It may not be a coincidence that farsightedness refers to looking prudently ahead into the future. Many of our terms for displacement in time are also used to refer to displacement in space (e.g., near, far, before, after, behind, throughout, around, beyond…). Time and space are inextricably linked in the mind as they are in physics, and we use words from one to communicate about the other. But having a good spatial horizon is not equivalent to having a good temporal horizon. Other animals, such as birds of prey, are superior to humans in being able to see distant objects and movements clearly, but our extraordinary temporally extended consciousness is a conceptual rather than perceptual advance.

F&M acknowledge that humans plan for the distant future but then quickly pivot to the claim that it is “arguably much more common (particularly in the evolutionary history of land animals) to need to plan in the here-and-now.” They posit that the primary function of visual consciousness (and, more broadly, multimodal consciousness) is to fix a single model of current reality that can then be used as a basis for planning. Their notion of model-based planning refers to fast processes such as hippocampal pre-play sequences that apparently aid swift navigational decisions between alternative spatial routes (Comrie, Frank, & Kay, Reference Comrie, Frank and Kay2022; Kay et al., Reference Kay2020). The authors argue that this kind of rapid planning is unlikely to be consciously experienced, in line with a sceptical view about whether animals demonstrating such pre-play are mentally travelling in time (e.g., Balter, Reference Balter2013). Instead, conscious experience provides a stable platform for non-conscious planning that is nonetheless sensitive to changes in the environment. We think this is a clever proposal. But we caution against potentially too rich an interpretation of what is entailed.

Take the issue of occlusion. Objects can rapidly disappear from view, and so F&M argue that a conscious model of their whereabouts, especially in environments full of occlusions, could be critical for running fast, non-conscious simulations about what to do next. Maybe so, but this is not to be confused with how developmental and comparative psychologists conceive of reasoning about hidden locations. In these fields, thinking about occluded objects is known as “object permanence” and is studied with progressive search tasks for hidden targets (e.g., Piaget, Reference Piaget1954). And it turns out that while various land animals reach some of the lower stages of competence, few have demonstrated a capacity to reason about hidden displacements of objects in the mature manner of 24-month-old children (i.e., stage 6, see Jaakkola, Reference Jaakkola2014).

It is also at this age that children demonstrate clear evidence of reality monitoring – which F&M associate with the emergence of consciousness – in that they start to pretend that one thing is another (e.g., this stick is a telephone), without confusing the pretend and real identities (e.g., Leslie, Reference Leslie1987). Pretend play and stage 6 object permanence are just two co-emerging markers of what Perner (Reference Perner1991) calls “secondary representations,” the ability to entertain multiple models, even ones that are divorced from reality. Great apes also show compelling signs of secondary representations, but evidence from other far-seeing land animals is weak (Suddendorf & Whiten, Reference Suddendorf and Whiten2001). It is not clear how these facts align with the authors’ notion of reality monitoring and dealing with occlusion as a key to visual consciousness.

Still more sophisticated reality monitoring depends on the meta-representational understanding that a certain model represents something in a certain way. Metarepresentation refers to representing representational relations themselves (Perner, Reference Perner1991) – a capacity that emerges only around age 4 years in children and is evident, for instance, in their capacity to understand false beliefs (i.e., where a representation misrepresents) and to reflect on potential future events (Redshaw, Reference Redshaw2014; Suddendorf, Reference Suddendorf, Corballis and Lea1999). Humans regularly consider futures well beyond what can be seen and evaluate their likelihood and desirability. The nature, development, and evolution of such foresight have been a topic of other BBS target articles (Hoerl & McCormack, Reference Hoerl and McCormack2019; Suddendorf & Corballis, Reference Suddendorf and Corballis2007). While there are a few studies suggesting that great apes and corvids may have some basic capacities in this domain (e.g., Boeckle et al., Reference Boeckle2020; Mulcahy & Call, Reference Mulcahy and Call2006), there is little to suggest that other animals travel mentally in time to imagine tomorrow and beyond (e.g., Suddendorf, Redshaw & Bulley, Reference Suddendorf, Redshaw and Bulley2022).

F&M’s account does make room for conscious visual imagery, yet they suggest that such imagery is tagged in some way as “reliably representing the world” (just like visual perception). This characterisation seems difficult to reconcile not only with the human ability to pretend, but also with the ability to represent future events as possibilities rather than certainties. Many 4-year-old children, for instance, reliably prepare for two mutually exclusive possible paths of a single object (Leahy, Reference Leahy2024; Redshaw & Suddendorf, Reference Redshaw and Suddendorf2016; Turan-Küçük & Kibbe, Reference Turan-Küçük and Kibbe2024), whereas younger children and non-human primates typically prepare for one possibility only (for debate, see Redshaw & Suddendorf, Reference Redshaw and Suddendorf2024; Engelmann et al., Reference Engelmann, Völter, Goddu, Call, Herrmann and Rakoczy2024), perhaps because they somehow tagged that path as reliably representing the world (Leahy & Carey, Reference Leahy and Carey2020). Prudently preparing for both paths, by contrast, seems to reflect a deeper, meta-representational understanding that representations of the future need not reflect what will become reality (Redshaw & Suddendorf, Reference Redshaw and Suddendorf2020).

When we consider future options, whether that is pondering different careers or holiday destinations, we represent temporal junctures (Redshaw & Suddendorf, Reference Redshaw and Suddendorf2020) and can play through extended simulations of where different choices might lead. We can consider what could possibly go wrong and work away from situations we do not want to see materialise. Ancient fear mechanisms govern defensive responses on the basis of sensed cues, but we can also autocue potential future threats through mental simulations that can drive strategic preparation and can also bring anxiety (Miloyan, Bulley, & Suddendorf, Reference Miloyan, Bulley and Suddendorf2019). What is more, we can cast our minds backwards and consider past temporal junctures: what would have happened if we had made a different choice, leading us to experience emotions such as relief or regret (e.g., Gautam, Suddendorf, & Redshaw, Reference Gautam, Suddendorf and Redshaw2022) and adapt our future choices accordingly (Epstude & Roese, Reference Epstude and Roese2008).

We think that animals can be conscious without entertaining any such thoughts. Yet with a more extensive temporal horizon, perhaps restricted to humans and potentially a few other creatures, these conscious experiences gain immense depth, allowing the mind to wander into the past and future and explore alternative, imaginary worlds.