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Spatial and Temporal Relations on the Mental Map
Sign representation of the world makes it possible to formulate the concepts of "here" and "now" as well as imagine oneself in the past. Future and beyond the conditions existing in the present time. The mental map becomes the first symbolic "space", a model of subject reality, where the demands of a given subjectness are satisfied. Mental map creates opportunities for realization of spatial-temporal relations as representations of the past and the future in the present. All this brings forth cause-and-effect relations constructed and recognized by the intellect, which means the initiation of causative thought.
The subject perceives himself as a certain "identity" in time. As far as any changes can only be traced concerning the limited (bounded), the can be traced only in reality (external to the subject). The subject himself can not be reduced to any finite content and finite form. That is why it is impossible to trace his quantitative changes (as with a non-finite thing).
Thus the subject is capable of tracing changes only in the outside world, and it would be identical to his own self under any outside impact. The infinite which is contrasted to the concept of time as a change of the finite (bounded) is the condition for forming a concept of the "present" as self-identity. All kinds of alterations on the mental map can be successfully correlated with one another thus giving rise to the causation concept. From this perspective the causes are correlated with the past while the effects are correlated with the present. Their demarcation point on the "time axis" is always conventional and never coinciding with the "unconditional" present, which is prescribed for the subject beyond the boundary of the object world.
In this sense, the present is infinite, defined for the subject in stead of the object. That means it is actually not the time and it can not be expressed in terms of the bounded. The present is conceptually corresponding to the point on the mental map that is something that has no duration, and that means, no time.
For the subject the present does not exist in the time. He can cause it (himself, to be precise) by any exterior means while any time-interval could be correlated with his present. (for example, that is reflected in the following syntagms: "I am doing..."; "I am speaking" – we attribute the whole process of our activity or statement to the present, as expressed by the verb-form).
For the subject there is no difference between his past as a time-continuum and spatial continuum. Any segment of the past can be experienced as the present, because the subject is always identical to himself at any point. He "moves" through his past as if through space (his experience of both time and space being integral). However, the intellect structures psychic states determined within the limits of the given time-intervals (each one of them describing the subject's "present"), as a temporal sequence of these states or a psychical process.
The mental map is a method of representation of where I "am located" now (under what conditions and relations to the goal, which is defined by the need) as well as where and "when" I could have been "located". The mental map is essentially the way of embodying the past and future in the present.
Memory is a psychological mechanism that retains and transfers the past into the present (a way for the past to exist in the present), while conceptual "imagination" is a mechanism for transferring the future into the present. Past and future, in this sense, constitute different forms of the present existing in imagination (future) and past (in the memory).
The present is correlated with the subject as something infinite while the past is defined by the intellect on the mental map as something finite. The future emerges out of the intellectual capacity for mechanical prediction of all forms of a finite content, out of the mind's ability to establish cause-and-effect relationships. In this respect, the mechanistic future is essentially the past, as it can be forecast in a single possible way
Therefore, the thought as a knowledge-generating process presents a way of experiencing the future in the actual form of the present (as an effect in terms of concepts or any other). The thought here establishes a link between the past (experiences actually existing in the memory as causes) and the future (effects, actually present in conceptual imagination). In fact, the past and future make up different forms of the present for the subject. The future is presented by the intellect in the shape of opportunities existing in the present and possessing their quantitative definition (probability). The future might change depending on the change in current conditions.
Thus, the present, past and future have different grounds.
The need to provide an individual with guaranteed existence in the future (thus providing realization to the content essential for evolution) is interpreted as the self-preservation instinct, which "freezes" progress within the framework of mechanical causation, so providing a guarantee for a definite future controlled by the mind (an therefore, it is safe). Here is a link to the evolutionary controversy: progress requires a maximally flexible form while conditions of this form's existence (an individual) require rigidity. The controversy is partially eliminated by the fact that there is a psychological, and then a social form realized on the basis of inert biological form. The social form is no longer bound by rigid limitations (self-preservation instinct) of a specific individual. Obviously enough, the evolution develops in the direction of creating more flexible forms (qualities) giving rise to new types of subject reality and more effective forms of progress "actualization".
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