Children and Helical Time
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Children and Helical Time
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Re: Children and Helical Time
#2I think time perception is contingent on cultural and lifestyle factors, I don't recognise it in my own life. My twenties (chaotic) lasted forever, now in my 30s, this last year in particular felt incredibly long (it was eventful and full of change).
I rarely find myself on "autopilot". Is that why?
Re: Children and Helical Time
#3I have been reading the comment by Jim Grey on the bottom of the article, and I was thinking, is that mostly what we are - and why people like novelty (especially in tech) so much - because it makes us feel young ? Or maybe not young, but teaches us something new, learning something active - worth remembering.
> We also think that novelty rivets our attention and makes time seem to slow down. Childhood is full of novel experiences that, as they repeat, become less so. True novelty becomes unusual when you’re pushing 60 as I am now. The brain says, “Oh, that again,” and glosses past it.
Re: Children and Helical Time
#4I think time perception is contingent on cultural and lifestyle factors, I don't recognise it in my own life. My twenties (chaotic) lasted forever, now in my 30s, this last year in particular felt incredibly long (it was eventful and full of change). I rarely find myself on "autopilot". Is that why?
right things that are eventful and full of change take a long time, childhood is generally eventful and full of change. If having an eventful and changing life increases the amount of subjective life we experience how should we live.
Re: Children and Helical Time
#5I think time perception is contingent on cultural and lifestyle factors, I don't recognise it in my own life. My twenties (chaotic) lasted forever, now in my 30s, this last year in particular felt incredibly long (it was eventful and full of change). I rarely find myself on "autopilot". Is that why?
Autopilot is a choice- most people are on it, some aren't. Society has always been like this. Society is attacking self aware and fully conscious people more than ever now though :(
Re: Children and Helical Time
#6> This is a depressing thought to consider in (linear) middle age, but it is hard to escape the feeling that it is essentially true. Childhood memories have an intensity and a vibrancy that it is difficult for the rest of life to match.
Could anyone who is extremely fortunate and never had to work for money share their experience on this?
I find that the years that I spent on art (playing around, learning new things, not taking other peoples' orders) lasted longer than the ones I spent doing software development for money. Both were fun, but the remaining memories differ by intensity.
I personally don't find the logarithmic experience theory convincing. Why are the first three or so years excluded from this? It seems more likely that new experiences make more impact, or that repeated memories make them more intense. Or dozens of other theories.
Re: Children and Helical Time
#7The premise is that life stops being novel around 20 to suit this argument- but you can easily argue that that's more around 30 or even 40
Re: Children and Helical Time
#8Does putting a graph make a subjective feeling scientific? For me the past year was like 10 years, and who knows for the rest of the world.
Time is relative no matter what age you are and probably depends how much has changed in your life (maybe I should put a graph here to make it more scientific :)) )
Re: Children and Helical Time
#9> This is a depressing thought to consider in (linear) middle age, but it is hard to escape the feeling that it is essentially true. Childhood memories have an intensity and a vibrancy that it is difficult for the rest of life to match.
This is just not my experience at all. I had a great childhood, but ask me about the most vibrant moments, and very few of them came before I was 18. The births of my children, my wedding, meeting my wife, lazy afternoons in college...
Re: Children and Helical Time
#10Sure enough, if you model life experience as a 2d plot, you are going to have to simplify things quite a bit. Yes, time "felt" longer for a child (especially when the child has to wait or wants something yet to come, less so when it's time spent on video games), and children are particularly impatient compared to adults.
But is that experiencing life, though? How many strong memories from that "logarithmic first half" of my life do I have? Actually very few compared to what came later, and they are not particularly compelling either.
My guess is that the author just hit mid-life crisis after having spent one or two decades in an office. Boring mindless job is what makes life experience to plateau, not adulthood. If I think of the most accomplished persons that I know, who've done many things with their life, I can't imagine them saying that their childhood was half of their life. They would probably laugh at the idea.
Or maybe he hasn't reached that crisis yet, since he finds solace in the idea that his child is doing the living for him. Wait until the kids leave home, for the log to turn into a exponential panic.