Professor write ups: "Why time appears to speed up with age"

[dant]

I am not sure what category this belongs to,
hence I am posting it here:

Why time appears to speed up with age (idea)
_http://everything2.com/user/Professor%20Pi/writeups/Why%20time%20appears%20to%20speed%20up%20with%20age

I thought that this was interesting but at the same time why
would some professor like this write up such a paper?

Perhaps this one is for Ark?

 

[Buddy]

Perhaps this one is for Ark?

May I?
While it seems clear that the "proportionality constant" is arbitrary and based on Freeman's own perception, could this be an example of trying to make the reality (one's objective or natural age) conform to one's subjective perceptions? The territory as map? Just askin'... :)

 

[dant]

May I?

But of course! :D

Yes, that was what I understood, i.e. subjectivity. And it was
interesting that this professor had the time to write up such
a non-sense paper and perhaps did so to stroke his ego, or
wanted to start belly laughs?

Dunno - subjectivity sure reigns around here, but I had a
good laugh anyway! :D

Maybe this post belongs in the Tickle Me section...

 

[Guardian]

Because as you age it takes you longer and longer to do the same stuff? I distinctly remember being able to put my shoes on as I ran out the door...now I've got to actually sit down and force them on my feet one at a time.

I don't think time speeds up, we just slow down...wayyyyyyy down. :(

 

[D69]

Heh my theory is that when time passes you are more onto routine and that makes implies less thinking.
Example , while at school you (at least in my case :D) wonder when lesson ends and you will keep on thinking about everything besides school lessons :D
But now when I see it differently.When I am at work , I do most of things mechanically without thinking/contemplating and that makes time go faster. I even do not notice it.

Ha ! Thinking makes you live longer - kinda similar to "Knowledge protects " LOL :D <- this one just came to my mind :D

 

[Gonzo]

I dunno, I heard that once you're over the hill, you pick up speed. Perhaps that explains the "phenomenon".

Why someone of his alleged position would take the time to bother could be that he couldn't get any serious buy-in at work and therefore decided to spread his truth far and wide. Since time is speeding up for this poor, aging soul, he didn't have enough of it to consider the possibility that he have lost a few marbles on the way.
It is interesting to note that just about every retired person I have met has said they seem to have less free time than they did before they retired. I always assumed it is because they are no longer rushed and take their time to do things well, be it housework, fixing things up, etc.

However, now that I am solidly in my mid-forties, I can certainly see how the week flies by a lot quicker than it used to and the weekends seem much shorter.

Gonzo

 

[Woodsman]

I find that time passes very quickly when my conscious mind is slumbering. When I am performing tasks which rely on body memory, I can zone out and the end of the day comes quickly.

I have observed the following: Learning my way through a brand new problem takes more attention, and attention keeps one in the game, dividing up a task into many slices, each requiring a discrete parcel of 'time' to absorb. All those parcels add up, each containing valuable experience which needs to be recorded, and thus performing three new tasks in ten minutes will create three new memories. Whereas, ten minutes spent in a trance may not even require recording at all, and thus little time will seem to pass during the same period.

Being older means one has learned and automated many tasks, whereas for a child, it's all still new. Perhaps this has something to do with it.

Though, there might be something more going on. . .

I was teaching a group of many small children once; we did a lot of different exercises both at desks and outdoors. By the time I'd run through all the material, it felt to me as though two hours had passed, when in reality it had only been 45 minutes. I was really surprised by this and was assured by other instructors that this was a common experience.

 

[Gonzo]

Hi Woodsman,

I think that there is some truth in what you say.

I believe one way we track time is by the amount of events and sub-events we record throughout our day.

The more "in the now" we are, perhaps the more we pay attention to details and each detail on its own becomes a record in our memory.

Since one might pay more attention during their younger years when they are information sponges, they might record more events. When one ages, they notice fewer new things and therefore have less to record.
However, the perception of time speeding up when you are older, comes from those who are older and therefore, can only compare against their past and information shared by their peers, often within the same age category.

I wonder if today's youth and young adults, who seem to have been forced into deeper levels of distraction from entertainment, no longer record the same as their age equivalents 20 years prior. If so, who knows what their future will bring, whether they learn to pay more attention when they get older and break the current paradigm of things appearing to speed up.

Interesting stuff.

Gonzo

 

[dant]

Perhaps "awareness of time" is the key? Can anyone
have too little, or too much "time in their hands",
regardless of one's age?

 

[Buddy]

Perhaps "awareness of time" is the key?

I tend to agree with that in the sense of having a variable awareness of linearity. I've noticed that when I am extremely interested in something I either lose all track of time or time seems to move way too fast. If I'm in a bored state (not very often), time drags and even seems to be trying to stop.

Makes me wonder if the subjective sense of time is also related to energy levels in the system. :)

 

[Zaphod]

My feelings are, that it's actually something you perceive whilst looking back; e.g, 'Heaven's above where in God's name has the year gone?'. We can only really observe the perceived rate of passage of time once it's actually passed. It's not something we can quantify given any instantaneous snapshot.

The reason for the apparent acceleration might be because for instance, at the age of 50, the year you've just witnessed go by, represents a far smaller percentage of your overall experience of being conscious, than it does at say the age of 10.

 

[ScioAgapeOmnis]

Might also be related to brain activity. Young brains learn more in any given situation and time period, old brains just kinda work with what they already know, going on cruise control. So perhaps a young brain really has a lot more stuff going on at the same time, absorbing more of reality, everything being new and fascinating, constantly "in the moment" and taking note of everything, etc? So instead of time being different, maybe young people have more impressions about their surroundings for any given time period - more observations, more new interesting things learned, more curiosities and mysteries, etc. Older people are on auto-pilot, very little is really new or fascinating, very few reflective moments, everything just starts being a big streamlined auto-pilot with some exceptions here and there. So less stuff seems to happen for older people, which may make it seem like time just flies by, if we were to measure time by the number of observations/lessons/experiences that we consciously registered.

The C's did say that at the moment of transition to 4th density, for a very brief instant you know everything there is to know, and that moment may last seemingly forever. Maybe the reason that we perceive eternity in an infinitesimally tiny moment is because our awareness of reality is extremely expanded for that moment (they called it becoming illuminated), so there is a lot more IN that moment that we can now observe, which we couldn't normally. Similarly, maybe kids just are aware of more things in any given moment or something, and old folk are not. Old folk may know more stuff, but as for being present and aware in the moment and paying attention to all the little things that are now "boring" to them, they may not be doing that. When was the last time you watched raindrops falling on the ground or into puddles with fascination, for example? Or analyzed with great curiosity the texture and veins of a leaf (or made a leaf skeleton by ripping a leaf in such a way as to leave the veiny skeleton thing intact), or how wind sounds when someone almost closes the door but leaves just enough space for a whooshing/whistling sound, etc.

Having said that, I wonder how time feels for people with attention deficit disorder of some sort?

 

[Al Today]

Man, this is great & tough to "verbalize". I have thought that as we get older time "compresses" as a subjective perception.
For example, when young, experience of time is less, therefore it seems that time takes longer.
With age & "time" ones' experience is more a lengthy accumulation and "time" is merely perceived to go faster.
As a youth, summer vacation used to be a long time, but now 'tis only a season for me...
Anyway, isn't time an illusion? This is a human perception over "time".
Is the water muddy enough?

 

[Buddy]

Having said that, I wonder how time feels for people with attention deficit disorder of some sort?

You don't know anyone with 'ADD'? Maybe it's because they're all in my family. :P

Time management is a big issue. Time, itself, is never paid attention to since there is nothing about it to 'grab' attention; Punctuality is not a problem, since it never existed; a whole lot of stuff gets done but not necessarily in a predictable sequence.

Thom Hartmann's experience seems typical:
_http://www.additudemag.com/adhd/article/4886.html
:)

 

[Gonzo]

I think there have been some interesting thoughts.

Anyway, isn't time an illusion? This is a human perception over "time".Is the water muddy enough?

I'm finding it quite difficult to come near breaking out of the illusion of linear time, so I was wondering if perhaps this discussion is uncovering clues in understanding the illusion in such a way that might help.
Gonzo