Philosopher Daniel Dennett has called the human brain an “anticipation machine” whose fundamental purpose is to produce the future (177). Our “anticipation machines” create what we experience as expectations – beliefs we have about what should happen or about the way things should or will be. Expectation, moreover, is a constant part of mental life.1 Remarkably, Alexander Bain made a similar observation in 1859 – “Everyone’s mind is occupied more or less with his future” (Emotions 83). Two decades later, James Sully, a seminal figure in late Victorian psychological circles (and a student of Bain’s) gestured presciently toward what is now referred to as “mental time travel,” the capacity to mentally simulate past events and to imagine and anticipate possible future ones.2 In Illusions: A Psychological Study (1881), Sully hypothesized that such imaginative constructions and reconstructions enable people to form expectations and prepare for the future: “Any kind of vivid imagination tends to pass into a semblance of an expectation of a coming personal experience, or an event that is about to happen within the sphere of our own observation” (306).3

中文翻译：

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回到未来：查尔斯狄更斯和未来的大脑

哲学家丹尼尔·丹尼特 (Daniel Dennett) 将人脑称为“预期机器”，其基本目的是创造未来 (177)。我们的“预期机器”创造了我们作为预期体验的东西——我们对应该发生的事情或事情应该或将会发生的方式的信念。此外，期望是精神生活中不变的一部分。1 值得注意的是，亚历山大·贝恩在 1859 年做出了类似的观察——“每个人的思想或多或少都被他的未来所占据”（情感 83）。二十年后，维多利亚时代晚期心理学界的开创性人物詹姆斯·萨利（也是贝恩的学生）有先见之明地指出了现在被称为“心理时间旅行”的能力，即在心理上模拟过去事件并想象和预测可能发生的事情的能力未来的那些。 2 在《幻觉：心理学研究》（1881）中，