ABSTRACT
Roland Fischer’s stimulating and discursive treatment of biological time includes the idea that evolution might be regarded as the stretching out of life into time. A spiral becomes a graphic representation for the view that life on earth may be regarded historically as a single event, with evolution, learning, perception, hallucinations, and dreaming differing from each other only in their time rates of change. Each category represents an increasing efficiency in the use of energy. In the case of the most advanced state characterized, one can understand this by considering how little of hallucinating or dreaming experience is dependent on outside stimulus, how much on internal attention, expectation, and experience.12 Using this scheme, he explores the relativity of our reference points and the restricted range of our consciousness, ending with this passage:
With this discussion, we have moved from the experimental literature far afield into the world of speculation. The excursion may help to indicate the vastness and fascination of the subject. In following chapters, we shall cover both cautionary and predictive materials: in a discussion, first, of the inherent experimental barriers in testing temporal perception or experience and, secondly, of the extreme relativity of our reference points as individuals with highly differentiated personal histories. It will then be possible to evaluate some current efforts at utilizing aberrations or extensions of temporal experiences in the arts and to venture a few predictions as to what the future may well hold.
