The Fullness of Time

Abstract

In this speculative article, I question the postulation of homogeneity in models of time intended for use in developmental, social or cultural psychology. After surveying extant models, I propose a new kind of model, which is highly inhomogeneous and one-dimensional only in a global sense: locally such a model can be very ‘full’. My aim is to capture in mathematical form one common hypothesis about psychological time (that it reckons ‘acts of attention’), somewhat amplified by a further claim (that these acts are interpolated by states of ambivalence), and to do so precisely enough that the resulting models can be used effectively in further collaborations between mathematicians and psychologists