The Enigma of Time

This book considers the concept of time after the shift from genetics to phylogenetics. The book shows how what we call 'experience' is structured by virtue of the availability of 'innate guides to learning' dating back to a deep memory, which has the long timescale of natural history and not the short timescale of individual development.

This book considers the concept of time after the shift from genetics to phylogenetics. It uses an interdisciplinary analysis based on the latest findings from neuroscience, physics, philosophy of medicine, epistemology, logic and artificial intelligence to delve into various aspects of the enigmatic character of time. The book shows how what we call 'experience' is structured by virtue of the availability of 'innate guides to learning' dating back to a deep memory, which has the long timescale of natural history and not the short timescale of individual development. Meanwhile, the idea of the 'future' is understood not as a calculated probability via statistics and artificial intelligence, but as an uncertain or open temporal dimension and an ethics of possibility. This book is of interest to scholars and specialists involved in this research, and to the general reader interested in the current cultural debate about evolution, memory, and time.