>The reason I ask is because for other purposes, I would like to be able to
>say that the present, where we _indeed_ are has a timespan that is both
>longer and more "viscous" than the seconds on my wristwatch (not to mention
>milliseconds etc.)
We feel the present is longer, but is it the same present? If I recall
rightly, short-term memory expires very quickly. Is it the *same* present
that we remember five minutes later, or is it a *reconstructed* present--in
which things that did not fit patterns that we already knew, or that we
created (or remade through analogy or metaphor) in that 45 to 120 second
area of consciousness, disappear? the whole task of literacy, and the
intriguing aspect of visual media, is that it provides assistance in this
process of reconstruction. That we have so much to reconstruct in our very
complex, socially interactive world, may be the only reason that we are as
conscious of consciousness as we are.
Doug