From self-organizing systems to subjective temporal extension

The self-simulational theory of temporal extension (SST) describes an information-theoretically formalized mechanism by which the "width" of subjective temporality emerges from the architecture of self-modeling. In this paper, the perspective of the free energy principle will be assumed to cast the emergence of subjective temporal extension from first principles of the physics of self-organization and to formalize subjective temporal extension using information geometry. Using active inference, a deep parametric generative model of temporal inference is simulated, which realizes the described dynamics on a computational level. Two "biases" (i.e. variations) of time-perception emerge naturally from the simulated computational model. This concerns the intentional binding effect (i.e. the compression of the temporal interval between voluntarily initiated actions and subsequent sensory consequences) and empirically documented alterations of subjective time experience in deep states of meditative absorption (i.e. in minimal phenomenal experience). Generally, numerous systematic and domain-specific alterations of subjective temporal experience are computationally explained in a unified manner, as enabled by integration with current active inference accounts mapping onto the respective domains. This concerns, next to more general attentional and central tendency effects, the temporality-modulating role of valence, impulsivity, boredom, flow-states, near death-experiences, and various psychopathologies, among others. SST, from the perspective of the free energy principle, explains how the "width" of the subjective temporal moment emerges from first principles, accounting for why sometimes, subjective time seems to fly, and sometimes, moments feel like eternities; with the computational mechanism being readily deployable synthetically.