Time is in the Mind, in FPS

A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR3kEx53IaY

In this video blog, which is based upon my text blog of the same name (Time is in the Mind), we looked at a study conducted by neuroscientist David Eagleman into the well-known effect most of us have experienced, where time seems to slow down during a particularly intense or dangerous moment. A few entries later, in Consciousness in Frames per Second, we revealed the answer proposed by Dr. Eagleman: it's not that time slows down during these moments, but rather that our memory of the moment is so rich with deep memories being formed as we have the experience. Here's the video I posted last week for Consciousness in Frames per Second:


For a direct link to the video go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txSqMO4OrOY

Months later, in an entry called Entangled Neurons we returned to Dr. Eagleman's idea once again, and here's what I said at that point:

"But Rob," some people have said to me, "the time slowing down effect wasn't something that occurred to me afterwards. It's something that happened to me during the event". And that's absolutely right. This is an instantaneous process we're talking about. The reason time didn't slow down for me while I was eating lunch today was because nothing remarkable happened, no specific memories were formed, and a month from now I will almost certainly not be able to tell you what I ate for lunch today.

I've really come to like Dr. Eagleman's idea because it ties so nicely to the general theme of what we're exploring with this project - our reference frame as conscious observers is intimately tied to what we observe, and how we observe it. There's a constant feedback loop that is occurring as the "self-excited circuit" of the quantum observer (as John Wheeler referred to this process) actively participates in choosing one kind of reality over another.

Next time, we'll look at a simple but effective game designed to explore what happens when that observer circuit malfunctions: "Alexander's Time Illusion Game".

Enjoy the journey,

Rob Bryanton