'Time Cells' Discovered in Human Brains • Hacker News Board

Re: 'Time Cells' Discovered in Human Brains

#61

Post by scruple » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 2:26 PM UTC

skocznymroczny wrote: post #55

yesenadam wrote: post #8

I guess this is a different thing, but... When I was a kid I read a book that said if before you go to sleep you think "I will wake up at Xam" (whatever time you want) then you wake up at exactly that time. Which is pretty weird! We can't do that when we're awake. It actually works, and I've never needed an alarm clock. For a few ultra-important days I used one, like catching a plane, but I was always awake before it…

When I was a kid, we used to have a radio/tape/CD player with a digital clock on it. Whenever I looked at it, as in whenever my body thought it would be a good idea to check the time, it was always something like 11:11 or 16:16.

Or 12:34 or sometimes my birthday.

Re: 'Time Cells' Discovered in Human Brains

#62

Post by BlahGod420 » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 2:28 PM UTC

yesenadam wrote: post #8

I guess this is a different thing, but... When I was a kid I read a book that said if before you go to sleep you think "I will wake up at Xam" (whatever time you want) then you wake up at exactly that time. Which is pretty weird! We can't do that when we're awake. It actually works, and I've never needed an alarm clock. For a few ultra-important days I used one, like catching a plane, but I was always awake before it…

Likewise. It works for insane times too; I've woken up in as little as 3 hours when I desperately needed 8 hours. There's a bit of a computational alarm clock in our brains somehow.

Re: 'Time Cells' Discovered in Human Brains

#63

Post by scruple » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 2:30 PM UTC

wongarsu wrote: post #42

Drakim wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You likely have Aphantasia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia As for your question, yes! I don't need to actually close my eyes, I can think about certain things and see a vivid image of it deep inside of my mind. If you need something to compare it to, can you actually hear music in your "mind" when you think about a song? It's kinda like that.

Anectotally, aphantasia seems highly correlated with reading HN (or probably programmers in general). HN threads about aphantasia-related topics always have lots of people with aphantasia, while these people make up a much smaller proportion in for example reddit threads about the same topic.

Just piling on to say that I learned that I have aphantasia from a HN thread about it a few years ago. I don't think it discriminates but it has been stated that many creative people (artists, animators, etc...) also have aphantasia. It could be that the HN population just has a lot of creative types, which does jive with the overall theme of this place.

Re: 'Time Cells' Discovered in Human Brains

#64

Post by scruple » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 2:32 PM UTC

byteface wrote: post #22

senectus1 wrote: post #6

huh... I dont have any movie like memories... is this something I should be concerned about?

you ever had a dream?

I have aphantasia and I do not recall my dreams. Never have. I tried various dream recall techniques over the years. Nothing worked.

Re: 'Time Cells' Discovered in Human Brains

#65

Post by bdamm » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 2:37 PM UTC

xwdv wrote: post #44

VBprogrammer wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone asks me the time I'll often respond without looking "about 2.30". Then after digging out my phone check and see it's actually "2.35".

Your perception of time is off, you are perceiving time to be passing slower than it actually is. Right now it only seems like 5 minutes, but over time these error minutes will accumulate and you will feel like you have lived less life than you actually have lived in real time. If you did not know how old you were, one day you might be asked to guess, and think you are 63, but then be told the truth and come to the c…

What form of satire could this be?

Re: 'Time Cells' Discovered in Human Brains

#66

Post by scruple » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 2:39 PM UTC

yesenadam wrote: post #60

skocznymroczny wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a kid, we used to have a radio/tape/CD player with a digital clock on it. Whenever I looked at it, as in whenever my body thought it would be a good idea to check the time, it was always something like 11:11 or 16:16.

Maybe that's true, but when I hear people say they always look at their watches at 12:34 or such a thing, I suspect (because it never happened to me!) it's probably something akin to the Baader-Meinhof illusion, "where something that has recently come to one's attention suddenly seems to appear with improbable frequency shortly afterwards." There are many similar phenonema humans fall victim to, thanks to our cogniti…

It happens to me pretty frequently. In truth, I know that I look at the digital clock on my microwave probably 100 times a day.

Re: 'Time Cells' Discovered in Human Brains

#67

Post by tenaciousDaniel » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 2:40 PM UTC

yesenadam wrote: post #8

I guess this is a different thing, but... When I was a kid I read a book that said if before you go to sleep you think "I will wake up at Xam" (whatever time you want) then you wake up at exactly that time. Which is pretty weird! We can't do that when we're awake. It actually works, and I've never needed an alarm clock. For a few ultra-important days I used one, like catching a plane, but I was always awake before it…

A couple of weeks ago I woke up in the middle of the night. My first thought was, it's 2:54am. I didn't have any visible clocks, so I looked at my phone, and it was 2:53am. I've had that happen multiple times. Very strange.

Re: 'Time Cells' Discovered in Human Brains

#68

Post by Spare_account » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 2:40 PM UTC

wongarsu wrote: post #40

nihilius wrote: post #5

Just want to mention here that people exist wich can’t recall a memory trough mental images. It’s called aphantasia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia

I can't really relate to the article's description of episodic memory. I'm also aphantastic. I wonder if there is a correlation or if it's just coincidence. These things are surprisingly little studied, for example aphantasia has only really seen scientific interest in the last ten years. We all seem to assume that everyone's experience is the same as ours, only slowly discovering how untrue that really is. Even some…

Not long after finding out about Aphantasia I found out about Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory (SDAM) which I felt described my experience of life very well.

SDAM isn't a recognised 'condition' as such, but it has a subreddit with some active users to compare your experiences with which you may find useful.

https://old.reddit.com/r/SDAM/

Re: 'Time Cells' Discovered in Human Brains

#69

Post by JoeAltmaier » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 2:43 PM UTC

yesenadam wrote: post #8

I guess this is a different thing, but... When I was a kid I read a book that said if before you go to sleep you think "I will wake up at Xam" (whatever time you want) then you wake up at exactly that time. Which is pretty weird! We can't do that when we're awake. It actually works, and I've never needed an alarm clock. For a few ultra-important days I used one, like catching a plane, but I was always awake before it…

I noticed years ago when at a bus stop, I'd get impatient and antsy seconds before the bus arrived (on time). I figured it was my subconscious alarm clock.

Re: 'Time Cells' Discovered in Human Brains

#70

Post by scruple » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 2:44 PM UTC

Spare_account wrote: post #68

wongarsu wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't really relate to the article's description of episodic memory. I'm also aphantastic. I wonder if there is a correlation or if it's just coincidence. These things are surprisingly little studied, for example aphantasia has only really seen scientific interest in the last ten years. We all seem to assume that everyone's experience is the same as ours, only slowly discovering how untrue that really is. Even some…

Not long after finding out about Aphantasia I found out about Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory (SDAM) which I felt described my experience of life very well. SDAM isn't a recognised 'condition' as such, but it has a subreddit with some active users to compare your experiences with which you may find useful. https://old.reddit.com/r/SDAM/

Thank you for pointing this out. I wasn't aware of SDAM and it ticks a few boxes for me.

On a related note... If you suspect that you have one of these conditions, is there someone you can talk to for confirmation? Are there people who specialize in... bad brain RAM?