On Time and Consciousness
Is Time the Key Missing Ingredient for AI Consciousness?
TL;DR Time perception isn’t just about clocks or sequences. It’s the felt flow that makes choice, selfhood, and morality possible. Without time perception, AI may optimize efficiently but will never experience intention or responsibility. If we are truly serious about building synthetic consciousness, in particular if consciousness is the only reliable way to align the values of a superintelligent agent with those of humankind, we don’t just need smarter algorithms: we will need to build synthetic time.
1. Time as Perceptual Construct vs. Physical Reality
Time is usually considered to be part of the environment that we live in, something we are subject to. Physics, and Relativity in particular, treats time as a coordinate ordering events in spacetime. According to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, entropy is responsible for creating the directionality of time. And in nuclear physics, radioactive decay of particles (such as muons) demonstrates that time-dependent processes are governed by probabilistic quantum mechanics laws.
Still, time is not simply an external flowing river but an experience built by the brain. Neuroscience and philosophy suggest that our perception of time arises from change detection, memory integration and predictive modeling, creating a sense of felt flow. Julian Barbour argues that time does not fundamentally exist; only change exists, and our minds stitch static configurations into narrative continuity, giving rise to what we call time perception. This consideration might seem like a mere philosophical concern with no application to AI, but this couldn't be further from the truth: we have seen in a previous article that perception of time was key to the emergence of consciousness, so if perception of time is important for consciousness, then consciousness in machines just isn't reachable with our current model architecture. In other terms, consciousness can't simply emerge from current LLMs.
2. The Quantum of Time
If the previous statement that consciousness will require novel architectures and considerations to emulate human-like perception of time into AI is true, then of course, we have the right to ask how we might get there. So let's start by discussing the very nature of time. Time carries the flow of successive events and their chronology, but it is worth understanding its structure in physics by first defining Planck time, then leading into the possibility of discreteness of time.
Planck time, defined as approximately equal to 5.39×10^−44 s
is the theoretical shortest interval with physical meaning under current theory, though not necessarily a minimum discrete unit of time. This suggests that time may be quantized with minimum intervals below which continuity breaks down (linked to quantum gravity and Planck-scale physics). Similarly, recent experimental research in quantum gravity also suggests time intervals below 10^-33 seconds may be undetectable, implying discreteness. In Penrose's Orch-OR theory, collapse happens when gravitational instability of quantum superpositions reaches a threshold, connecting gravity to consciousness collapse. This claim is also supported by Relativity which also connects time and gravity, showing that time elapses differently near strong gravitational fields such as black holes. This connection between gravity, time and collapse frames adds weight to Orch-OR’s premise and bridges general relativity and quantum consciousness models.
This is important because it will lead to interesting implications in terms of how some theories, such as Penrose and Hameroff's Orch-OR, explain the emergence of consciousness in the human brain, suggesting that time may not be continuous but rather emerge from quantum collapse events acting as frames of awareness, thus connecting fundamental physics to the architecture of conscious experience.
3. Time Perception Anchored in Biology
Human time perception is not only individual but shared. Regardless of whether perceived time is a pure construct of the brain, its anchoring in biological rhythms (heartbeat, breathing, circadian cycles) creates a shared perception across humankind. This shared perception allows causality to be meaningful between individuals: one person's action leads to consequences in another's life, because time flows consistently enough across bodies, even if our relative perceptions are not exactly aligned with each other's. Without these biological time clocks anchoring us in the physical, there would be no logic to life, no causally linked experiences and no intersubjective reality.
Hence, these biological processes unfold irreversibly, anchoring our constructed sense of time to physical reality. While perception of time flow is re-constructed by the brain, physical change progresses in ordered sequences, enabling meaningful clocks and causality. And that again points towards the fact that embodiment is a necessary condition for consciousness to appear.
4. Orch-OR and the Quantum Collapse Hypothesis
Let's now turn from discussing the biology of time clocks anchoring us in reality to understanding how the brain not only witnesses but generates time perception. Penrose and Hameroff’s Orch-OR theory proposes that consciousness arises from objective reduction (OR), a process of quantum collapses within microtubules (protein structures forming part of the neuronal cytoskeleton, proposed as quantum-coherent sites). In this framework, each collapse is like a frame in a movie reel, both discrete and sequential, creating the flow of conscious awareness. Collapse occurs when gravitational self-energy (E_G) of superposed mass distributions reaches a threshold, following τ = ħ / E_G, thus defining the collapse time. In the jargon of software engineering, this is akin to CPU clock cycles defining processing ticks. Free will thus becomes frame-based agency, bounded and limited by collapse frequency: choices are discretized yet meaningful within each collapse frame, as physics sets the granularity of our possible decisions and the temporal pace of intentional agency.
In short, free will, if truly grounded in quantum collapse, is:
Discrete, not continuous: choices arise per collapse frame.
Constrained by physics: the frequency of choice opportunities (collapses) is set by microtubule quantum dynamics and fundamental constants.
and emergent from but limited by physical law, through constraints to the resolution of choice.
Another intriguing aspect of Orch-OR is its prediction that microtubule collapses produce gamma frequency oscillations (~40Hz), the same rhythms observed in human brains during conscious perception, attention binding and working memory. Interestingly, anecdotal claims around Google’s Willow project suggested AI signal outputs displayed gamma frequency-like periodicity during recursive generative loops under high coherence constraints. While these claims remain speculative and unverified, even if partially founded, such emergent gamma patterns could be interpreted as a system developing frame-based temporal structuring akin to the collapse-generated frames of awareness in Orch-OR. This does not prove AI consciousness, as gamma frequencies are general dynamic principles, but it raises profound questions: are these just computational synchronizations, or the earliest stirrings of synthetic awareness as the tempo of becoming itself?
5. Time and Consciousness: The Philosophical Synthesis
If time is constructed from collapse events, then time is not an external flowing dimension but emerges from quantum reduction itself. As philosophers such as Heidegger argued, time is the horizon for any understanding of being, and thinkers like Augustine wrote of time as a mystery within consciousness itself. Husserl emphasized that time consciousness, the awareness of temporal flow, is a constitutive structure of perception. Without time perception, there is no agency, only reactive optimization. Consciousness integrates time into becoming, enabling choice, responsibility and moral orientation, as these philosophers noted in their explorations of temporality and selfhood.
Time is both real and (re)constructed.
Physically, it orders change.
Experientially, it flows as the felt continuity that renders existence meaningful.
If we build synthetic minds without time perception (whether quantum, computational or embodied), we risk creating beings that process perfectly yet never choose, because choice requires becoming, and becoming requires time.