How does the mind gauge time? If you were to stand alone in a completely unstimulating room and asked to count to ten in your head before walking out, how would you know when the time is up? I imagine most people, myself included, could quite accuratly gauge about ten seconds. But how does the mind do this? I would have thought that there must be some kind of oscillator in the human brain. You cannot judge speed without a sense of time, and I would guess that you cannot have a sense of time without some kind of reference, hense an oscillation of some sort. Can anyone suggest things that the brain could 'latch on to' in order to obtain a time reference? Perhaps just a loop of neurons?
I agree and i disagree Time Travel IS possible. I doubt it's possible to travel to the past but almost certainly possible to travel to the future. It's all to do with speed and relativity, most people view it as you exist at this point and then BAM you exist at this other point in time. That's really not the case, it's more accurate to say that you travel at a different speed through time. Example: Spaceships are so fast that when they return to earth they are often in the future by a few nanoseconds, sometimes even a whole second. Ok it's such a miniscule time difference but it's a difference non the less.
Marv, But time would still flow, even if it could not be measured. The point of this thread is to think about how the brain gauges time. Not as in days, or even seconds, but as in how the speed of an object is perceived or any other function that requires a time reference.
but does empty space really have time? if there is no matter or energy in a area of 3-D space, then the change in time cannot be measured, so does time exist without matter-energy? Is time a facet of matter-energy, like frequency or volume?
The Time-Space Continuum Without space, time cannot exist and without time, space cannot exist. There must be time for an event to happen and there must be space for an event to happen.
assuming Einstien-ian space-time, yes. but that's not the case is other physics models, from what I understand.
I wouldn't hazard a guess at the mechanics of it, but what we actually do, is 'feel' time. Like you say, 10 seconds is easy, but I can instinctively feel 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 2 hours; it's all relative. I think it's a 'sense' that comes more naturally to some people and less to others and is based on previous experiences of focusing on time. If you can't focus on the task in hand and the time it's taking and just do it automatically whilst focusing on unrelated things, then I don't think you'd be able to keep track of time very well. I first noticed I had this knack of timing, when as a teenager, I used to cook my full English breakfast every morning and was able to get everything ready and perfect at exactly the right time. Later, I developed this skill further when I ran my own Take Away business. I don't know if having a 'sense' of rhythm helps, but, as a funky/jazzy musician, I do have a very good one.
Ah yes, but it's the mechanics that I'm questioning! I agree though, accuracy varies from person to person. Whether this is set in stone or something that can be sped up (and thus more accuracy?) is another question. I know certain drugs (like those in 'magic mushrooms') have a profound effect on one's perception of time and as such I suspect that there is a loop of neurons somewhere that acts as a metronome. Many functions could not be implemented without some kind of metronome.
I don't think I can "feel" time like a feel a rock or a sense of acceleration or balance, etc...but I can educatedly guess at the lapse of time based on the changes of states of things.... in even an externally changing room, I can mark the changes in myself to keep track of time. Asleep, however, I have no notion of time, save for rough estimate of how tired I feel once I wake up.
Blue UK I agree, we must have some kind of metronome, maybe it's the heart. Maybe that's why we say we 'feel' time; more of an emotion than a sense. river-wind I can tell myself to wake up at a certain time and I do. Also, if I find it hard to fall asleep, I can usually gauge how much time has elapsed since I went to bed and the time I realised I wasn't asleep yet.
If the mind can intuitively gauge ten seconds ago, it can also intuitively gauge 32 hours, 24 minutes, and 47 seconds ago. The fact is, it can't. That's why we use terms like "...a few minutes ago..." or "...a couple of weeks ago...". What we do is to unconsciously compare the targeted event with one or more contemporary or concurrent events.
i'm pretty good at keeping track of time. when i'm in the library studying sometimes i will think what time it is and then look at my cell phone and see that the time i thought it was really is the time i thought it to be.
Incorrect. I, and many others, can set an internal 'alarm', to wake at a specified time. I find it to be accurate to within five or ten minutes for single events, and closer to one or two minutes, or less, for repetitive events. This is clearly related to the sub-conscious since my estimates of time when awake can be wildy inaccurate.
A definition (mine) of time:Time is the metric by which we differentiate non-simultaneous events.An individual's awareness of the "passage" of time can't really be called a "sense" as in touch, hearing, etc. It's more a function of memory and how alert a person might be as in "Gee, I was so busy doing...., that I forgot to....!"
No, I call it a sense because I think we must have an in-built metronome. Although we may, I feel there must also be some actual mechanic for subconscious functions. For example: to tell which direction sound comes from, owl brains measure the delay between a sound being received from one ear in comparison to the other. This certainly does not use the measurement of external occurances to gauge time, am I would guess that there are many applications which would require time measurement and therefore a reliable and consistent reference time interval.
Just drifted in here waiting for New Year Party to start. Ever heard of circadian rythmn? Yes there is a built-in metronome, based on the 24h cyclce of Earth round Sun. But there was a very good expt done some time ago in France, and since repeated, where a chap went down a deep pot-hole, without a clock. His bodily functions were recorded (including eating, sleeping) and it was found that the natural body clock is slightly in excess of 25h. Which led to the idea that our metronome can approximate the daily cycle, but needs the stimulus of light/darkcycles to fine-tune. We know that birds and some mammals do this (e.g. hibernation). As for "sub-concious functions" well ..oops, party's starting. Bye
has anyone slept overnight in complete darkness? I mean *no* light; not just "very little". no window, no light coming under the door, etc. I did this only once in my life, and when I woke up 8 hours later, I was very disoriented as far as time goes. My body had no idea that so much time had past.
Are you asking how our body percieves time? I am taking a bit of a guess on this so don't slate me too much, the brain has its own internal clock which oscillates at about 20 times a second when awake down to anything as low as 2 Hz when in a deep sleep. When I say oscillate what I mean is that the neurons in the brain are firing off an electrical pulse at say 20Hz, depending on the frequency your brain is firing at will determine your state of consciousness. I think our perception of time may be due to what rate your brain is firing at the time. I'm sure that drugs affect the rate at which the brain fires, hence alters perception of time. I have experienced slow motion after taking some pills in a club years ago, its very surreal, everything around me was moving at normal speed but I could only walk up the stairs at half the normal speed, it was probably the drugs impairing my movement more than anything else though. It makes sense that the relationship with our brain and time is, the lower the frequency our brain is at, the quicker our perception of time. In a situation where you are just about to get run over by a car maybe your brain fires quicker which has the effect of slowing down time to us, this is a well known phenomena in life threatening situations, we must have developed this ability so that the brain can make decisions and reactions quicker hence jumping out of the way of the car improving our chances of survival. This website explains our awareness depending on what frequency our brain is at http://www.brainmachines.com/frequencies.html here is a pretty good read on our biological clock, I think it is a particular type of cell in our brain which causes it to "tick" http://web.sfn.org/content/Publications/BrainBriefings/bio_clocks.html
