Time after time

A useful theory linking dynamical systems to phenomenal experience will be a story thrice told. It will involve some description of phenomenal experience, which should be true. It will also involve some sort of dynamical model (second). But (third) the model will have to be at least plausibly implementable in human beings – that’s where the theory becomes useful. Finally, once all three stories are told, they must align. It should be evident to all that the phenomenal story, the dynamical story, and the implementation story are really one story, about one entity, described in three different ways, akin to one story as it might be told in three different languages. A theory of consciousness then is an exercise in translation, somewhat like deciphering the Rosetta Stone. This chapter outlines a possible alignment with respect to a foundational, structural property of experience, namely, time.