Mental time travel: Towards a computational account

Abstract

The paper aims to highlight similarities between computational routines of mentally traveling the present time, on the one hand, and routines of mentally traveling other times, on the other hand. The first and second sections, in which I lay out an eternalist view of the world and the massive modularity account of the architecture of the human mind, are intended to set the stage. Subsequently, I clarify the idea that we mentally travel the present. This explanation resorts to a cognitive mechanism I have proposed elsewhere. Finally, I submit that a similar computational routine takes place when we travel other times, be they earlier or later than the present moment.