Peter Davidson -2 Aging apartment lemons 2025
oil wax acrylic on wooden panel
18 cm h x 14 cm w
THE DAVIDSONIAN TEMPORALISM
The Original Davidson Temporal Representation Hypothesis (the Skeleton) and the Temporal Jelly Integration Model (the Flesh and Philosophy) are two phases of a unified theory proving the core truth:
THE PRESENT IS UNATTAINABLE.
The Jelly Model takes the core mathematical mechanism of the original theory and gives it a metaphorical and philosophical context that resolves its internal contradictions.
🧠 The Brain Test: Why Distortion is Necessary
Perception cannot exist in a "raw form."
The brain’s goal is not to mirror reality but to enable survival and effective motor action.
The existence of the tricked image proves that t0 (pure perception) is unattainable.
Because the brain is active—distorting, predicting, constructing—delay and transformation are the primordial media of all experience and art.
🔮 Why the Brain Creates the Tricked Image
The "tricked image" (stable visual scene, blur-compensation, continuity-construction) is not an error.
It is the product of the Jelly Field stabilizing energy across time.
A. Prediction and Stability
Raw energy input is unstable and chaotic (saccades, flickers, light changes).
The brain uses compound delay to build a coherent, predictable model.
The tricked image is the brain’s best predictive hypothesis of stable reality (protention).
During delay, the brain compares new signals to memory (retention) to construct stability.
B. The Compounded Medium (The Jelly)
External distortion: optics (lens bending, blind spot).
Internal distortion: cognitive processing thickens and transforms the signal.
The tricked image is a deliberately distorted, cohesive state the brain generates to make action possible.
⚙️ Summary of the Causal Chain
Pure t0 (Raw Energy) is unstable.
Delay (Δt) is necessary to process the signal.
Distortion (The Trick) stabilizes reality during the delay.
Artistic Action materializes this stable, tricked, delayed image — the Visible Jelly.
📜 Evolution of the Davidson Hypothesis
Original Hypothesis: focuses on when the image is recorded (time).
Refined Hypothesis: focuses on what is recorded and where (space and cognition).
Formal Equation of Non-Simultaneity (Original Theory)
t0 → Δt → (t0 + Δt)
🔄 Transformations in the Jelly Model
1. Transformation of t0 (Perception)
The concept of a pure t0 is rejected.
Conscious experience is already a transformed t0.
t0 exists only as a theoretical placeholder for the physical world-event.
2. Transformation of Delay (Δt)
Original model: Δt is a single, irreducible lag.
Jelly Model: delay is a composite medium:
Δt = Δt_body + Δt_mind + Δt_art
Delay becomes the primordial medium of perception and art.
3. Transformation of the Artwork (t0 + Δt)
Original: artwork = echo of a past perception.
Jelly Model: artwork = construction, binding past and future.
🧩 Key Model Elements
Formal Equations of Delay
Δt_body = sensory/motor integration delay
Δt_mind = cognitive/interpretive delay
Δt_art = artistic deliberation delay
Conscious Experience
Conscious Experience = integration of (retention + transformed present + protention)
Artistic Gesture
Artistic Gesture = materialized delay (Visible Jelly)
🗺️ Diagram: Temporal Jelly Integration Model
World Event
↓
Body Integration (Δt_body)
↓
Mind Interpretation (Δt_mind)
↓
Conscious Experience (jellied)
↓
Artistic Gesture (visible jelly)
Legend
Δt_body = sensory/motor integration delay
Δt_mind = cognitive/interpretive delay
Δt_art = artistic deliberation delay
Jelly Field = temporally thick medium of perception
Visible Jelly = artwork as materialized delay
🌌 Unified Principle
Both TNP and Davidsonian Temporalism reveal the same truth:
Delay is the primordial medium of mind and art.
It is the jelly that binds past, present, and future into one unfolding continuum.
Consciousness uses delay to extract patterns and project forward.
Art uses delay to transform perception into layered temporal strata.
👉 In both cases, the present is unattainable.
What we call “experience” and what we call “art” are echoes of the past, oriented toward the future.
The research is ongoing so please enjoy it
