4 ms·
" The response latency of the real world is zero. When you pick up an object, your fingers and the object move in lockstep." This is a misleading and mostly fa
by criley2 10y ago
" The response latency of the real world is zero. When you pick up an object, your fingers and the object move in lockstep."
This is a misleading and mostly false statement.
The human consciousness requires time for discrete data to be combined by the brain into what we perceive.
It is NOT instantaneous in real life. There is multiple forms of biological latency from the maximum speed of electrical impulse propagation through neurons to the "compile time" of the brain to assemble and modify information into a cohesive output for internal human consumption.
It may seem pointless to point this out, but many sources indicate that the delay between real life and perception is ~80 miliseconds, around 1/10th of a second.
These are speeds which are highly relevant to the discussion of software lag, as a program running 60 times per second updates several times during the "brain lag" of 80ms.
(Oh and the reason why you can overcome the 1/10th of a second lag and have your hand move in lockstep with reality is a variety of compensation mechanisms, like proprioception, which allow you to estimate where your hand will be in relation to reality and achieve it successfully).
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/time-on-the-brain-how-you-are-always-living-in-the-past-and-other-quirks-of-perception/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/time-on-th...
- comex 10y agoTrue, but of course any latency introduced by a program is in addition to that brain lag. Even though the program can do work while the brain is processing, to feel snappy it must let the brain begin that processing as soon as possible, i.e. respond as close as possible to instantaneously.
- betenoire 10y agoIt doesn't matter if it's technically instantaneous, the point is it is our reference point for "instantaneous".
- function_seven 10y agoNot misleading or false at all. The latency of the real world is 0. Our internal perception latency might be non-zero, but that's on us, not the "real world". When you pile on additional latency between button press and screen feedback, the internal biological latency doesn't cover for it. It adds to it.
- krallja 10y agoThe latency of the real world is still limited by the speed of light, as far as I can tell.
- function_seven 10y agoWhich, in our real world, is 0.000… Picking up a cup, pressing a button, opening a window. The speed of light is irrelevant at these scales.
- elfchief 10y agoActually, by the speed of sound. When you move an object, the pressure wave that travels along it and makes it move with you propagates at the speed of sound in that material. Still pretty fast at human scales, though!
- nwordsam3 10y agoRead the quote again more carefully. It says nothing about perception. The movement of the hand and the object is essentially instantaneous.