So your question is, "Can perception of time be non-simultaneous?" Or, "Does the insect experience time slower or at a different rate than the human?"

I don't think there is a way to know this for sure, because it requires that we take the place of multiple minds/perceptions rather than just one's own, but I do think that if you are seriously interested in the perception of time you try to run a rope around Einsteins theory of relativity. I am not saying the theory can tell us if a bug experiences time at lower rates than human's but it does have some explanatory power over the nature of time itself.

Time as it is experienced phenomenologically by a living creature cannot be reduced to time as modeled in physics, since the objective scientific model is itself a derivative mode of thinking about time in relation to the more originary phenomenological experiencing of it.

Yes my question regroup both the perception of time that is non-simultaneous and at a different rate than the human. Since there would be a major gap between scales (one being way bigger than the other one) could it be possible that time does apply differently? Let me explain further. In the quantic world (where only possibility of existence matters) it is infinitely small compared to us. Same applies to the macroscopic one where galaxies (if we were big enough) time would seem to go way faster if we were able to see humain beings. All of this to ask if the perception of time relies on the scale of the form itself (hence the relativity of time).

The speed of time as psychologically experienced requires the simultaneous having of a horizon of past, a present and a future in awareness . We know it is now because we are at the same time aware of having just moved from the previous moment, but we carry (retain) the memory of that previous moment with us into the 'now' . We also anticipate into the future as part of the present moment. This is how time has the feeling of flowing, of being a continuous stream . We wouldnt be able to enjoy music if the 'now' was isolated from the immediate past. There would be nothing to connect the current note with the past notes to give us a sense of an ongoing continuity in the music.
Do insects have this structure of retention of the immediate past as they experience the now? If not, then time would not be experienced as flow for them, and they would have no perception of speed of time.
As far as human perception of the speed of the flow of time, notice that we only notice time as time when we are interrupted from a task we are involved in. If we are completely immersed in something of interest to us, we often dont notice time at all as a 'thing'. That's when time seems to 'fly'. It is when we are unable to absorb ourselves completely into an activity that time seems to 'drag' because we are impatiently waiting for something to happen rather than being immersed in the happening.
When it comes down to it, what we call objective, or clock time, is only useful to us at certain points in our activities

Your point of view is very interesting but I would like to explore a little bit more with you. Since time appears like a flow to us, could it be possible that the past, the present and the future be as one? Pretending and assuming that the premise of the insect being able to comprehend its world enough to separate the past, the present and the future but having a different perception of time because of its size (time going slower in his perception than in ours). Let me explain further. The ephemeroptera has a life span of 1 day in our perception of time. But for him he has lived his entire life during such a short duration of time (in our perception). Could it be possible that time applies differently?

Doesn't time apply differently to us, too, in different periods of our lives? How long did a year seem to you when you were a child? How many times did you ask your parents(or do your kids ask you) "are we were there yet?" when you took a road trip with them? When you return home after an hour of errands , doesn't your dog act as if you were gone for days? So if a child, or pet, seems to have a very different conception of the passage of time than an adult, I can just imagine how different an insect's notion of time must be. It would seem from the above examples that the more capable one is of anticipating into the future the more predictable the world seems and the faster time seems to flow. There many events in a dog's life where it has no way of estimating duration ( although this isnt always the case. A dog may wait at the front door at the same time every day for a child to return home from school).

I guess it's like optical magnification. Our eyes may have a resolution of 1mm. An ordinary light microscope can resolve 1micrometer and electron microscopes can see even better, at the nanoscale.

Likewise, we can talk of perceptual resolution of time. The human time perceptual limit is probably in the milliseconds. Isn't that why motion pictures work? The frames of a film move just fast enough that the frames merge into a smooth motion. We can't perceive the actual individual frames. It's just too fast.

However, an eye of a fly may have a ''higher'' resolution allowing them to see each frame separately. The illusion of motion in a motion picture is not there.

Also, there are things that are both fast and slow. A lightning travels at the speed of light. We don't see the light arc travelling; instead we see the entire track the lightning follows as a single, albeit, brief image.

A glacier moves a few meters in a year. This is imperceptible to us humans. We don't see such slow events.

You could be right, then, that the bug in your story experiences time differently and what is to us a blurred image may be a hi-def movie to the bug.

Could it be possible that his death is premeditated but not occurring at the same time as he perceives it really? — Paul24

I don't understand what you're asking here.

Since time appears like a flow to us, could it be possible that the past, the present and the future be as one? — Paul24

The problem with this idea is that we notice a very distinct difference between past and future. Things in the past are determined, fixed, and there is no possibility of changing them. Things in the future are to some extent undetermined, and there is possibility involved with what will or will not occur. It is this difference which give "the present" meaning. It is not the appearance of "flow" which gives the present meaning, because if there were no difference between past and future, "the present", with the associated flow, could be at any point on the time line, with a flow occurring.

So the idea that "flow" is the defining aspect of the present, is flawed and misleading. Once we reject this notion, and see the present for what it is, as the division between future and past, we get a completely different perspective on the apparent "flow". The change from future to past, as time passes, no longer appears as a flow, but it appears as a change. The two are radically different because "flow" is represented as a continuity, and change is represented as a discontinuity

So if we assume your premise that the present is a change between the past and the future is true then how can you explain the space-time continuum? It is represented as a continuity not a discontinuity in time.

Yes all of this brings me to my ultime point. Assuming the premise that we have different notion of the perception of time, could it be possible that destiny truely exists. Let me explain further. Some events as stated previously appears to us slow or really fast. The same rule applies to all other life forms assuming they can comprehend their physical world and the notion of time (let's assume). This brings me to this. Events that are currently unfolding before our eyes (as human beings that we call the present) could have already occured in a different scale (lets say the macroscopic points of view). Could it be possible that destiny (the future already being written in advance) could be a plausible outcome assuming that premise being true?

Past may be determined and fixed, but it must also enter into the very horizon that we experience as the 'present'. Otherwise there would be no sense of the continuity of meaning and purpose from moment to moment. The present arises out of a background context that it is at the same time continuous with and differs from.

William James put it thusly:

"Consciousness, then, does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. Such words as 'chain' or 'train' do not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the first instance. It is nothing jointed; it flows. A 'river' or a 'stream' are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it hereafter let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness, or of subjective life. But now there appears, even
within the limits of the same self, and between thoughts all of which alike have this same sense of
belonging together, a kind of jointing and separateness among the parts, of which this
statement seems to take no account. I refer to the breaks that are produced by sudden contrasts in the
chain, making often explosive appearances and rending each other in twain. But their comings and
goings and contrasts no more break the flow of the thought that thinks them than they break the time
and the space in which they lie. A silence may be broken by a thunder-clap, and we may be so
stunned and confused for a moment by the shock as to give no instant account to ourselves of what has happened. But that very confusion is a mental state, and a state that passes us straight over from the silence to the sound. The transition between the thought of one object and the thought of another is no more a break in the thought than a joint in a bamboo is a break in the wood. It is a part of the
consciousness as much as the joint is a part of the bamboo.

The superficial introspective view is the overlooking, even when the things are contrasted
with each other most violently, of the large amount of affinity that may still remain between the
thoughts by whose means they are cognized. Into the awareness of the thunder itself the awareness of
the previous silence creeps and continues; for what we hear when the thunder crashes is not thunder
pure, but thunder-breaking-upon-silence-and-contrasting-with-it.[12] Our feeling of the same
objective thunder, coming in this way, is quite different from what it would be were the thunder
a continuation of previous thunder. The thunder itself we believe to abolish and exclude the silence;
but the feeling of the thunder is also a feeling of the silence as just gone; and it would be difficult to find
in the actual concrete consciousness of man a feeling so limited to the present as not to have an
inkling of anything that went before. Here, again, language works against our perception of the truth.
We name our thoughts simply, each after its thing, as if each knew its own thing and nothing else."

So if we assume your premise that the present is a change between the past and the future is true then how can you explain the space-time continuum? It is represented as a continuity not a discontinuity in time. — Paul24

Space-time continuum is a conceptual structure we use for measuring. That it is based in an assumption of continuity is really irrelevant. I assume that time will continue to pass, as it has for all my life, but this is irrelevant to the fact that I believe there is a radical difference between future and past.

Past may be determined and fixed, but it must also enter into the very horizon that we experience as the 'present'. Otherwise there would be no sense of the continuity of meaning and purpose from moment to moment. The present arises out of a background context that it is at the same time continuous with and differs from. — Joshs

I agree that past enters the horizon of experience, but we cannot deny that future also enters this horizon. In consciousness these two are represented by memory and anticipation respectively. I disagree with the quote from James, saying "Consciousness, then, does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. Such words as 'chain' or 'train' do not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the first instance. It is nothing jointed; it flows." Consciousness is chopped up, but not in the way described. We are torn between our past selves, and the future we want for ourselves, and so we are divided. Our past actions and habits force us in a determinist sort of way, but we are always trying to break free from this determinism to will ourselves into a better future.

The continuity we adhere to is created, synthesized, constructed in order to allow us to apply past experience toward future actions. Without an assumed continuity between past and future, no logic could prepare us for the future. The continuity is supported by the inertia of massive existence. We have observed, through the past, that massive existence has the power of inertia, and this supports the assumption of continuity.

The problem with this idea is that we notice a very distinct difference between past and future. Things in the past are determined, fixed, and there is no possibility of changing them. Things in the future are to some extent undetermined, and there is possibility involved with what will or will not occur. It is this difference which give "the present" meaning. It is not the appearance of "flow" which gives the present meaning, because if there were no difference between past and future, "the present", with the associated flow, could be at any point on the time line, with a flow occurring.

So the idea that "flow" is the defining aspect of the present, is flawed and misleading. Once we reject this notion, and see the present for what it is, as the division between future and past, we get a completely different perspective on the apparent "flow". The change from future to past, as time passes, no longer appears as a flow, but it appears as a change. The two are radically different because "flow" is represented as a continuity, and change is represented as a discontinuity — Metaphysician Undercover

The source of the confusion in different comprehensions of time is the systematic substitution for differently experienced times, the absence of the rigorous clarification of the
concepts applied. One can have an experience of the “flow” even without reflection
on time, without applying the notion of the past and the present. It is a basic experience of some change, a passive synthesis, the living present. Something has just passed, something will have come, and both have been grasped at one present moment. So, we can define “flow” as “this living present.” The continuity of the “flow” is an abstract concept; in fact, various presents actualize different qualities of life. So, there is the first time of the “flow” (leaving present). When one starts considering properties of time, reflecting on it, one utilizes a variety of thinking and logical recourses. One keeps leaving in the present while doubling this present by intellectual means of representation, reproduction, and a priory knowledge. Even when one uses the notion of “future,” one does it as not the invention of something radically new, so that one’s modi of life and thinking will have become entirely different.
Therefore, we can distinguish the second synthesis of time, and since the memory is the most crucial factor in this synthesis, it can be called the synthesis of the past. Finally, there is a time of the creation of the new, which is inseparable from death, wreck, taking a risk, and becoming – this time can be called the time of the future, the third synthesis of time. The change and the becoming are its main determinants.
Each of the three kinds of time has its own “past,” “present,” and “future.”

Once we reject this notion, and see the present for what it is, as the division between future and past, — Metaphysician Undercover

The Stoics had developed the notion of the present as just the gap between the past and the future, represented by Aion. But, they also did not forget about Cronus, the god of the living present.

If light had a conscious perception of time, it wouldn't even notice the brief time of our universe's existence.

I think James is understanding continuity in a different way than you are. If we look at the contents of consciousness, whether past actions and habits , present or anticipative experieincing, as conceptual objects, then continuity has to be understood in terms of a logic of objective causation and its determinations.
There is a very different way to understand continuity that does not operate under the terms of the causality of conceptual logic.

The key quote from James is :"What we hear when the thunder crashes is not thunder
pure, but thunder-breaking-upon-silence-and-contrasting-with-it. Our feeling of the same
objective thunder, coming in this way, is quite different from what it would be were the thunder
a continuation of previous thunder."

The thunder in this example is not a concept that is either true or false in its meaning, but a way of being thunder whose sense in consciousness changes in continuous fashion over time.
A way or sense of being something understood this way is not definable by predicative properties or attributes of a concept. It must be understood instead as akin to a fabric changing its textural shape as a whole, in a breeze .It is not a matter of reductively determining each state of the fabric by reference to a previous state, because the attempt to do so further transforms the sense of that past. There is a way of continuing to be the same differently that eludes the reifications of conceptual logic, a kind of referential but not deterministic consistency, that accrods better with actual phenomological experience of the world

Considering that each and every living beings has its own perception of time, could it be possible to assume that there could be the possibility of the existence of the multiverse? Does time really applies unequivocally to all living beings as a whole regardless of perception?

One can have an experience of the “flow” even without reflection
on time, without applying the notion of the past and the present. It is a basic experience of some change, a passive synthesis, the living present. — Number2018

I don't see how this is possible. In order to notice a flow one must recognize a past. And this is the same with "change", in order to notice change one must have memory of the way things were. So without bringing the past to bear upon the present, all that would be evident would be what is present, and there would be no indication of flow or change.

So, we can define “flow” as “this living present.” — Number2018

So I disagree with this. If there was only present, there would be no flow at all. The flow is the activity which is the future becoming the past. These, future and past, are necessary for flow.

The key quote from James is :"What we hear when the thunder crashes is not thunder
pure, but thunder-breaking-upon-silence-and-contrasting-with-it. Our feeling of the same
objective thunder, coming in this way, is quite different from what it would be were the thunder
a continuation of previous thunder." — Joshs

What you describe here is a discontinuity. But it doesn't make sense to understand continuity in terms of discontinuity, because discontinuous is just a negation of continuous, something deficient in continuity. So we need to define continuous first, and understand continuity first, before we can proceed toward understanding a lack of continuity.

Thunder breaking the silence is a discontinuity. It is a description of breaking the continuous silence. The key to understanding what this is, this breaking continuity, is to understand first, what continuity is.

It must be understood instead as akin to a fabric changing its textural shape as a whole, in a breeze .It is not a matter of reductively determining each state of the fabric by reference to a previous state, because the attempt to do so further transforms the sense of that past. — Joshs

This change you describe here, "a fabric changing its textural shape", is a discontinuity. It had a shape, and that shape comes to an end. It's a discontinuity. We cannot proceed to understand this change, this discontinuity, until we first understand what it means for something to have a shape, and this would be to hold a shape for a period of time, a continuity.

It is not a matter of reductively determining each state of the fabric by reference to a previous state, because the attempt to do so further transforms the sense of that past. — Joshs

I think that is exactly what it takes to determine continuity, reference to previous states. One must determine something which remains unchanged for a period of time, and this is continuity.

There is a way of continuing to be the same differently that eludes the reifications of conceptual logic, a kind of referential but not deterministic consistency, that accrods better with actual phenomological experience of the world — Joshs

But this is nonsensical contradiction. To continue to be the same, differently, is just contradiction, and that's why it eludes conceptual logic. It's nonsense, and meaningless to talk in such a contradictory way. .

"One must determine something which remains unchanged for a period of time, and this is continuity". What you are describing is a mathematical abstraction. It is a device that we invented as a tool in our attempts to make sense of the world. But other than pure mathematical objects, there is no such thing as pure continuity in the world of meaningful experience.

As far as continuing to be the same differently, if you repeat a word to yourself over and over(or glance at it on a page), the sense of the word will change. This effect applies to any meaning we attempt to repeat. If you want to preserve 'same' to mean pure mathematical identity, then, what we intend to mean when we repeat a meaning continues to be similar to itself by at the same time differing from itself. This is non-logical continuity, the way our unfolding experiences belong to patterns and themes while always transforming in subtle ways the very meaning of those patterns and themes.

"One must determine something which remains unchanged for a period of time, and this is continuity". What you are describing is a mathematical abstraction. It is a device that we invented as a tool in our attempts to make sense of the world. But other than pure mathematical objects, there is no such thing as pure continuity in the world of meaningful experience. — Joshs

Right, that's what I am saying, continuity is something synthetic, it's constructed conceptually. I would agree that there is something apparently paradoxical, or appearing to be inherently contradictory about constructing something continuous, just like "being the same differently" is contradictory. But take a look at the different ways that we come across the notion of continuous. They all involve infinity, because to be bounded, or to have an end would destroy the continuity. We define "continuous" by referring to a never ending action, counting, dividing, or in the natural world, something like the earth circling the sun forever.

But all of these continuous activities are imaginary, in the sense of continuing without an end is imaginary. And, each of the continuous activities involves doing something with individual units. It is not to the units themselves, or the collection of units, that we assign "continuous" to, it is what is being done with those individual units, the activity, which is called "continuous". So "continuous" is conceptual, it is a feature of the description of what is occurring. We see an activity, and we describe it as continuous.

As far as continuing to be the same differently, if you repeat a word to yourself over and over(or glance at it on a page), the sense of the word will change. This effect applies to any meaning we attempt to repeat. If you want to preserve 'same' to mean pure mathematical identity, then, what we intend to mean when we repeat a meaning continues to be similar to itself by at the same time differing from itself. This is non-logical continuity, the way our unfolding experiences belong to patterns and themes while always transforming in subtle ways the very meaning of those patterns and themes. — Joshs

Here you are mixing up the action which is continuous, with the individual units involved in the continuous action. So you are repeating a word, with a meaning. The word, and the meaning are the entities involved in the activity. (This is like the game "Whisper Down the Valley", in which you whisper a phrase to the person next to you, and they whisper it to the next person, so on, around a circle of people, until it gets back to the first person who notices how much the phrase has changed.) Notice, that regardless of how the entity involved in the activity changes, the activity itself remains the same, as continuous.

However, this is just a property of the way that we describe activities. Close examination of the activity will reveal that the activity itself, necessarily changes when the entities involved in the activity change. But when we make the description, we abstract, and claim that the activity remains the same, despite the minute changes involved. It is really quite difficult to place the idea of continuity in relation to the abstraction. It seems to be fundamental to the abstraction, as required for abstraction, a continuity of sameness through different things, but it is not actually part of the description (or abstraction), only an underlying assumption which supports the abstraction.

In order to notice a flow one must recognize a past. And this is the same with "change", in order to notice change one must have memory of the way things were. So without bringing the past to bear upon the present, all that would be evident would be what is present, and there would be no indication of flow or change.

So, we can define “flow” as “this living present.”
— Number2018

So I disagree with this. If there was only present, there would be no flow at all. The flow is the activity which is the future becoming the past. These future and past, are necessary for flow. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think that our disagreement is caused by different applications and meanings of the terms of “flow,” and “the living present.” Your comprehension of “flow” belongs to a reflective conscious experience of time. Whereas I think of “the living present” as related to the different subjective time - at the level of the first passive synthesis.
Deleuze laid out how one (it can be an animal as well as a human) is able to experience time at this level:
“Hume takes as an example the repetition of
cases of the type AB, AB, AB, A .... Each case or objective sequence AB is
independent of the others. The repetition (although we cannot yet properly
speak of repetition) changes nothing in the object or the state of affairs AB.
On the other hand, a change is produced in the mind, which contemplates:
a difference, something new in the mind. When A appears, we expect B
with a force corresponding to the qualitative impression of all the
contracted ABs. This is by no means a memory, nor indeed an operation of
the understanding: contraction is not a matter of reflection. Properly
speaking, it forms a synthesis of time. A succession of instants does not
constitute time any more than it causes it to disappear; it indicates only its
constantly aborted moment of birth. Time is constituted only in the originary synthesis which operates on the repetition of instants. This
synthesis contracts the successive independent instants into one another,
thereby constituting the lived, or living, present. It is in this present that
time is deployed. To it belong both the past and the future: the past in so
far as the preceding instants are retained in the contraction; the future
because its expectation is anticipated in this same contraction. The past
and the future do not designate instants distinct from a supposed present
instant, but rather the dimensions of the present itself in so far as it is a
contraction of instants.”
So, there is the passive synthesis of time, without involving recognition, memory,
and other conscious cognitive abilities. This “living present” is fundamentally asymmetrical: it contains the transition from the repeated particular stimuli (the past) to the more general level of the expected (the future). Therefore, there is the foundation for the direction of time, and for the different meaning of “flow,” which can be understood as the motion from the particular to the general. Also, it is possible to understand how an insect can live in a “perpetual living present,” in spite of having consecutive presents of entirely various qualities.

think that our disagreement is caused by different applications and meanings of the terms of “flow,” and “the living present.” Your comprehension of “flow” belongs to a reflective conscious experience of time. Whereas I think of “the living present” as related to the different subjective time - at the level of the first passive synthesis. — Number2018

OK, so you already have a synthesis built into your concept of "present", that's why you denied my need for a synthesis. But what do you mean by "passive synthesis"?

Hume takes as an example the repetition of
cases of the type AB, AB, AB, A .... Each case or objective sequence AB is
independent of the others. The repetition (although we cannot yet properly
speak of repetition) changes nothing in the object or the state of affairs AB.
On the other hand, a change is produced in the mind, which contemplates:
a difference, something new in the mind. When A appears, we expect B
with a force corresponding to the qualitative impression of all the
contracted ABs. — Number2018

There is a problem with this, and that is that there is no such thing as a repetition of the very same AB, AB, over and over again. Each new moment is particular, and brings something new, something changed. So there is no such thing as a pure repetition of AB, and this is why a mind is necessary right at this point. The mind abstracts and creates the repetition of AB, by removing the unnecessary differences which distract..

This is by no means a memory, nor indeed an operation of
the understanding: contraction is not a matter of reflection. Properly
speaking, it forms a synthesis of time. A succession of instants does not
constitute time any more than it causes it to disappear; it indicates only its
constantly aborted moment of birth. Time is constituted only in the originary synthesis which operates on the repetition of instants. — Number2018

So according to what I said above, it actually is the mind with memory, that synthesizes time. A mind must create the repetition through abstraction. Time as such, is entirely in the mind. But to truly understand time itself we need to go back to the occurrences which the mind abstracts from, when it creates the repetition of AB, and understand the nature of these.

I believe that Husserl referred to this synthetic activity of mind with regard to concepts an 'idea in the Kantian sense', a meaning that can be repeated indefintely as self-identical. For Kant the objectivity of science is secured transcendentally via the categories which make infinitization and ideality possible. Husserl modifies Kant by dropping the trasncendental categories of perception and instead locating the basis of ideality in the interative self presencing within the tripartite structure of time consciousness.
Question: do we really want to hold with either Kant or Husserl concerning a trancendental justification of ideality? IS there something in the self that comes back to itself identically moment to moment as it interacts with a world? If not, then pure ideality never is able to constitute itself in consciousness.
Outside of number itself as empty self -identical counting, is there anything in the mind's abstractions that meaningfully returns to itself identically? This was Derida's argument , as well as Merleau-Ponty's. The idea in the Kantian sense is a solpsism, ignoring the embodied basis of thought.

I believe that Husserl referred to this synthetic activity of mind with regard to concepts an 'idea in the Kantian sense', a meaning that can be repeated indefintely as self-identical. For Kant the objectivity of science is secured transcendentally via the categories which make infinitization and ideality possible. Husserl modifies Kant by dropping the trasncendental categories of perception and instead locating the basis of ideality in the interative self presencing within the tripartite structure of time consciousness. — Joshs

It's hard for me to grasp how you are using "transcendental" here. Categories are produced through judgement, distinctions, so categories which transcend human judgement (transcendental categories) doesn't seem possible. If this is what grounds the objectivity of science, then it is a false objectivity, grounded in subjective judgements rather than being grounded in the object which we seek to understand. Therefore, I can see why Husserl would want to modify this, but "the tripartite structure of time consciousness" seems to be just another representation of categories.

Doesn't Heidegger get beyond this problem by looking at the horizon itself, and "that which regions". It's been a long time since I read "Being and Time", but if the horizon is the present itself, then perhaps the regions are past and future. This is not a categorization, because it is not classifying things by their properties, or producing categories based on properties, it is more like setting out the grounds for classification, by looking directly at the divisor, the horizon, to determine the grounds for division. That is what I think is necessary, to look directly at the division, the boundary, which is the present, to formulate objective principles for describing what exactly it is which is being divided, then the categories can be produced based on these principles.

Question: do we really want to hold with either Kant or Husserl concerning a trancendental justification of ideality? IS there something in the self that comes back to itself identically moment to moment as it interacts with a world? If not, then pure ideality never is able to constitute itself in consciousness.
Outside of number itself as empty self -identical counting, is there anything in the mind's abstractions that meaningfully returns to itself identically? This was Derida's argument , as well as Merleau-Ponty's. The idea in the Kantian sense is a solpsism, ignoring the embodied basis of thought. — Joshs

I think the problem here is that the ideal is impossible to replicate. We hold an "ideal" as a goal of perfection or some such thing, but the true ideal, by its very nature, cannot be obtained due to the implied perfection. Therefore there is nothing which comes back to itself identically within consciousness, moment to moment. That is an ideal which due to the imperfections of human disposition is impossible to obtain. We know that the key to the nature of reality is found in the particularity, uniqueness of one moment to the next. And, it appears like there is nothing which escapes this, the whole of the universe changes at each moment of passing time. As much as we might notice aspects which do not change, "the whole" reaches from its implications of wide extension, right into the most narrow extension, into the inner most aspects of that thing which appears not to change, so that thing really changes and we just don't notice the change.

In the Platonic tradition, the ideal becomes the particular, the One, or the whole, because each individual thing is seen to have its own perfect Form, proper to itself, despite the fact that it changes from one moment to the next. The moment to moment change to the individual thing's Form, might be considered by us as an imperfection to the thing, but this is accounted for by its context which puts it into a larger whole. The larger whole in turn has its own moment to moment changes and this puts it into an even lager context, to account for those apparent imperfections, until we reach the One, which as the ideal, becomes the starting point as the goal or objective.

So I believe that the exercise of looking for the moment to moment repetition of something identical is a very useful exercise, in the sense that it will bring to one's mind the futility of seeking the ideal in this way. Even counting is unsuccessful because each number is different than the last, as the numbers get higher and higher, and this demonstrates the asymmetrical nature of time. Then, if we assume that the thing counted, a moment of time, is the very same from one to the next, all we need to do is look around us to see that this assumption is not true, things change. So when we count, and assume that there is something unchanged which is being counted, this is just a fictitious assumption, there is really nothing there being counted, if this is the condition. And nothing cannot be counted.

I'm using transcendental as metaphysical a-priori (not derived from experience). "The Transcendental Deduction is Kant’s attempt to demonstrate against empiricist psychological theory that certain a priori concepts correctly apply to objects featured in our experience. For Kant a concept is a priori just in case its source is the understanding of the subject and not sensory experience. The specific a priori concepts whose applicability to objects of experience Kant aims to vindicate in the Transcendental Deduction are Unity, Plurality, and Totality (the Categories of Quantity); Reality, Negation, and Limitation (the Categories of Quality); Inherence and Subsistence, Causality and Dependence, and Community (the Categories of Relation), and Possibility-Impossibility, Existence-Nonexistence, Necessity-Contingency (the Categories of Modality)."

Heidegger:"Kant was the first to articulate explicitly the characteristics of nature as represented in the natural sciences. He was therefore also the first to state what a law means in the natural sciences
Nature is understood as the law-governed changes in location within a homogeneous
space and within the sequence of a homogeneous time. This is natural
science's supposition. In this supposition, that is, in this assumption of "nature" determined
accordingly, there lies simultaneously an acceptio. In such a supposition,
the existence of space, motion, causality, and time is always already accepted as an unquestionable fact. Here accepting and taking mean immediate receiving-perceiving. What is accepted in natural science's supposition is a homogeneous space."
The objectivity of objects is the function of a synthetic construction on the part of the subject. The objectivity of nature is determined in reference to the kind of knowledge the knowing subject possesses regarding himself. Objectivity is a determination on the part of the subject. Kant formulates
this situation in the proposition he called the supreme principle of all synthetic judgment, which reads: "The conditions of the possibility of experience in general are likewise conditions of the possibility of the objects of experience and that for this reason they have objective validity in a synthetic a priori judgment."
Notice that Kant is not not claiming that the content of objects is a -priori, rather the conditions of possiblity of causal determination are a=priori. The idea that beneath the veil of the appearance of things lies underlying unities that science can grasp through successive approximations(constructions) toward an assypmtotic horizon of empirical truth is founded on a priori suppositions. Karl Popper's notion of falsifiability rests on Kantian presuppositions concerning the conditions of possibility of causal objectivity.

Heidegger questioned the justification of Kant's transcendental categories, saying that they were not a-priori but rather invented . He also questioned Husserl's(and Sartre's and Marx's and Hegel's) notions of consciousness as self- consciousness, the idea that there is such a thing as immediate pre-reflective self-awareness.

what do you mean by "passive synthesis"? — Metaphysician Undercover

This synthesis is passive because it is not carried out by the mind, but occurs in mind, which contemplates, prior to all memory and all reflection.

there is no such thing as a repetition of the very same AB, AB, over and over again. Each new moment is particular, and brings something new, something changed. So there is no such thing as a pure repetition of AB, and this is why a mind is necessary right at this point. The mind abstracts and creates the repetition of AB, by removing the unnecessary differences which distract. — Metaphysician Undercover

to truly understand time itself we need to go back to the occurrences which the mind abstracts from, when it creates the repetition of AB, and understand the nature of these. — Metaphysician Undercover

If there were not a repetition of physical stimuli in the surrounding environment, there would be just chaotic and quick changing, so that the basic living organisms would not be able to sustain any kind of the necessary stability and succession. So, there is the external material repetition of a kind AB, AB, AB… Or, 123C4, 123C4, 123C4…we can call
this repetition “a bare material repetition”. There is no time yet. What mind creates is not a pure repetition of AB, but the contraction – getting just A from outside, in one single moment, it grasps both A and B, so that the stimulus A causes in mind something corresponding to the external group AB. As a result of this passive synthesis, the fundamental difference between “a bare material repetition” and the repetition of a mind in “a present living time” has been established. Mind repeats differently from nature.

it actually is the mind with memory, that synthesizes time — Metaphysician Undercover

If the first passive synthesis constitute “the living present of now,” and the fundamental property of this particular present time is to pass, to become substituted for another present. To grasp the former present in “the current present,” the mind has constituted the new instance of memory.

"Memory is the fundamental synthesis of time which constitutes the
being of the past (that which causes the present to pass).
At first sight, it is as if the past were trapped between two presents: the
one which it has been and the one in relation to which it is past. The past is
not the former present itself but the element in which we focus upon the
latter. Particularity, therefore, now belongs to that on which we focus - in
other words, to that which 'has been'; whereas the past itself, the 'was', is
by nature general. The past, in general, is the element in which each former
present is focused upon in particular and as a particular. In accordance
with Husserlian terminology, we must distinguish between retention and
reproduction. However, what we earlier called the retention of habit was
the state of successive instants contracted in a present present of a certain
duration. These instants formed a particularity - in other words, an
immediate past naturally belonging to the present present, while the
present itself, which remains open to the future in the form of expectation,
constitutes the general. By contrast, from the point of view of the
reproduction involved in memory, it is the past (understood as the
mediation of presents) which becomes general while the (present as well as
former) present becomes particular. Now the former present cannot be represented in the present one without the present one itself being represented in that representation. It is of the essence of representation not only to represent something but to represent its own representativity. The present and former presents are not,
therefore, as two successive instants on the line of time; rather, the present one necessarily contains an extra dimension in which it represents the former and also represents itself. The present present is treated not as the future object of memory but as that which reflects itself at the same time as it forms the memory of the former present. Active synthesis,
therefore, has two correlative - albeit non-symmetrical - aspects:
reproduction and reflection, remembrance and recognition, memory and
understanding. Every conscious state
requires a dimension in addition to the one of which it implies the
memory. As a result, the active synthesis of memory may be regarded as
the principle of representation under this double aspect: reproduction of
the former present and reflection of the present present.”

According to this comprehension of the active synthesis of memory,
each conscious act of mind has the dimensions of reproduction and
reflection. The problem now is that the activity of mind has been
pre-designed and pre-constructed, so that the Past has become
the dominating instance, so that “present” and “future” has converted into the dimensions of this time, and the active synthesis of the mind
has become the transcendental a priory of the Past.

IS there something in the self that comes back to itself identically moment to moment as it interacts with a world? — Joshs

How would you show that there is a non-ideal instance in the mind,

the embodied basis of thought. — Joshs

?

There are ideal instance all the time. But in order for an ideality to continue to exist as itself it has to repeat itself. What happens when you try to repeat a thought in consciousness? The very sense of its subtly changes, because time means exposure to context, and context is always changing context. This is the fundamental underpinning of time.
As soon as a concept is animated with the intention to say something, it exposes itself to context.