We have an experience of things and events as enduring, and as staying the same or changing
over time. Consider as an example, watching a colour smoothly morph from red to green. In
order to experience this change one must be aware not just of what is happening at a particular
instant, but also of what has just been, and what is about to be. One must experience a whole
interval of time which includes elements of the past, present and future. We call time which allows
us to experience things or events as enduring, changing or staying the same, subjective time. Is
phenomenal consciousness structured so as to enable us to experience subjective time? A view
which answers this question in the affirmative, takes subjective time to be a phenomenal property.
It takes phenomenal consciousness to have the property of being structured, so as to allow for
experiences through and over time. The opposing view denies that phenomenal consciousness has
such a structure, arguing instead that phenomenal experiences take place at discrete instances in
time. The appearance that time passes is, on this second view, an illusion which may arise, for
instance, from the cognitive mechanisms we use to make judgements about time. The aim of our
project is to look for empirical evidence from cognitive neuroscience, consciousness studies,
and psychophysics which might decide between these two views of phenomenal consciousness.