this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
1707 points (96.6% liked)
Political Memes
5426 readers
2472 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
We actually experience reality a fraction of a second in the past.
I actually live in the now. It’s just everything else that’s slightly ahead.
Living it the now is hard work. I live in the when.
Reality/causality also moves at the speed of light, and observations of time and space are relative to the observer. So it's still present reality, for you at least.
It still takes your brain some time to process everything.
Hey! I have been looking for a source on this. Would you have one?
Here's one about vision:
https://theconversation.com/everything-we-see-is-a-mash-up-of-the-brains-last-15-seconds-of-visual-information-175577
Although for me the simplest demonstration is to touch your toe with your finger. Sensory nerves travel something like 100 meters per second:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerve_conduction_velocity
This means that you should feel touch from your finger before your toe, since it has less far to travel.
What actually happens is that you feel both your toe and finger touching at the same time. Your brain buffers the signals and plays them back at the same time, giving the illusion of simultaneity.
So yes, not only are you experiencing the world slightly behind, but it's in differing amounts of delay.
You can search for "brain buffer simultaneity" to find tons of research on this topic.
That is fun! Thank you
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light
That is one small fraction, but fair enough.
Also this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerve_conduction_velocity
Ah but that is just nerve sensor input time, it does not include the time spent processing inputs into an awareness (or however one wants to describe our internal model.) Perceptual lag is a subject of a lot of unfortunately paywalled research.
The lag is not dissolved by relativity. Reality, as many athletes know, will let you know when your perceptual lag is a critical shortcoming.
I suspect perceptual lag is the term. I had heard it from a memory standpoint, I think. Something like:
Our minds operate on our memories, our memories are always beind reality. Our interpretation affects our memories, or at least the recall, and are always reacting to the past.
Perceptual lag seems more to the point. (Long thing included in case someone else happens to have another idea.)
Cheers
If you’re looking for a philosophical viewpoint on this, “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” will fuck with your head.