There is not one universal time, except by an elaborate construction; there are only local times, each of which may be taken to be the time within one biography. Accordingly, if I am (say) hearing a sound, the only occurrences that are, in any simple sense, simultaneous with my sensation are events in my private world, i.e.
It is not only by time-relations that the parts of one biography are collected together in the case of living beings.
Our two-fold classification of particulars gives rise to the dualism of body and biography in regard to everything in the universe, and not only in regard to living things.
When I look at a star, my sensation is (1) A member of the group of particulars which is the star, and which is associated with the place where the star is; (2) A member of the group of particulars which is my biography, and which is associated with the place where I am.*
And the photographic plate has its biography as well as its "matter." But this biography is an affair of physics, and has none of the peculiar characteristics by which "mental" phenomena are distinguished, with the sole exception of subjectivity.
First: Everything outside my own personal biography is outside my experience; therefore if anything can be known by me outside my biography, it can only be known in one of two ways
(1) By inference from things within my biography, or
I do not myself believe that anything approaching certainty is to be attained by either of these methods, and therefore whatever lies outside my personal biography must be regarded, theoretically, as hypothesis.
