If a person was sat in front of a computer monitor and watched random shapes flash up on the screen one after the other, they would perceive time, wouldn't they? Although there doesn't at first glance appear to be any perception of cause and effect. — wax

An interesting thought experiment. Someone that knows they are sitting in a room in front of a screen, wouldn't necessarily see causes and effects in the sequence of shapes. They'd assume the cause for all shapes is a computer running a certain program.

But what if all you knew were the shapes? I don't think a human would assume the shapes are uncaused. But since no other visible causes are available, wouldn't one get the impression that the shapes are caused by the preceding shapes?

I want to note that this kind of thought experiment does not necessarily represent how cause and effect would work as a principle of human perception. The cause-effect relationship is already established before we ever see shapes. Not every temporal sequence is one of causes and effects, so there is a specific relation that is expressed by our human perception.

Not every temporal sequence is one of causes and effects, — Echarmion

If not spontaneity, what did you have in mind?

If not spontaneity, what did you have in mind? — Mww

Well let's take the example of the computer screen: you can have a sequence of pictures that are not in a causal relation to each other, but instead are all effects of causes within the computer itself. So, events can be distinct in time without being in a cause-effect relationship. But at the same time every event is part of a cause-effect relationship.

Hmm, yeah. Reads differently the next day. Images can be a temporal sequence without being causal, of course. The specific relation expressions by our perception in this case would be succession.

Sorry. Dunno what I was thinking.