This makes it possible for us to perceive changes and events
as well as stationary objects. The perceptual present is supplemented
by the ideational present. Through the combination of perceptions with
memory images, entire days, months, and even years of the past are
brought together into the present."
In this ideational present, vividness, as James said, is proportionate
to the number of discriminations we perceive within it. Thus a
vacation in which we were bored with nothing to do passes slowly while
we are in it, but seems very short in memory. Great activity kills
time rapidly, but in memory its duration is long. On the relation
between the amount we discriminate and our time perspective James has
an interesting passage: [Footnote: _Op. cit._, Vol. I, p. 639.]
"We have every reason to think that creatures may possibly differ
enormously in the amounts of duration which they intuitively feel, and
in the fineness of the events that may fill it. Von Baer has indulged
in some interesting computations of the effect of such differences in
changing the aspect of Nature. Suppose we were able, within the length
of a second, to note 10,000 events distinctly, instead of barely 10 as
now; [Footnote: In the moving picture this effect is admirably produced
by the ultra-rapid camera.] if our life were then destined to hold the
same number of impressions, it might be 1000 times as short.
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