91–100 of 107 posts
More likely explanation is the compression of memories: if you experience things that are similar to things you have experienced before, they won't use up as much memory. Think about your daily commute to work: can you remember every single day you commuted? Or did all the commutes blur into one?
This makes sense; for instance when you are 10 years of age, a year represents 10% of your life, and seems like a very long time. However, when you are 50 years old, one year has reduced to only 2% of your life, and hence seems only one-fifth as long. Interesting hypothesis, and he makes it look very scientific with the formulae and all, but it's still a wild crazy guess that delivers no actual falsifiable prediction…
"A large factor of it would actually be that our brains don't store repetitive events very well." My theory, which is logically consistent with yours, is that as we get older we spend more of our cognitive cycles thinking in terms of abstractions rather than using our senses to process direct experience. This is partly because as we get older we tend to immediately place things we experience into categories and then…
I can't help but wonder if the hours I spent waiting for the last few minutes of boring class periods to end during my schooling might have actually been great training for "zoning" where the sped up passage of time is actually the goal.
This makes sense; for instance when you are 10 years of age, a year represents 10% of your life, and seems like a very long time. However, when you are 50 years old, one year has reduced to only 2% of your life, and hence seems only one-fifth as long. Interesting hypothesis, and he makes it look very scientific with the formulae and all, but it's still a wild crazy guess that delivers no actual falsifiable prediction…
"A large factor of it would actually be that our brains don't store repetitive events very well." My theory, which is logically consistent with yours, is that as we get older we spend more of our cognitive cycles thinking in terms of abstractions rather than using our senses to process direct experience. This is partly because as we get older we tend to immediately place things we experience into categories and then…
I also think about the people who want their brains crygenetically frozen after they die. Assuming they die old, with this cognitive scaffolding adapted to life today, I can only imagine the impact of 'waking up' into a world 100-300 years in the future, with such a drastically different world. That sounds psychologically crippling to me.
And finally, are there techniques I can take advantage of now, when I'm [comparatively] young, to keep my brain receptitve to new ideas, mental models, and raw sensory input? Meditation? Arts? Travel? Literature? All of the above, and if so, where do I find time for it all, while advancing my career?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"A large factor of it would actually be that our brains don't store repetitive events very well." My theory, which is logically consistent with yours, is that as we get older we spend more of our cognitive cycles thinking in terms of abstractions rather than using our senses to process direct experience. This is partly because as we get older we tend to immediately place things we experience into categories and then…
I've often thought the same thing. It has me thinking cautiously about the sociological implication rapidly expending 'senior' demographic, growing life expectancy, and the rapid pace of world changing technologies. Is there a point where senior citizens can't keep up cognitively, despite the medical advances that may keep their bodies younger? And further, is there a point where their dominance as a percentage of so…
As the cliche goes, if you don't find time for it now, you'll pay for it later.
Walking with bare feet and/or walking on uneven ground +1
http://www.ori.org/Media/pressreleases/release01_05_04.html
Art +1
"For Healthy Aging, a Late Act in the Footlights"
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/for-healthy-...
off topic: why is equation rendering still broken on the web? http://everything2.com uses pre tags, wikipedia uses rendered png images. is this just another ie work around or have we really not implemented a standard yet. googled it myself http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MathML edit: thanks mbell! mathjax looks great project to get mathjax working on wikipedia ~> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Nageh/mathJax breakdown…
LaTeX and the web are in essence incommensurable.
Subjectively a good way is to remember how long summers felt when you were a kid. A summer felt like forever in the first couple of grades. Now think how long summers feel now, they just sort of fly by. It is kind of scary. Remember my grandma sometimes got confused what day or week it was and as a kid I could never understand that. How can you miss such a long period of time like a week and not notice, but now I sta…
Note that this is a joke paper written for the Journal of Irreproducible Results: http://www.jir.com/
My theory is different. Our brains work like film cameras, the faster the camera is rolling the slower time in the film seems to be going during playback. Because less time has passed since the last frame was captured. The slower the camera is rolling the faster the film seems to get when you play it back. Our perception of time is based on comparing what we last remember while we were conscious with where we are in…
Could you please email me? I was unable to find contact info on your web site. Thanks! :)
localpa/AT/gmail/DOT/com
A change in behavior can also have a huge impact on how fast current time is flowing. A simple hypothesis that the subjective rate of time passing is related to the intervals between encounters with the unfamiliar easily leads to a more fruitful set of thought experiments than Freeman's weak exercise. And potentially one that could be rephrased in biological terms.
I've noticed that when I take trips to elsewhere in the world, the more different the place, the more time dilates, both while I'm there and in memory afterwards. Doing only the familiar is the recipe to time slipping by, unmarked and unnoticed, like driving to work and realizing upon arrival that one has no memory of the trip.
So the question is: What should you do to extend your subjective time?
Subjectively a good way is to remember how long summers felt when you were a kid. A summer felt like forever in the first couple of grades. Now think how long summers feel now, they just sort of fly by. It is kind of scary. Remember my grandma sometimes got confused what day or week it was and as a kid I could never understand that. How can you miss such a long period of time like a week and not notice, but now I sta…
To be fair summer vacation is shorter in most areas than it used to be due to an extended school year. The standard used to be 180 instructional days for kids, per year but it keeps creeping up there every year teachers renegotiate their contract for a raise.