ABSTRACT
Spatial models dominated memory research throughout much of the twentieth century, but in recent decades, the concept of memory as a form of mental time travel (MTT) to the past has gained prominence. Initially introduced as a metaphor, the MTT perspective shifted the focus from internal memory processes to the subjective conscious experience of remembering. Despite its significant impact on empirical and theoretical memory research, there has been limited discussion regarding the meaning and adequacy of the MTT metaphor in accounting for memory. While in previous work I have addressed the general limitations of the MTT metaphor in explaining memory, the objective of this article is more focused and modest: to gain a better understanding of what constitutes MTT to the past. To achieve this objective, a detailed analysis of the characteristics of MTT to the past is presented through a comparison with time travel (TT) to the past. Although acknowledging that TT does not refer to an existing physical phenomenon, it is an older concept extensively discussed in the philosophical literature and provides commonly accepted grounds, particularly within orthodox theories of time, that can offer insights into the nature of MTT. Six specific characteristics serve as points of comparison: (1) a destination distinct from the present, (2) the distinction between subjective time and objective time, (3) the subjective experience of the time traveler, (4) their differentiation from the past self, (5) the existence of the past, and (6) its unchangeability. Through this research, a detailed exploration of the phenomenal and metaphysical aspects of MTT to the past is undertaken, shedding light on the distinct features that mental time travel to the past acquires when it occurs within the realm of the mind rather than as a physical phenomenon. By examining these characteristics, a deeper understanding of the nature of mental time travel is achieved, offering insights into how it operates in relation to memory and the past.
ABSTRACT
Este artigo envolve uma recuperação de fatos e textos diversos, assim como de experiências vividas, que alimentaram o funcionamento de memórias históricas e a construção de memórias pessoais ao longo dos quarenta anos da trajetória acadêmica do autor como estudante e como professor de psicologia social no Rio de Janeiro. Procura-se, através dos relatos de tais memórias, caracterizar diferentes fases e orientações no desenvolvimento da psicologia social no Brasil, especialmente em suas relações com a psicologia e com as ciências humanas e sociais, bem como registrar algumas das condições - culturais, editoriais, políticas - e personagens individuais que exerceram influência nesse processo acadêmico. Sustenta-se ainda, à luz dessas memórias, que a avaliação, apropriação e articulação de contribuições oriundas da Europa e dos Estados Unidos levou finalmente à constituição de uma psicologia social brasileira que é caracteristicamente plural, crítica e avessa a fronteiras disciplinares rígidas.
This article involves a recollection of several facts and texts, as well as of lived experiences, that have fed the functioning of historical memories and the construction of personal memories along the forty years of the author's academic trajectory as a student and as a professor of Social Psychology in Rio de Janeiro. Through the reports of such memories, it seeks to characterize different phases and orientations in the development of Social Psychology in Brazil, specially in its relationships with Psychology and with human and social sciences, as well as to register some of the conditions - cultural, editorial, political - and individual characters that exerted influence in that academic process. Under the light of those memories, it still sustains that the evaluation, appropriation and articulation of contributions originating from Europe and from the United States led finally to the constitution of a Brazilian Social Psychology that is characteristically plural, critical and opposite to rigid disciplinary borders.