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Posted: **Sun Nov 17, 2013 2:09 am**

Hypothesis: The subjective speed at which time passes is measured against how long you've been alive. In other words, when you're 25 years old, a year feels like how 2-1/2 months felt when you were 5. And when you're 50, time feels like it passes 2x as fast as when you were 25.

Discuss.

Posted: **Sun Nov 17, 2013 2:26 am**

What about women? How do they factor into this time ordeal? Surely it's not as simple as you describe???

Posted: **Sun Nov 17, 2013 2:26 am**

When you're doing the same thing every day, your memory edits the boring parts down to a summary. When you're having lots of new experiences, you may choose to remember more details.

Posted: **Sun Nov 17, 2013 3:47 am**

muontrack wrote:
What about women? How do they factor into this time ordeal? Surely it's not as simple as you describe???

Eh... what? Are you saying that women experience time differently than men, or that women change the way men perceive time? Please explain what you're getting at here.

JustAnEngineer wrote:
When you're doing the same thing every day, your memory edits the boring parts down to a summary. When you're having lots of new experiences, you may choose to remember more details.

There may be something to that.

So... is the perception of the passage of time tied to the number of new experiences an individual has? Can we (from our own internal perspective, but not in real time) make ourselves live longer, by having new experiences?

Posted: **Sun Nov 17, 2013 3:51 am**

just brew it! wrote:
Hypothesis: The subjective speed at which time passes is measured against how long you've been alive. In other words, when you're 25 years old, a year feels like how 2-1/2 months felt when you were 5. And when you're 50, time feels like it passes 2x as fast as when you were 25.

Discuss.

It makes perfect sense.

When you are 5, a year is 20% of your lifespan.
When you are 15, a year is 6% of your lifespan.
When you are 25, a year is only 4% of your lifespan.
When you are 75, a year is only 1.3% of your lifespan.

The difference is most marked in the early years due to how percentages work. Maybe that's also why we don't let 5 year olds drink or drive cars. Or get married.

Posted: **Sun Nov 17, 2013 4:17 am**

BIF wrote:
Maybe that's also why we don't let 5 year olds drink or drive cars. Or get married.

I think you're conflating a couple of (or more?) disconnected concepts here. Or did you really intend to tie together responsibility/maturity and the speed at which we perceive time to pass?

Posted: **Sun Nov 17, 2013 4:46 am**

We're subject to entropic processes, including our senses and "body clocks". Sensor/pathway decay could be affecting how we experience/memorize things as we grow older, as much as any developmental changes in our awake dwell time. I'm just speculating, the conscious mind is little understood.

Posted: **Sun Nov 17, 2013 7:41 am**

just brew it! wrote:
Hypothesis: The subjective speed at which time passes is measured against how long you've been alive. In other words, when you're 25 years old, a year feels like how 2-1/2 months felt when you were 5. And when you're 50, time feels like it passes 2x as fast as when you were 25.

Discuss.

As a kid I was often stranded some place my mother dragged me to and was bored with absolutely nothing to do. As an adult there's always things needing to be done, things I want to do, and plenty of more things I CAN do if I ever reach the point of boredom. It helps that adults usually have access to more tools to stay busy or entertained than kids do.

Of course,maybe there's a scientific explanation. Satellites in earth orbit record time passing something around 7,200 nanoseconds slower per day than the same clock on earth. Maybe the older people get, the more they are in tune with their general relativity theory

Posted: **Sun Nov 17, 2013 9:33 am**

I don't think there's really a difference as to how younger people perceive time compared to older people. It's just that as older people, we usually remember our childhood years fondly perhaps and the fond memories add to a sense of our childhood years being timeless.

Being a child and the innocence it entails is something I miss. Sure, there are things you can't do as a child that we can do now, but i would gladly trade those for having no problems.

Posted: **Sun Nov 17, 2013 12:41 pm**

just brew it! wrote:
muontrack wrote:
What about women? How do they factor into this time ordeal? Surely it's not as simple as you describe???

Eh... what? Are you saying that women experience time differently than men, or that women change the way men perceive time? Please explain what you're getting at here.

The latter. Though, after waking up and thinking about it more clearly, I think it depends on what the person's priorities are in a given moment. So maybe it's not so much to do with age/what you're doing, but it's the amount of focus you have while doing it?

Another thing: perhaps routines don't help with this "passing of time" phenomenon. If I can be permitted to generalize a bit, I would say that when we're younger, we probably don't have as many routines and so our days are more unpredictable (consequently "longer") and we remember how long it felt struggling through something or even how much fun we had learning/exploring/adventuring.

That being said, I could also make the case that getting stuck in a routine can make you really bored and depressed... in which case, the days probably feel like eternity. Which makes me recall how fast it felt going through carefree summer days when I was younger.

Alright JBI, here's the rundown: I have no idea anymore hahaha.

Posted: **Sun Nov 17, 2013 9:14 pm**

It's baloney, or perhaps some other prepared meat. I'm 67, the years go by about the same speed they always have.

Posted: **Sun Nov 17, 2013 11:30 pm**

just brew it! wrote:
BIF wrote:
Maybe that's also why we don't let 5 year olds drink or drive cars. Or get married.

I think you're conflating a couple of (or more?) disconnected concepts here. Or did you really intend to tie together responsibility/maturity and the speed at which we perceive time to pass?

I was trying to make a joke, and in my defense at least I didn't confuse the matter by way of some vaguely nefarious reference to women. Truth be told, I didn't want to be that guy who started talking about entropic processes either. Not when we all should have been enjoying a damned beer anyway. It's STILL the weekend here and I'm resisting Monday for as long as possible. Entropically speaking! :lol:

Posted: **Mon Nov 18, 2013 9:29 am**

My favorite saying for those with small children is "The days are long, but the years are short." My second son just turned one. They change fast at this age...and I'm sure I'll be looking back fondly on these years when they are teenagers.

I agree with the general response to this thread that time does pass faster as you get older. Just not when the kids are pooping their pants, climbing in the sink, and writing on the walls.

Posted: **Mon Nov 18, 2013 9:38 am**

Time seems to slow down when you're anticipating or looking forward to something. It seems to pick up substantially when you're trying to meet a deadline. Life - especially your work life - is full of deadlines. If you're trying to make your life feel longer, wait for something. Anticipate the impossible.

I have no science behind that, just seems to be how it feels to me.

Posted: **Mon Nov 18, 2013 1:30 pm**

I believe time depends on your size, heartbeat, and metabolism.

A short while ago it has been proven that insects actually do sense everything in "slow motion" compared to humans. And small dogs can feel like everything takes up to twice as long as it's felt by a human. And large animals, such as elephants or whales, have as few as ten times less heartbeats per minute (and slower reaction times) than humans.

It's all a matter of how fast you burn. The faster you burn, the more "time" you will process per second.

Posted: **Mon Nov 18, 2013 9:14 pm**

Meadows wrote:
I believe time depends on your size, heartbeat, and metabolism.

A short while ago it has been proven that insects actually do sense everything in "slow motion" compared to humans. And small dogs can feel like everything takes up to twice as long as it's felt by a human. And large animals, such as elephants or whales, have as few as ten times less heartbeats per minute (and slower reaction times) than humans.

It's all a matter of how fast you burn. The faster you burn, the more "time" you will process per second.

That explains a lot about me, then! :3

Posted: **Tue Nov 19, 2013 3:03 am**

Time is all relative anyway.

The perception of time is primarily affected by your brain. That's why chemical alternating substances, sleep and other mental ailments related to physical brain trauma "distort" the flow of the time.

Posted: **Tue Nov 19, 2013 8:47 am**

(Spoiler Alert!) I recall an episode of Star Trek (original series) where beings in the 'normal' time frame heard buzzing sounds that turned out to be caused by beings in a far faster time frame to whom the beings in the 'normal' time frame appeared to be nearly frozen. The usual characters get trapped in, and eventually escape from, the wrong time frame.

As time passes, I feel like the world is getting pulled into that faster time frame. Radio stations are already playing non-stop Christmas music, but it feels like Christmas was just last week. Even the rate at which dust accumulates inside my 'puters seems to be increasing.

I think the first time I noticed this effect was in grade school when summer vacations from school started to feel short.

Posted: **Tue Nov 19, 2013 9:47 am**

Krogoth wrote:
Time is all relative anyway.

The perception of time is primarily affected by your brain. That's why chemical alternating substances, sleep and other mental ailments related to physical brain trauma "distort" the flow of the time.

So aging is a mental ailment...

Posted: **Tue Nov 19, 2013 9:51 am**

Pink Floyd wrote:
[...]
You are young and life is long
And there is time to kill today

And then the one day you find
Ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run
You missed the starting gun

And you run and you run
To catch up with the sun
But it's sinking

Racing around
To come up behind you again [...]

Posted: **Tue Nov 19, 2013 2:14 pm**

just brew it! wrote:
Krogoth wrote:
Time is all relative anyway.

The perception of time is primarily affected by your brain. That's why chemical alternating substances, sleep and other mental ailments related to physical brain trauma "distort" the flow of the time.

So aging is a mental ailment...

Very probably. I get my back in to my living, Pete Townsend, and have for a long time. I lift weights 4 times a week and climb the local mountains a lot. I am rather fit. My confreres in my age group, I'm 67, are drinking themselves to death or working hard on their heart attacks.

Time goes by like it always did. It's winter so the days are short and I have to get out the door earlier to get up the hill but I use up every day.

Posted: **Tue Nov 19, 2013 8:25 pm**

morphine wrote:
Pink Floyd wrote:
[...]
You are young and life is long
And there is time to kill today

And then the one day you find
Ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run
You missed the starting gun

And you run and you run
To catch up with the sun
But it's sinking

Racing around
To come up behind you again [...]

That's still the most depressing song I ever heard...

Posted: **Tue Nov 19, 2013 9:32 pm**

just brew it! wrote:
Krogoth wrote:
Time is all relative anyway.

The perception of time is primarily affected by your brain. That's why chemical alternating substances, sleep and other mental ailments related to physical brain trauma "distort" the flow of the time.

So aging is a mental ailment...

Your brain starts to fail after a while. That's why dementia and similar conditions correlate with advanced age. The human body isn't designed or meant to last forever. It is inherently unstable. That's why life procreates/replicates itself to combat this.

Posted: **Tue Nov 19, 2013 11:32 pm**

Time flies like an arrow.

Fruit flies like a banana.

Posted: **Tue Nov 19, 2013 11:36 pm**

Krogoth wrote:
just brew it! wrote:
So aging is a mental ailment...

Your brain starts to fail after a while. That's why dementia and similar conditions correlate with advanced age. The human body isn't designed or meant to last forever. It is inherently unstable. That's why life procreates/replicates itself to combat this.

From birth we race to our ends. Entropy rules. We are each a uniquely growthful sapience in an expiring world.

Posted: **Wed Nov 20, 2013 11:58 am**

just brew it! wrote:
Hypothesis: The subjective speed at which time passes is measured against how long you've been alive. In other words, when you're 25 years old, a year feels like how 2-1/2 months felt when you were 5. And when you're 50, time feels like it passes 2x as fast as when you were 25.

Discuss.

This was on the discovery channel about 5 years ago. An engineer actually came up with an equation or something to show how we perceive the passage of time as we age. In a nutshell, it seems to go by faster (almost exponentially) the older we get.

Wish I could find a link or something.

edit - spelling/grammar

Posted: **Wed Nov 20, 2013 12:08 pm**

I've always maintained that you reach adulthood when you start thinking of time in terms of paychecks instead of months.

Posted: **Wed Nov 20, 2013 1:58 pm**

As an adult I look forward to time I'm not sleeping or working or commuting. 8 hrs sleeping, 2 hrs commuting, 9 hrs at work...when is retirement coming? When work days are pretty similar, time blurs together.

Just 7608 more days

Posted: **Wed Nov 20, 2013 3:22 pm**

Perhaps its easier to "live in the moment" when we're younger.

Posted: **Wed Nov 20, 2013 6:49 pm**

Hawkwing74 wrote:
As an adult I look forward to time I'm not sleeping or working or commuting. 8 hrs sleeping, 2 hrs commuting, 9 hrs at work...when is retirement coming? When work days are pretty similar, time blurs together.

Just 7608 more days

I trim about an hour off the sleep, and because I telecommute there's no commute time, but damn if I don't waste that 3 hours doing stupid stuff instead of becoming awesome.

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