4 ms·

There is a simpler layman's explanation for this one. As you get older every second of your life starts being a smaller percentage of your overall experience. W

by emreb 5y ago

There is a simpler layman's explanation for this one. As you get older every second of your life starts being a smaller percentage of your overall experience. When you a 2 years old, 1 hour is 1/17520 of your life. When you are 50 years old, 1 hour is 1/438000 of your life.

Wowfunhappy 5y ago
It’s not immediately obvious to me why this would result in the perception that time moves more quickly. The theory in the article did strike me as quite plausible.
- WillPostForFood 5y ago
  It is kind of horrifying though - it is in your face evidence of cognitive decline.
  - bwanab 5y ago
    Right, and as a long term participant in this realm, I can definitely say that the speeding up is far greater than any cognitive decline I’ve had so far. To be sure - since it’s certainly possible that one wouldn’t notice one’s own decline, I do online courses periodically to 1) learn new stuff and 2) assure myself that the decline isn’t yet too severe.
    - notahacker 5y ago
      I think a lot depends on what timescales you consider to be "speeded up". I don't think the perception that a huge amount of stuff happens between the ages of 16 and 18 and seems like it was only last week between the ages of 30 and 35 has much to do with cognitive decline. Feelings of WTF it's two hours later and I feel like I've only been editing for 10 minutes and just need 10 minutes more, likely are linked to cognitive decline, but I'm young enough to only have that feeling when I'm really, really tired, and I sometimes had it when I was 20 too...
    - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
      > I can definitely say that the speeding up is far greater than any cognitive decline I’ve had so far. "Cognitive decline" is probably the wrong way to think about it. Your cognition changes as you age. When you're young, you're inundated with lots of information. You can process that information quickly, but you don't know which signals are important. As you age, you learn what information is important, and what can be filtered out. So even if you're slower, your brain can work more efficiently. It also knows how to take shortcuts. ...at least, that's what I remember reading in my college Psychology textbook five years ago, and it jives with the current article.
bmhin 5y ago
To put it a different way: for the 2 year old last week was about 1% of their entire existence. For that 50 year old it was just 0.03%.
bwanab 5y ago
I agree with your theory much more than that of the article. I’m not sure why, but I’ve always had the same theory so maybe it’s just confirmation bias. At any rate, I’m old and I can confirm that the speeding up isn’t just a myth.
gmfawcett 5y ago
I don't understand how that explains the sense of speed-up? E.g. when I read a novel, the last few pages don't fly by any faster than the first ones do.
- xahrepap 5y ago
  I actually disagree with your novel example. When I read a novel, the first half of the book is building up to the second half. There's so much uncompressed information that I take in. Learning the characters, learning the environment, etc. While I read the same WPM, the second half FEELS faster to me because now I'm on to the good stuff and the details are behind me. I'm over the hump.
jmcgough 5y ago
I've heard this on HN before and it seems less likely than an actual neuroscientific interpretation - we don't perceive time in a fractional sense on a moment-to-moment basis.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
guerrilla 5y ago
This doesn't provide an actual mechanism though. You'd need evidence that our perception of time is dependent on that ratio and then show us a mechanism for it. On the other hand, the article gives a possible mechanism for a different theory.
- gowld 5y ago
  The proposed mechanism is that all recalled long-term memories (older than this week) are weighted independently of recency, so as you get older more of your memories are from the past years than the latest year, so the latest year seems less substantial.
  - guerrilla 5y ago
    This is just more elaboration of the hypothesis. It doesn't actually explain anything neurologically. What's the implementation? How do you plan to test for it?
    - refurb 5y ago
      The article doesn’t explain it neurologically either other than saying “more brain connections means long time to traverse the brain” which is just a bunch of handwaving.
cornstalks 5y ago
That's a common argument. Veritasium explores this and IMO the alternative arguments are more compelling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIx2N-viNwY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIx2N-viNwY
memco 5y ago
Had this thought when my daughter was born. Saying, "Hold on a minute" is asking a lot more of her than for myself.
fasteo 5y ago
This is mathematically true, but it does not explain the effect. It reminded me of the calories in, calories out thing. You gain weight because you eat more calories that you burn. This is, again, mathematically correct, but it offers no explanation of the why Why do you eat more than you burn ? you move too little ? you eat too much ? your brain malfunctions and it is unable to detect food intake ?
- razzimatazz 5y ago
  I think I'm wired with the potential to eat more than I burn because the opposite is dangerous (long-term) and its hard to anticipate future burn when I eat. There would need to be a lot of food 'abundance' for the negative effects of this to ever come to fruition to the point of influencing evolution, and fixing the brain malfunction. (Maybe I misunderstand your angle).
hello4353 5y ago
I wonder what Taleb would say about this calculation.

by emreb 5y ago

Wowfunhappy 5y ago

It’s not immediately obvious to me why this would result in the perception that time moves more quickly. The theory in the article did strike me as quite plausible.

WillPostForFood 5y ago
It is kind of horrifying though - it is in your face evidence of cognitive decline.
- bwanab 5y ago
  Right, and as a long term participant in this realm, I can definitely say that the speeding up is far greater than any cognitive decline I’ve had so far. To be sure - since it’s certainly possible that one wouldn’t notice one’s own decline, I do online courses periodically to 1) learn new stuff and 2) assure myself that the decline isn’t yet too severe.
  - notahacker 5y ago
    I think a lot depends on what timescales you consider to be "speeded up". I don't think the perception that a huge amount of stuff happens between the ages of 16 and 18 and seems like it was only last week between the ages of 30 and 35 has much to do with cognitive decline. Feelings of WTF it's two hours later and I feel like I've only been editing for 10 minutes and just need 10 minutes more, likely are linked to cognitive decline, but I'm young enough to only have that feeling when I'm really, really tired, and I sometimes had it when I was 20 too...
  - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
    > I can definitely say that the speeding up is far greater than any cognitive decline I’ve had so far. "Cognitive decline" is probably the wrong way to think about it. Your cognition changes as you age. When you're young, you're inundated with lots of information. You can process that information quickly, but you don't know which signals are important. As you age, you learn what information is important, and what can be filtered out. So even if you're slower, your brain can work more efficiently. It also knows how to take shortcuts. ...at least, that's what I remember reading in my college Psychology textbook five years ago, and it jives with the current article.

bmhin 5y ago

To put it a different way: for the 2 year old last week was about 1% of their entire existence. For that 50 year old it was just 0.03%.

bwanab 5y ago

I agree with your theory much more than that of the article. I’m not sure why, but I’ve always had the same theory so maybe it’s just confirmation bias. At any rate, I’m old and I can confirm that the speeding up isn’t just a myth.

gmfawcett 5y ago

I don't understand how that explains the sense of speed-up? E.g. when I read a novel, the last few pages don't fly by any faster than the first ones do.

xahrepap 5y ago
I actually disagree with your novel example. When I read a novel, the first half of the book is building up to the second half. There's so much uncompressed information that I take in. Learning the characters, learning the environment, etc. While I read the same WPM, the second half FEELS faster to me because now I'm on to the good stuff and the details are behind me. I'm over the hump.

jmcgough 5y ago

I've heard this on HN before and it seems less likely than an actual neuroscientific interpretation - we don't perceive time in a fractional sense on a moment-to-moment basis.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

guerrilla 5y ago

This doesn't provide an actual mechanism though. You'd need evidence that our perception of time is dependent on that ratio and then show us a mechanism for it. On the other hand, the article gives a possible mechanism for a different theory.

gowld 5y ago
The proposed mechanism is that all recalled long-term memories (older than this week) are weighted independently of recency, so as you get older more of your memories are from the past years than the latest year, so the latest year seems less substantial.
- guerrilla 5y ago
  This is just more elaboration of the hypothesis. It doesn't actually explain anything neurologically. What's the implementation? How do you plan to test for it?
  - refurb 5y ago
    The article doesn’t explain it neurologically either other than saying “more brain connections means long time to traverse the brain” which is just a bunch of handwaving.

cornstalks 5y ago

That's a common argument. Veritasium explores this and IMO the alternative arguments are more compelling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIx2N-viNwY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIx2N-viNwY

memco 5y ago

Had this thought when my daughter was born. Saying, "Hold on a minute" is asking a lot more of her than for myself.

fasteo 5y ago

This is mathematically true, but it does not explain the effect. It reminded me of the calories in, calories out thing. You gain weight because you eat more calories that you burn. This is, again, mathematically correct, but it offers no explanation of the why Why do you eat more than you burn ? you move too little ? you eat too much ? your brain malfunctions and it is unable to detect food intake ?

razzimatazz 5y ago
I think I'm wired with the potential to eat more than I burn because the opposite is dangerous (long-term) and its hard to anticipate future burn when I eat. There would need to be a lot of food 'abundance' for the negative effects of this to ever come to fruition to the point of influencing evolution, and fixing the brain malfunction. (Maybe I misunderstand your angle).

hello4353 5y ago

I wonder what Taleb would say about this calculation.