ABSTRACT
Mental time travel often is cast in the mind’s eye as a type of narrative construction or story line, not as “a causally imprinted trace on a passive receiving system forming a ‘spool like’ cumulative record of self-standing [past] events”. But as a product whose content and contour are constantly evolving and updated, reinterpreted, or rewoven together, often in the light of current concerns and emotional associations and edited and adjusted to fit current circumstances and aspirations. The fact that people are able self-reflectively to connect their “present condition as part of a larger, temporally extended existence” is critical not just to living a life, but to leading it – as James Rachels puts matters. Thinking or conscious thoughtful activity in general often is an active voluntary process. At a semantic level, “thinking” is an activity verb. Thought insertion, so understood, also reveals that the “sense of subjectivity can survive when the sense of agency is lost”.
