The Unsectioned Present: Temporal Architecture, Neurological Filtering, and the Neurodivergent Brain
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Relativity's block universe treats past, present and future as equally real, which leaves the flow of time as something the brain produces rather than something physics supplies. This paper proposes that a central task of consciousness is sectioning: carving the simultaneous into sequence by filing most of experience as past and surfacing a narrow band as present. Read through Hall's Neural Imprint Syndrome (HNIS), nervous systems shaped by early disruption may section differently, and what is commonly treated as rumination, hypervigilance or emotional flashback may reflect experience that has not been filed as past. On this reading closure is a neurological process rather than a sentimental one, and ritual, therapies such as EMDR, and art-making can be understood as technologies of sectioning. The paper is offered as a theoretical proposal, not as an established clinical account.
Author: Hall, Ashlar
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225461270