Hoerl & McCormack (H&M) argue that comparative and developmental psychology teaches us that “neither animals nor infants can think and reason about time – they rely entirely on the temporal updating system” (TA, fourth paragraph from the beginning, no section number). We disagree with this claim. We argue that certain “tasks that involve things unfolding over time” (fourth paragraph) do require temporal representational resources that the authors claim are unavailable to non-human animals. We have in mind evidence from ethology that suggests that certain non-human animals possess a capacity to represent and reason about time, for example, research on Sumatran orangutans’ long travel calls (van Schaik et al. Reference van Schaik, Damerius and Isler2013; Spillmann et al. Reference Spillmann, van Noordwijk, Willems, Mitra Setia, Wipfli and van Schaik2015). This behavior amounts to a complex action, which requires individuals to think of their lives as “temporally extended projects” (sect. 5, para. 7), and is best explained by a temporal representation and reasoning system.
Before turning to examine this evidence, we offer a few words concerning the systems invoked by H&M. First, it strikes us that the primitive temporal updating system is “temporal” in name only. It is merely a multimodal world model that gets periodically updated, by receiving new sensory inputs and by the interventions of different non-representational “timing mechanisms,” which they argue “can explain how even a creature capable only of temporal updating might nevertheless display forms of behavior that are sensitive to elapsed time” (sect. 1.3, para. 6). The temporal dynamics of an animal's behavior is explained by postulating a corresponding temporal dynamic in the underlying world model. One worry we wish to raise is that, without a principled, general account of the operation of these timing mechanisms, an appeal to such a system appears ad hoc, unfalsifiable, and thereby lacks explanatory power. The purported mechanisms are made to fit the behavioral data. It is then no surprise that the temporal updating system can “explain” certain temporally sensitive behaviors.
What about the temporal reasoning system? According to H&M, this system involves genuine representations of temporal magnitudes. According to Peacocke (Reference Peacocke and Phillips2017), to whom H&M, too, appeal, genuine temporal representations require “representational preservation,” by which he means that the creature retains a certain conception of its environment or its own states and updates it with a “past-tense label” that relates to the amount of time that has passed. Importantly, such conception “registers certain identities” between entities represented in the past and those represented later in time. Now, why would we not think that animals have such capacity? With this in mind, we return to the evidence.
Orangutans are arboreal, semi-nomadic, and semi-solitary animals that live in dense tropical forests. Because of their environmental conditions and dispersed social structure, an ability to plan for future social and subsistence needs appears adaptive. Van Schaik et al. (Reference van Schaik, Damerius and Isler2013) have examined the extent to which the direction of long calls emitted by male Sumatran orangutans (Pongo abelii) indicates the direction of their future travel. According to their study, the direction of spontaneous long calls emitted by male Sumatran orangutans generally predicts travel direction on the following day, and a new spontaneous long call indicates subsequent travel better than the old one would have on its own. The primary goal of these long calls appears to be to communicate to female orangutans the male's future travel direction. Finally, the range of responses to these long calls suggests that other orangutans, females as well as other males, use this information in planning their own travel and in their own communications.
According to H&M, only creatures with a temporal reasoning system can evaluate “choices that involve assessing the relative value of rewards available at different time points” (sect. 5, para. 1). If long calls indicating future travel directions can be used to indicate future states of affairs (the path traversed the following day), they must be generated by a temporal reasoning system, which would allow the animal to represent future rewards (presence of mate or foe). Long calls indicate “how things are at other times” (sect. 1.1, para. 1), that is, the animal's prospective expected location in space and time. Orangutans manifestly act according to a model of the world that exceeds what is merely experienced as present. Long calls are instances of displaced references, that is, communicative vehicles of the capacity to transmit information about something that is not present or about a past or future event (Lameira & Call Reference Lameira and Call2018). Orangutan males advertise future travel direction one day in advance through long calls that facilitate associations with females. Long calls are designed to function as efficient tags of male identity across long distances in the forest, making it unlikely that males produce long calls to refer to an outside entity or event.
Therefore, contrary to the authors’ suggestion, we argue that Sumatran orangutans possess the necessary representational resources for temporal reasoning. Looking back at Peacocke's criteria for temporal representation, it appears that orangutans must have a capacity to track other conspecifics across space and time, so as to coordinate their activities with the facilitation of nightly long calls. Other conspecifics appear to retain a conception of their environment that is updated with a “past-tense label” corresponding to the time since hearing the long call and “register the identity” of the emitter of the long call and the orangutan they aim to meet or avoid at a certain future time/place. This is not to say that it is impossible to posit a mechanism that does away with such temporal representations and accounts for such behavior by having the appropriate temporal dynamics. However, for the reasons mentioned above, this appears to us ad hoc and unmotivated.
On a final note, none of this is to deny that human beings have distinctive ways of representing and reasoning about time – grounded in their more intellectually demanding conceptual and linguistic skills. Rather, it is to deny H&M's claim that the latter, alone, amounts to genuine temporal representation, and their conception of creatures who are differently intellectually equipped as “cognitively stuck in time” (sect. 2.3, para. 3).
Hoerl & McCormack (H&M) argue that comparative and developmental psychology teaches us that “neither animals nor infants can think and reason about time – they rely entirely on the temporal updating system” (TA, fourth paragraph from the beginning, no section number). We disagree with this claim. We argue that certain “tasks that involve things unfolding over time” (fourth paragraph) do require temporal representational resources that the authors claim are unavailable to non-human animals. We have in mind evidence from ethology that suggests that certain non-human animals possess a capacity to represent and reason about time, for example, research on Sumatran orangutans’ long travel calls (van Schaik et al. Reference van Schaik, Damerius and Isler2013; Spillmann et al. Reference Spillmann, van Noordwijk, Willems, Mitra Setia, Wipfli and van Schaik2015). This behavior amounts to a complex action, which requires individuals to think of their lives as “temporally extended projects” (sect. 5, para. 7), and is best explained by a temporal representation and reasoning system.
Before turning to examine this evidence, we offer a few words concerning the systems invoked by H&M. First, it strikes us that the primitive temporal updating system is “temporal” in name only. It is merely a multimodal world model that gets periodically updated, by receiving new sensory inputs and by the interventions of different non-representational “timing mechanisms,” which they argue “can explain how even a creature capable only of temporal updating might nevertheless display forms of behavior that are sensitive to elapsed time” (sect. 1.3, para. 6). The temporal dynamics of an animal's behavior is explained by postulating a corresponding temporal dynamic in the underlying world model. One worry we wish to raise is that, without a principled, general account of the operation of these timing mechanisms, an appeal to such a system appears ad hoc, unfalsifiable, and thereby lacks explanatory power. The purported mechanisms are made to fit the behavioral data. It is then no surprise that the temporal updating system can “explain” certain temporally sensitive behaviors.
What about the temporal reasoning system? According to H&M, this system involves genuine representations of temporal magnitudes. According to Peacocke (Reference Peacocke and Phillips2017), to whom H&M, too, appeal, genuine temporal representations require “representational preservation,” by which he means that the creature retains a certain conception of its environment or its own states and updates it with a “past-tense label” that relates to the amount of time that has passed. Importantly, such conception “registers certain identities” between entities represented in the past and those represented later in time. Now, why would we not think that animals have such capacity? With this in mind, we return to the evidence.
Orangutans are arboreal, semi-nomadic, and semi-solitary animals that live in dense tropical forests. Because of their environmental conditions and dispersed social structure, an ability to plan for future social and subsistence needs appears adaptive. Van Schaik et al. (Reference van Schaik, Damerius and Isler2013) have examined the extent to which the direction of long calls emitted by male Sumatran orangutans (Pongo abelii) indicates the direction of their future travel. According to their study, the direction of spontaneous long calls emitted by male Sumatran orangutans generally predicts travel direction on the following day, and a new spontaneous long call indicates subsequent travel better than the old one would have on its own. The primary goal of these long calls appears to be to communicate to female orangutans the male's future travel direction. Finally, the range of responses to these long calls suggests that other orangutans, females as well as other males, use this information in planning their own travel and in their own communications.
According to H&M, only creatures with a temporal reasoning system can evaluate “choices that involve assessing the relative value of rewards available at different time points” (sect. 5, para. 1). If long calls indicating future travel directions can be used to indicate future states of affairs (the path traversed the following day), they must be generated by a temporal reasoning system, which would allow the animal to represent future rewards (presence of mate or foe). Long calls indicate “how things are at other times” (sect. 1.1, para. 1), that is, the animal's prospective expected location in space and time. Orangutans manifestly act according to a model of the world that exceeds what is merely experienced as present. Long calls are instances of displaced references, that is, communicative vehicles of the capacity to transmit information about something that is not present or about a past or future event (Lameira & Call Reference Lameira and Call2018). Orangutan males advertise future travel direction one day in advance through long calls that facilitate associations with females. Long calls are designed to function as efficient tags of male identity across long distances in the forest, making it unlikely that males produce long calls to refer to an outside entity or event.
Therefore, contrary to the authors’ suggestion, we argue that Sumatran orangutans possess the necessary representational resources for temporal reasoning. Looking back at Peacocke's criteria for temporal representation, it appears that orangutans must have a capacity to track other conspecifics across space and time, so as to coordinate their activities with the facilitation of nightly long calls. Other conspecifics appear to retain a conception of their environment that is updated with a “past-tense label” corresponding to the time since hearing the long call and “register the identity” of the emitter of the long call and the orangutan they aim to meet or avoid at a certain future time/place. This is not to say that it is impossible to posit a mechanism that does away with such temporal representations and accounts for such behavior by having the appropriate temporal dynamics. However, for the reasons mentioned above, this appears to us ad hoc and unmotivated.
On a final note, none of this is to deny that human beings have distinctive ways of representing and reasoning about time – grounded in their more intellectually demanding conceptual and linguistic skills. Rather, it is to deny H&M's claim that the latter, alone, amounts to genuine temporal representation, and their conception of creatures who are differently intellectually equipped as “cognitively stuck in time” (sect. 2.3, para. 3).