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G. Franck:
"How time passes. On conceiving time as a process";
in: "The Nature of Time: Geometry, Physics and Percetion", R. Buccheri, M. Saniga, W.M. Stuckey (ed.); issued by: NATO Science Series; Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dodrecht, 2003, ISBN: 1-4020-1201-2, 91 - 103.

The passage of time, although one of the most basic experiences, is still awaiting conclusive description. It is the process by which one time slice of spacetime after another is raised to presence. In the context of spacetime, however, differences in presence are disregarded. By this abstraction, the paper points out, the process of temporal change is reduced to just a dimension of change. In order to describe temporal change, a conceptual framework is needed that accounts both for the distance measured by clocks and for the duration experienced as the permanence of mental presence. In a two-parameter framework, the ambiguous hovering/flowing characteristic of the now, the speed at which time passes, and the continuous changing of the border that separates past and future become accessible for conceptualisation. Two questions arise from this approach. First, is the duration tied to presence a dimension of time additional to clock-measured distance? Second, might it be that the temporal present and mental presence are one and the same?

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