The Logarithmic Time Perception Hypothesis | Hacker News Reader

The Logarithmic Time Perception Hypothesis

kafalas.com

62 pointsrzk35 comments

My hypothesis is a bit different. Instead of logarithimic time perception, informational time perception. Children have brains with high plasticity and huge new information acquisition (learning) rates. Those rates drop as plasticity decreases when one gets older. Those "bitrates" of new information flowing into long-term memory act as sand flowing through a hourglass. A fixed amount of sand represents a fixed amount of subjective time. When those rates drop, we feel time runs faster, because now the same amount of sand (subjective time, information) stretches over more clocktime.

I think you're onto something, but I don't think it has to do with plasticity, but novelty.

Consider the brain as a giant recording device with very good compression based recognizing patterns from previous data. So the first time you eat an apple, it stores a lot of data because it's a new experience. The next time, it stores something more like "like the last apple, but a little more tart".

I think our perception of time (at the macro scale) is roughly a perception of how much new data our compression-oriented brain is storing. It's the sensation of accumulated novelty.

With this in mind, the length of one’s life is not chronological (by a clock) but the integral of the novel information they experience.

So a monotonous 60 year existence is a fraction of the perceived duration of 60 years of a wild and adventurous, constantly reading, learning new languages, making new deep human connections - existence.

I wonder how something like ayahuasca or dmt would impact this. People have described these substances as having a type of mental “reset” quality. If they do impact time perception, I’m assuming it’s only temporary…

While I can't speak to these substances, regarding the temporariness of it:

Irrespective of whether or not the effect, or lasting effects, dwindle and can thus be considered "temporary", there's something too be said about the act of the reset itself.

That is, whether or not the effects feel like they're fading, the memory of what it was like when it was new is still a massive data point and can be recalled.

In short, you can still remember that feeling of the reset and recall a time when your brain felt new and refreshed.

Right. Which means making the most of your life is only partially about longevity, but also about getting out there and doing new things.

Thats the same thing, no?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(information_theory)?w...

Well yes some of us do believe in the Shannon basis for Quantum Gravity.

I think everyone intuitively understands this too. If you spend the next 3 months sitting in your boring office job that you've done 1000 days before, those 3 months may disappear entirely from your memory. Compared to taking the next 3 months and traveling to some strange land far away from home, and I bet those 3 months will stick out in your mind until your dying days.

Controversial take: isn’t this a strong point in favor of having as many romantic partners as possible during one’s life?

No? Because then the norm is just passing from one person to another.

It really does not work like that, you start mixing everything and everyone up in a depressing blob after a while. I can't even remember the names of people i thought I loved or at least cared about. Compared with my last five years in a serious, committed relationship, its a night and day difference. To the next five years, and the ten after that hopefully.

Which would imply that if an 80 year old from birth went out there and learnt new things and did new things every day, years would pass like a turtle, however hours and days would zoom by.

If nothing is going on in your life, it is as the article says. However, if you experience novel and memorable stimuli, good or bad, time dilates. Traumatic experiences are particularly memorable because the brain wants to make sure you learn your lesson. It is a consequence of the brain's compressive learning algorithm, discarding the familiar and making sense of the new.

More trauma, longer life. Got it. \s

More trauma, longer perceived life. not\s (something to be said about quality over quantity tho)

I’m convinced you’re right. Consider how long your first road trip to a place feels, versus the 10th time you’ve taken that route. When you’re processing all new data, it stretches out.

Agreed completely. I don't think we perceive the passage of time at the macro scale. We perceive the acquisition of novel experiences and new memories.

I've had months of work I can barely remember, and three-day vacations that feel like a year's worth of memories.

I have the exact opposite. The first time seems to flash by, but the 10th time takes forever.

One benefit of this, is once you'd done something once, the other times kind of melt together.

Yeah, this is a the answer. Our brain only remembers novelty, our firsts years and even decades are plagued by it. But after you are already 5 or 10 years onto your "adult" life you basically do exactly the same each day. 80% of what we do in our daily life as adults is not memorable at all and get completely ignored by our long-term perception. In short, it feels like the time flies because you did only 2 or 3 memorable things in the whole year.

> Traumatic experiences are particularly memorable because the brain wants to make sure you learn your lesson.

Weird, I have always been told that when the brain is functioning "normaly" (outside of disorders/syndromes, such as PTSD) that it has a tendency to forget bad things, to help us get over traumatic experiences.

I don't think they mean literally traumatic, but more like a bad breakup, or falling out of a tree. You survive -- maybe barely -- but its no more traumatic than a scrape or a bump. I still remember the first "major" injury I have (from jumping off a the top of a car at 4 years old). Not like it was yesterday -- no PTSD there -- but it was the first time I scraped my knee. I'll probably never jump off a car again.

I don't think it has anything to do with age but with the rate of new experiences.

Take a year off work to travel the world and you'll find your subjective sense of time passing slows right down.

Does it matter though? Does it matter how many experiences you collect? You can't take them with you. Better to develop relationships that can be a source of joy (I imagine. I have not done that).

It may not matter in any objective sense, or even a subjective one.

But if you want your sense of time passing to slow down, increasing the rate of new experiences might be one way to get there.

if you want your sense of time passing to slow down, go sit in an empty silent room with nothing to do

It's a great paradox. What you say is true, but it is also true that a period of life with more novel experiences will also appear to pass more slowly.

I mean, you can’t take the relationships with you either.

Do whatever makes you happy.

You can though. Pharohs were interred with their living concubines.

If you give me back 3 month of vacations in summer as when I was a kid, they will also feel long.

Even 3 weeks feels long now

I'd love to know how long a 3 week vacation feels! One day, maybe...

It’s easy if you get fired or quit! lol

https://archive.ph/7Yskr

Is there anyone else who never felt like time is passing faster as they age?

Sure, I sometimes think: "Wow, another year passed so fast.", but I distinctly remember the same feeling from when I was a child. School years seem to have flown past me the same as calender years do now.

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