Definitely, there’s a particular way of speaking/thinking about ‘expanding our attention of the present’ that need not necessitate a total amnesia of the past/all other moments. That’s not a very useful position, because as you say, social contracts would be impossible.
Metzinger’s work is interesting. Some of his latest stuff looks at how meditation acts on the Default Mode Network, which is thought to be the seat of mind-wandering and self-referential thinking. Contemplative practice is hypothesized (and found, in many cases) to decrease activity/prevalence of the DMN, leaving us to conjecture all kinds of things regarding how meditation reduces our felt-experience of narrativity.
Have you read Metzinger’s essay in Aeon Magazine?
It’s one of my favorites.
