3 ms·

I've always rationalised it as: When you're one years old, 1 year is your whole life. When you're 100 years old, 1 year is 1/100th of your life.

alberth 3y ago
This plus … Time as you perceive it, is related to new memories you make. When you’re young, everything is a new experience which in turn becomes a new memory. When your 100, to use your example, you’ve done everything there is to do. So no new memories & days blur together.
planb 3y ago
That's the explanation I came up with for myself, too. As humans, we rate most things not in absolute but in relative terms to what we are used to (see studies about happiness or how rich people don't realise how wealthy they are when they don't leave their bubble). Why should we perceive time differently than in comparison to our timescale?
- mistermann 3y ago
  It even distorts logical processing, things like what is true and what is possible are also according to what (is known to the individual observer, or the culture they're embedded in) currently exists.
rrgok 3y ago
So, if I suddenly have amnesia and don't remember the past 99 years, will my time slow down? It is just a thought experiment...
- ji_zai 3y ago
  If you don't remember the past, slow down relative to what?
  - rrgok 3y ago
    That's exactly my question: is memory or timespan that regulate the speed of time-passing? Another thought experiment: suppose reincarnation exists and, as soon as I'm born, I remember my past lives, would time go faster or slower? I don't expect an answer, they are just thoughts that I have...
holoduke 3y ago
The older you get the less you learn and the less new things you learn. Days are becoming repetitive. Looking back at last year contains the same information as 1 week when you were young.
avgcorrection 3y ago
That the mind compresses oft-repeated experiences makes more sense than this math-as-psychology nonsense. Notice how when you have to wait for an hour, you’re bored, time seems to pass slowly, yet for those last ten minutes time passes more quickly because there’s only 1/6 hours le— yeah exactly, no, that doesn’t happen. The whole hour passes slowly because that whole fraction theory is bunk.

alberth 3y ago

This plus … Time as you perceive it, is related to new memories you make. When you’re young, everything is a new experience which in turn becomes a new memory. When your 100, to use your example, you’ve done everything there is to do. So no new memories & days blur together.

planb 3y ago

That's the explanation I came up with for myself, too. As humans, we rate most things not in absolute but in relative terms to what we are used to (see studies about happiness or how rich people don't realise how wealthy they are when they don't leave their bubble). Why should we perceive time differently than in comparison to our timescale?

mistermann 3y ago
It even distorts logical processing, things like what is true and what is possible are also according to what (is known to the individual observer, or the culture they're embedded in) currently exists.

rrgok 3y ago

So, if I suddenly have amnesia and don't remember the past 99 years, will my time slow down? It is just a thought experiment...

ji_zai 3y ago
If you don't remember the past, slow down relative to what?
- rrgok 3y ago
  That's exactly my question: is memory or timespan that regulate the speed of time-passing? Another thought experiment: suppose reincarnation exists and, as soon as I'm born, I remember my past lives, would time go faster or slower? I don't expect an answer, they are just thoughts that I have...

holoduke 3y ago

The older you get the less you learn and the less new things you learn. Days are becoming repetitive. Looking back at last year contains the same information as 1 week when you were young.

avgcorrection 3y ago

That the mind compresses oft-repeated experiences makes more sense than this math-as-psychology nonsense. Notice how when you have to wait for an hour, you’re bored, time seems to pass slowly, yet for those last ten minutes time passes more quickly because there’s only 1/6 hours le— yeah exactly, no, that doesn’t happen. The whole hour passes slowly because that whole fraction theory is bunk.