Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
5.6
Timelessness
We often get the feeling that time is going by slowly or passing very quickly. This
is because our conception of time depends on our emotional state and our attention
(Mitchon
1990
; Ornstein
1970
). When we are bored, time passes slowly; when we
are anxious, it goes fast (Csikszentmihalyi
1990
). However, when we are able to
disregard the demands and expectations of the ego, the experience of time ceases, at
least for short whiles. It is then that the notion of timelessness appears (Hartocollis
1983
), the experience of transcending oneself and the socio-temporal reality,
because one is captivated by the activity being done in the present. If cyclic and
lineal time is a succession of instants, timelessness occurs when attention is removed
from oneself and invested in the profundity of the experience of here and now
(Mainemelis
2002
).
The state of timelessness can be induced in different ways, e.g. by highly moti-
vated activities, intense concentration when doing certain tasks, or through mystic
experiences, drugs and epipahines (Arlow
1996
; Csikszentmihalyi
1990
; Hartocollis
1983
; Mainemelis
2002
; Ornstein
1986
). Temporal experience, therefore, is merely
subjective sensitive.
Researchers of cognitive sciences have traditionally defended the existence of
two subjective temporalities. We consider them both indispensable for the funda-
mentation of our thesis. Klein et al. (
2002
) coin two forms of temporal experience:
lived and known. The former, time lived, enables somebody to experience time as a
present in motion. Known time, in contrast, consists of the chronological knowl-
edge that enables someone to know about the events and their fi xed temporal rela-
tions (before and after). It is this type of temporality, anchored in semantic memory,
that makes it possible to anticipate and plan future contingencies and learn about the
relations between cause and effect.
The idea of time lived is signifi cant. The abandonment of the notion of the static
present to submerge oneself in the narrative experience and become captivated by it,
offers, thanks to digitalization, signifi cant creative and existential possibilities.
Some of these possibilities have already been exploited in the form of artifi cial vir-
tual worlds, for example. In fact, nowadays there are scenarios for interaction, fun-
damentally for purposes of education and/or entertainment, such as metaverses, that
through the use of synthetic images and interactivity invite us to live experiences in
real time (on this issue, we recommend Jansson's (
2013
) exploration of the notion
of transmedia textures). We gave an example of this at the start of the text. However,
what we consider especially relevant, having reached this point of the discussion, is
not so much the possibility of living in present-time experiences that are constructed
in the same present. What we fi nd striking is the increased possibility of living in
present time narrations produced in the past, in what was then the present, or in
more distant pasts, with the total appearance of immediacy and the sensation of
immersion. The increasing capacity to create representations, or spaces for con-
sumption, based on real, and not necessarily fi ctitious, people or facts, with much
verisimilitude, invites us to experience the time lived of the past narration in the
