Okay hear me out

[Mordecai]

okay it's 2 am and I was thinking. How do we know everything isn't in slow motion?or fast motion for that matter. Anyway so, if everything is in slow motion, we wouldn't know because our brain processing speed would also be in slow motion. In that case, our units of measurement for time are completely arbitrary but then again they were arbitrary from the start but now I suppose they're just wrong.

 

[onesteptwostep]

This is all interesting if you were a solipsist. But chances are, other minds do exist *cough* so a measurement of time is required for the functionality of society and of civilization.

I understand what you're talking about though, I have a lot of those moments while listening to the same music while in differing states of mind.

 

[computerhxr]

Think of a movie in 10 frames per second, 30 frames per second, and 100 frames per second. The measure of time doesn't change, but the information throughput does change. Slow motion and fast motion is relative to fluctuations in FPS relative to time.

So it's likely consciousness is synced to a baseline frequency that gives us a sense of the passing of time. How much time passes between our perception, who knows? It may be an eternity (parallel dimension).

This goes along with brain frequencies, heart rhythms, circadian rhythms, sun cycles, seasons, constellations, etc... They all act as markers on the clock that tell us how much time has passed. Without markers and constants, we would have very little perception of time.

 

[Hadoblado]

Time flows, and any measurement of it is designed specifically to be of use to its observer. The notion that time proceeds at a different rate to what we perceive it, a rate that is somehow more objective than our perception of it, implies a more objective observer. I don't see how we could possibly have an objective measurement of the objectivity of a subjective experience of time.

Object somethingsomething subject something.

Essentially, different consciousnesses might experience time differently, but there is no 'correct' time perception. I guess an argument could be made for if you were able to perceive time non-linearly, but that's beyond the scope of the OP.

 

[computerhxr]

If time is fractal, then each increment of time would have infinite increments of time between them. Then each of those increments would have infinite increments between them. So an infinite amount of time would be perceived as finite if you only were aware of a single linear axis of time.

The idea of infinite time between a measurable amount of time would indicate that the time is flowing in multiple directions -- fractally. Like a time snowflake.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

Time is one of the most objective variables we have. It depends only/fundamentally on the speed and gravitational field the measured body has/is under.

There is a number of regular processes that require the same amounts of time to complete.

Your slow or quick motion wouldn't be perceivable for the observer subject to the same alteration, but it would be visible to someone outside of this frame of reference. I'd say your slow motion is what Einstein called relativity.

It's important to note that relativity isn't arbitrary, it depends on measurable distances, masses and speeds, as well as detailed densities, rotational periods of measured objects.

Maybe, we shouldn't look at time separately, but think of the totality of speeds, masses and distances. Or maybe we could calculate a time of an object with minimal mass and minimal speed (could be 0, but might be impossible) and make it our universal clock. Problem with that is, there were times during expansion of the universe when there was no empty space, so maybe a better solution would be to calculate a composite center of mass of the entire universe and how much time passes for it. This center of mass is constantly changing but this could be incorporated to the time function as well using a variable of speed. This is interesting to find, but not helpful for measuring time, because time is measured with a respective goal, similar to our earth-solar time, I wonder if time in this sense without a goal would be more objective. I'd be more inclined to consider many simultaneous times, depending on the situation.

Time difference in a general sense may mean a diversity of:
-the time of beginning of a process/object compared to another, its duration
-the speed of the process or object
-the mass or distance of the object

 

[Glider]

Blarraun, you argued well for objective time, but also consider socialy regulated time and emotional time. I read some Heidegger once and he mentioned that there might be three types of rationality, although our society only credits two of them as true, in totally different contexts. Objective rational in science, social or moral rational in law, culture and religion, and then there is the lesser valued emotional rationality, where we can say that something we feel is true if others have experienced the same feeling.
So emotionally I feel that time passes at different speeds depending on my reaction to situations and feeligns. Writing this, 10 minutes have passed in a blink of an eye, while waiting for my tea water to boil takes forever.
Also, I read somewhere that contious thought lags behind reality by a half second or so.

 

[INTPWolf]

This is a little chunk of thought that i've been chewing on since i was a kid, im glad to see someone else thinking about it here.
Something i came across was that many scientists believe that neurons communicate at speeds roughly around 100 m/s, if this it true, then our ( average ) perception of time is directly linked to the distance our communicating nerves are from one another, so it is determined by brain size. The larger the brain, the faster time will seem to go compared to a smaller brain. A fly sees the world in slow motion, that swatter that looks to us like its whizzing through the air, looks like slomo bullets in the matrix.

 

[Glider]

Thats a nice idea!
So elephants have an intense day, when they are out grazing. Lots of action
I found the delayed consoisness experiiment I mentioned. it is called the Libet experiment.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_free_will#