…very often quite short term. And so then you see, when you think of consciousness, what's its relation to time, as William James and others have talked about it, consciousness is not instantaneous. Our consciousness is spread out in time, which is why when…

…the laws of nature are more like habits. This was suggested by the American philosopher C.S. Peirce around 1900. And William James thought about this. The philosopher Nietzsche also mentioned it. They didn't develop the idea, but the idea was sort of…

…away from this view of it being a single essence that is doing the perceiving, making the decisions, thinking the thoughts. William James said the thoughts themselves are the thinkers. And it's a process, and that process at some point ceases to be a…

…then yes. And do ideas exist, then? They have real causal effects in the world. Do they exist? So this is a William James perspective. It exists because it changes us. I'm pushing towards it, yeah. But if ideas exist, where do they exist? Well, it…

…But actually, I mean, his word, the species present is about spreading out of the present, I suppose. Which he gets from William James, yeah. Yes, but you could actually say that the present in relation to dreams, our present may be extended over several…

…which most of us have done. I would say that that is an approach, and of course it's not totally different from William James, who said the seven types of religious experience is not about belief, it's about experience. Certainly. And I don't think there…

…experience. Certainly. And I don't think there is, save Plato, another philosopher that was more influential on Whitehead than William James. And certainly his huge study, Varieties of Religious Experience, was in the background. Whitehead quotes James in his…

…of very mind-based. So I think more of a kind of mystical dimension. But I mean, that comes in, I suppose, via William James and his approach to religion. I don't think there's anything there that, and again, for me, the philosopher who's influenced me…

…kind of linking ideas that inform this stream that goes perhaps, Rupert, you might add others to this, but from William James, Henri Bergson, through A.N. Whitehead and Owen Barfield to more recent people like yourself, Gregory Bateson, David Bohm, And then…

…And the argument very basically is there are certain thinkers, perennialists, the epitome of that's probably Aldous Huxley, perhaps William James as well, who argue that Amongst all religions and all mystics, amongst all religions and also amongst psychedelic…