The disputed extra is an advancing present or actualizer beyond those physical relations.

<a id="section-9-4"></a>
### 9.4 Explanatory and evidential equivalence

An addition's idleness has to follow from what it preserves, not simply from the absence of its symbol in an equation. Suppose $T_0$ expresses the adopted account and $T_+$ adds $F$ without restricting base facts, with every $T_0$ model admitting a $T_+$ expansion. Then $T_+$ has exactly the same base-language consequences as $T_0$.

**Conservative-extension argument.** Every countermodel to a base-language consequence of $T_0$ expands to a $T_+$ model while preserving the counterexample. Hence the extension cannot establish a new base-language consequence; the inherited direction is immediate. This comparison does not remove an actual physical field, and it does not cover a rival that restricts which histories occur.

The probabilistic comparison is equally specific. Let $\omega$ include relevant physical and formative history and $d$ observations. If theories share both the distribution of histories and the observation law, then

<a id="equation-12"></a>
$$
P(d\mid T)=\int P(d\mid\omega,T)\,dP(\omega\mid T)
\tag{12}
$$

is the same for those theories. These observations do not discriminate them under those premises. Mere compatibility would not establish equal likelihoods or evidential support (Skow, 2011).

Constitutive sufficiency supplies a different result: within the adopted framework it excludes a **required** extra experiential gate. It does not infer its metaphysical conclusion from observational equality alone.

Growing-block alternatives also require the occurrence/ongoingness distinction (Forbes, 2016). An earlier experience's having occurred does not mean it remains ongoing relative to the current stage. The anti-erasure commitment does not refute all growing-block views by conflating those claims.



## Test the organization that carries the transition

<a id="section-10"></a>
## 10. Empirical scope and discriminating tests

The order-information bound and finite-component calculations establish properties of the specified model. The complete conjunction of operations has not been jointly verified in a human nervous system. Correct reports, surviving traces and later retrieval are each insufficient by themselves to demonstrate actual uptake. Application needs converging evidence for how the contributions enter ongoing construction.

A focused auditory experiment can compare $AB$, $BA$, near-coincident, masked and separated inputs. Manipulate short-window interference and learned expectations while matching identities and physical intervals in the relevant comparisons. Distinguish fusion, reversal and uncertainty rather than turning all failures of order discrimination into one category. Measure continuing interpretation separately from later cued recall.

Sparse or unprobed conditions can investigate the effects of reporting itself. A nonverbal selection task can test access without treating language as a universal experiential requirement.

The comparison models should include an identity bag, a generic leaky trace and a constrained scalar-rate account. Test held-out reversals, calibrated delivery delays and omissions. The differentiated model predicts contrasts such as preserved identities with lost order, changed represented order through calibration, and maintained expectation without received continuation. Later retrieval failure after earlier uptake must be distinguished from failure to construct the joint relation during the event.

For felt pace, vary interpreted event density and expected endpoint within one activity and timescale. [Equation (10)](/consciousness/temporal-passage/07-felt-duration-and-pace#equation-10) and a fixed-readout scalar mediator make different claims about response gradients. Estimate the response matrix and its uncertainty. One opposing bias is not evidence of rank two. Neutral wording and converging decisions help assess response criteria and demand effects.

A truly retrospective duration experiment needs participants who were time-naive during the event and receive a surprise question. Online passage probes or prior timing instructions change that condition; they cannot be silently included in the same retrospective category.

These tests can strengthen or revise the proposed mechanism. Fitting its parameters does not independently prove complete-enactment identity. Conversely, an unfinished quantitative map of qualities is not a missing conversion of an otherwise complete enactment into experience. The constitution states where felt character belongs; empirical investigation determines which organization realizes particular qualities. Universal admission and the fundamentality of physical time exceed this result.



## Temporal experience belongs to the unfolding enactment

<a id="section-11"></a>
## 11. The temporal explanation

**An experience of succession is an actual interpreted relation within the historically formed person.** Retained predecessor, live input and anticipated continuation play different roles. Their joint uptake can constitute an ordered transition without making the source events simultaneous, waiting for the sequence to end or supplying an external observer.

Presentness, continuity, duration and felt pace belong within the complete enacted construction. Distinguishable notes and nested events can occur in one continuing activity without implying isolated experiential packets or multiplying subjects. Uptake can be immediate and implicit. Later recall is optional, and losing it does not erase an occurrence already enacted.

The strongest result is constructive sufficiency for this specified temporal organization under its constitutive premises. Information constraints, finite physical components and computational consequences support that result. Constitutive invariance applies to complete qualifying enactments; the partial temporal and pace models still need empirical identification and quantitative validation. The rival proposing an additional moving present must supply a distinct law, independent warrant or a different constitution. The added actualizer performs no required step within the present account.

Physical intervals, causal order and change remain real. Whether physical time is fundamental or emergent is a separate question. The claim concerns the explanatory need for an extra flow: the temporal experience constructed here does not require one under the stated framework.

The following appendices preserve the physical clock comparison, algebraic checks, evidence audit, computational specification and full references behind the argument. The [whole-field article](/consciousness/whole-field) develops how incorporated contributions belong together; [constituted agency](/consciousness/constituted-agency) follows the operative use of acquired interpretations; the [block-universe treatment](/consciousness/block-universe) relates locally enacted temporality to complete physical histories.



## Clock magnitudes, constrained algebra and internal time

<a id="appendix-a"></a>
## Appendix A. Physical clocks, timeless constructions and algebraic checks

<a id="section-a-1"></a>
### A.1 Proper-time and perceptual magnitudes

For a spherical Earth, circular orbit at $h=400\,\mathrm{km}$ and a rotating equatorial ground clock, the leading weak-field rate comparison is

<a id="equation-13"></a>
$$
\frac{d\tau_{\mathrm{orb}}}{dt}-\frac{d\tau_{\mathrm{gnd}}}{dt}
\simeq
\frac{GM}{c^2}\left(\frac1R-\frac1{R+h}\right)
+\frac{v_{\mathrm{gnd}}^2-v_{\mathrm{orb}}^2}{2c^2}.
\tag{13}
$$

Both rates use the same nominated coordinate time. Take

$$
\begin{aligned}
GM&=3.986004418\times10^{14}\,\mathrm{m^3\,s^{-2}},\\
R&=6378137\,\mathrm m,\qquad c=299792458\,\mathrm{m\,s^{-1}},\\
\omega&=7.292115\times10^{-5}\,\mathrm{s^{-1}},\\
v_{\mathrm{gnd}}&=\omega R,\qquad v_{\mathrm{orb}}^2=GM/(R+h).
\end{aligned}
$$

The gravitational contribution is $+3.5454\,\mathrm{\mu s/day}$ and the kinematic contribution $-28.1624\,\mathrm{\mu s/day}$. Their net is $-24.6170\,\mathrm{\mu s/day}$: approximately $-8.3698\,\mathrm{ms}$ over 340 days or $-17.095\,\mathrm{ns}$ over 60 seconds. This is an illustrative trajectory calculation, not an orbit reconstruction including tides, maneuvers or endpoint transport.

A stable co-moving biological process with accumulation $N=\nu\tau$, compared with a local watch $T=\tau$, has ratio $N/T=\nu$. Common proper-time scaling alone therefore does not change that local ratio. Biological parameter changes, environmental changes and interpretation require separate explanatory variables.

The requested-minute means of 74.5 and 59.6 seconds differ by 20%, with the flight mean closer to the target. In the hourly analysis, the reported means are $-14.2\%$ and $-19.2\%$; 24.2% and 36.1% are standard deviations despite being used as effects in that discussion (Navarro Morales et al., 2023). The related astronaut study with DOI [10.3389/fphys.2023.1141078](https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2023.1141078) has matching cohort and protocol features, so it must not be presumed an independent replication. The clock-scale comparison does not explain these percentage-scale judgments. Neither do telomere and other molecular changes in the NASA Twins Study measure the same quantity.

<a id="section-a-2"></a>
### A.2 The constraint that keeps a radicand positive

Riggs (2026) develops a rate argument toward an imaginary value. Set $A=1-e_1\gt0$, $B=1-e_2\gt A$, $q=2\Phi/c^2\gt0$ and $\beta=v/c$. That work's equation 12 requires

<a id="equation-14"></a>
$$
B^2=A^2(1+q),\qquad B^2-A^2=qA^2.
\tag{14}
$$

Its equation 17 radicand consequently becomes

<a id="equation-15"></a>
$$
B^2-\frac{\beta^2}{q}(B^2-A^2)
=A^2(1+q-\beta^2)\gt0,
\qquad 0\leq\beta\lt1.
\tag{15}
$$

The earlier constraint prevents treating these factors as independent. The alleged negative value therefore does not follow, and that step cannot support a no-flow conclusion. The constructive temporal argument above is independent of it.

<a id="section-a-3"></a>
### A.3 A stationary global construction with an internal timer

Kuypers and Rijavec (2025) develop a different, conditional result. Their stationary global construction contains an internal timer with interaction

<a id="equation-16"></a>
$$
H'=H_R\otimes P_{[0,T]}+I\otimes H_C,
\qquad H_C=-i\partial_t,
\qquad H_R=\frac{\pi(I-\sigma_x)}{2T},
\tag{16}
$$

in units $\hbar=1$. The conditional timer starts in $|0\rangle$, rotates during the nominated interval and ends in $|1\rangle$. During interaction,

$$
P_1(t)=\sin^2\!\left(\frac{\pi t}{2T}\right).
$$

The ideal clock and its assumptions remain part of the model. A synchronization endpoint has to match the selected initial timer state. A frozen $|0\rangle$ branch cannot be attached arbitrarily to $e^{-iH_Rt_0}|0\rangle$ without a matching condition.

The construction represents internal clock relations and interaction under its assumptions. It neither establishes that physical time is merely perception nor assigns experience to the timer. Internal temporal structure and an additional fundamental flow remain different questions. Imaginary-coordinate notation, null proper intervals and a proposed Planck step likewise do not independently demonstrate nonphysical time (Šorli et al., 2026).



## The evidence inventory and its actual reach

<a id="appendix-b"></a>
## Appendix B. Evidence audit

The publication's source inventory contains 25 files representing 23 distinct papers. Two LSD files are byte-identical; an astronaut article is repeated with a cover. Reviews, preprint/publication versions and likely shared cohorts are not additional independent replications. The publication identifies file hashes and reference metadata in its accompanying research record. The inventory below preserves the reported study identities, overlaps and evidential limits.

<a id="table-4"></a>
### Supplied literature: evidential status and consequential limits

| Source | Retained assessment |
| --- | --- |
| Šorli et al. (2026) | A speculative presentist interpretation. Coordinate notation and null intervals do not establish nonphysical time. |
| Kuypers and Rijavec (2025) | A conditional stationary timer construction, retaining ideal-clock scope and synchronization matching. |
| Riggs (2026) | The central radicand argument fails under its own earlier constraint; [equation (15)](/consciousness/temporal-passage/12-clocks-and-algebraic-checks#equation-15) supplies the algebra. |
| Coull et al. (2011) | Controlled selective timing effects in small analyzed samples. Hazard is not the thermodynamic arrow. |
| Yanakieva et al. (2019) | LSD reproduction effects; the duplicate counts once. No general direct passage/pace measurement is established. |
| Wittmann et al. (2007) | Psilocybin timing, memory and motor components, $n=12$. No literal years-in-minutes result. |
| Fountas et al. (2020) | The audited duration/memory preprint model. Its later publication is not another experiment. |
| Berkovich-Ohana et al. (2013) | A small instructed meditation study with fixed order. Timelessness does not establish absent succession. |
| Miceli McMillan et al. (2025) | Conceptual distinctions in psychedelic temporality, not a separate intervention. |
| Gruber et al. (2018) | A multidisciplinary review. The proposed claustrum experiment was not performed in that paper. |
| Vogel et al. (2018) | A qualitative treated-depression sample, without an objective interval/order task in that study. |
| Ueda et al. (2018) | A four-study symptom/timing meta-analysis, with heterogeneous targets and overlap with the timing literature. |
| Ciullo et al. (2016) | Explicit-timing meta-analysis. A subgroup null is neither equivalence nor a uniquely identified clock mechanism. |
| Ren et al. (2023) | A depression review overlapping primary studies and earlier syntheses. |
| Jiang et al. (2025) | A perspective article, not new psychedelic experimental data. |
| Ochi and Kawamura (2026) | A supplied mini-review whose external indexing was not independently confirmed in the source investigation. Cases are not group proof. |
| Teghil and Wittmann (2025) | A bodily, insular and motor review. Maps do not establish one complete mechanism. |
| Muller and Nobre (2014) | Distributed timing and calibration. This does not exclude a central mechanism with local readouts. |
| Navarro Morales et al. (2023) | The astronaut body duplicate counts once. Minute production is closer to 60 seconds in flight; means and standard deviations remain distinct. |
| Turyshev et al. (2016) | Clock, coordinate and signal modeling, not a completed orbital test. |
| Cacciapuoti et al. (2024) | Hardware preparation and projected space performance in the inspected version. |
| Garrett-Bakelman et al. (2019) | One twin pair. Molecular and physiological changes differ from direct clock or passage measurements. |
| Cheeseman et al. (2012) | Bee anesthesia and circadian phase, not human lost subjective time. |

The seven targeted additions address different missing functions: Saija et al. (2014), order versus fusion; Sankaran et al. (2024), pitch change and expectation; Riecke et al. (2007), auditory continuity; Zuo et al. (2020), online integration in amnesia; Wacongne et al. (2011), predictive omission responses; Rozenberg et al. (2019), physical circuit primitives; and Lamprou-Kokolaki et al. (2024), matched duration and passage judgments.

Their limitations are correspondingly different. Correlational recordings do not prove necessity. A single case cannot establish universality. A component circuit does not certify an experiencing device. Each constrains part of the proposed organization without independently proving the constitutive premises.



## What the computational checks establish

<a id="appendix-c"></a>
## Appendix C. Computational checks and reproducibility

The paper reports a source package containing `checks/temporal_construction.py`, numerical outputs, figures, physical calculations and a dependency check. Its core mechanism script uses Python's standard library; optional figures use Matplotlib. The publication describes the following checked consequences:

1. Three distinct pitches give six ordered pairs retained by the intact order code. The nominated accessible feature-bag projection has three codes and can achieve at most 50% balanced orientation accuracy.
2. The $C$-before-$E$ construction is available at 115 ms, before the third note arrives at 210 ms. Equal or unresolved gaps are not ordered through arbitrary identifiers; the selected resolution is 5 ms.
3. Optional addressed retrieval recovers retained content. Recollection is constructed from that retained content without re-input of the original source list. Erasing the later record removes access without changing the logged earlier state.
4. Delayed channels distinguish source, arrival and calibrated interpreted order. The operation uses received signals and stipulated learned calibration rather than consulting a source-time oracle.
5. Equal deterministic local prefixes give equal modeled content before different future inputs. Omission registers an expectation without treating the absent note as received.
6. RC calculations reproduce the finite retention window and tolerance margins. Pace calculations reproduce [Table 2](/consciousness/temporal-passage/07-felt-duration-and-pace#table-2) and the nonzero model Jacobian determinant.

The feature-bag intervention limits the accessible projection. Other ordered information remains in the Python object's larger representation. Its bound therefore concerns the declared code and fixed readout, not an omniscient decoder of every machine variable. Likewise, the script's query and deletion operations test optional retrieval behavior, not actual human uptake.

The paper also reports a finite dependency check holding the admission interpretation fixed. It varies Boolean inputs representing the six other admission conditions, $U$ and $R_{\mathrm{later}}$. Across 256 assignments it verifies that changing later capacity alone cannot alter admission, absent $U$ fails the nominated qualification, and the complete stipulated conjunction suffices. These are specification checks, not an empirical detector of consciousness. They isolate fleeting actual uptake followed by loss from an unused capacity without current uptake.

The publication identifies its original `README.txt` as the source of reproduction commands, and its LaTeX and bibliography as the inputs to the compiled PDF. The six checks and Boolean audit above are the results reported by that publication. The independent implementation below checks the stated finite consequences separately; it does not substitute for execution of that original research package. No third-party research PDFs are redistributed here.

For transparent access to the arithmetic and finite examples, this website additionally supplies an [independent component-check script](/publications/consciousness/new-papers/temporal-passage/temporal-component-checks.py). Run it with Python 3. It reproduces the ordered-pair counts, event schedule, retrieval/loss distinction, delay calibration, local-prefix and omission examples, RC margins, pace outputs, Jacobian, orbital comparison, radicand simplification and the Boolean dependency specification. It is an independent companion check, not the original source script or a test of experiential presence.



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