ABSTRACT
How do we construe and is there a present moment? In our head, we parse the temporal flow into things of the past, of the future, and more elusively of the present, or the “now.” But what do we mean by “now”? Like time, the present is another product of the mind’s way of seeming, not the way of truth. The present cannot exist in an ever-changing real real, a universe where all things are in constant flux, the world of Heraclitus and thermodynamics. What may exist, however, are cardinal “Kairos” moments we carved out of the dynamic flow of our life events for storage and rumination. These present moments correspond to punctual, often serendipitous alignments of perceptions, actions, and ideas. They may embody what we call the “present” or the “now,” what William James refers as the “specious present.”
