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There are 365 days in a year, 24 hours in a day. But how many of our thoughts are contained in them? How much news, worries, joys? Four experts explained to us where is reality and where is illusion, why time runs so fast, and our perception of time is always subjective.
As a kid, three months of summer vacation feels like an eternity. And it is worth growing up, as whole years rush by, we do not even have time to blink an eye. However, time as such does not change, no matter how old we are. So why is its perception changing so much in our minds?
Perhaps the fact is that we are subjective beings, and time for us flows non-linearly? It does not move from point A to point B at a constant speed, but exists in several dimensions and can slow down or speed up.
We live simultaneously in our biological time and in the time associated with an important event for us. Our brain is to blame, says neuroscientist Mark Schwob, and cites as an example the state of concentration when solving a complex intellectual problem.
At such moments, time seems to stop: “Our limbic system, the center of emotions, sensitivity, is temporarily turned off. We do not perceive the world around us, because the cerebral cortex only misses vital signals.”
But even strong emotions can “stop” time. While we are waiting for a loved one, minutes turn into hours, but as soon as he appears, the sense of time disappears. The “mechanism” in this case is different – it is the limbic system that turns out to be actively involved, which produces a huge amount of hormones that literally intoxicate us.
Perhaps the subjective change in the speed of the flow of time is also associated with a change in the rhythms of our lives.
“We have swapped periods of rest and activity: now we work in winter and rest in summer. But such changes require adaptation, which means an increase in stress levels, says Mark Schwob. “Stress hormones, cortisol and catecholamines, are being produced by the body more and more, causing us to constantly rush and cause a feeling of lack of time.”
In addition, time in our minds accelerates with age. The older we are, the more often we turn to memories and thoughts about the future – reducing the duration of the present.
Of course, neuroscience is not able to describe and explain the subjectivity of the perception of time, but it allows at least to understand its complexity.
Both from the point of view of biology and from the point of view of philosophy, the only way to slow down the passage of time is to be aware of it. By changing our attitude to each specific moment of time and our sense of self in it, we open eternity before us.
Opinion of a psychoanalyst
“The speeding up of time is part of growing up”
Svetlana Fedorova, psychoanalytic psychotherapist, senior lecturer at the Higher School of Economics
“The idea of time is formed in the process of growing up. The child gradually learns that there is a past and a future, and the present is noticeably reduced in his mind.
The most important leap occurs during adolescence – disappointment as a result of unfulfilled childhood expectations. The teenager realizes that he will never become a knight or a prince. From that moment on, the passage of time in his mind begins to accelerate.
In order to find our time, it is necessary to have internal boundaries that are laid down in childhood and allow us not to experience excessive anxiety that we cannot correlate our desires with the reality of life.
In a sense, we enter into a dialogue with time, define ourselves in time, fill abstract chaotic time with our own meaning and content. It is important that impersonal time become personal, and then we will live consciously and with pleasure every minute of it.
Opinion of a neurophysiologist
“Processing information slows down time”
Alexander Kaplan, Doctor of Biology, Head of the Laboratory of Neurophysiology and Neurocomputer Interfaces, Faculty of Biology, Lomonosov Moscow State University M. V. Lomonosov
“There is no brain structure that would be responsible for the sense of time. And the question of time perception is, of course, rather psychological. Man cannot objectively measure the passage of time.
Neuroscientist David Eagleman conducted experiments by showing subjects various images. Some of them were familiar to the participants of the experiment, and some they saw for the first time. Eagleman then asked how long the subjects looked at the pictures.
It turned out that according to subjective sensations, the subjects looked at unfamiliar pictures much longer. Meanwhile, the images were displayed with equal duration.
Obviously, the more the brain is busy processing new information, the subjectively slower time flows. That is why 10 years of childhood are so stretched out, 10 years of adolescence and youth are so short, and the rest of the years are so fleeting, no matter how many there are!
Philosopher’s opinion
“We trust the clock too much”
Oleg Aronson, philosopher, art historian, employee of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Institute of the Russian Anthropological School of the Russian State Humanitarian University
“When we feel that time is running too fast or stretching endlessly, it is only because we have too much confidence in objective calculation – the clock, the calendar, and in general – the ordering of the world, where the past is followed by the present, and after it – the future.
The experience of time and its understanding cannot be reconciled. For Augustine, time is somewhat like a divine presence: it is given outside the thought of it, but when you ask the question “what is it?” — it disappears.
And according to Heidegger, we feel time only because we are mortal. It points us to our finitude, we experience it as a touch of being itself.
For Bergson, on the contrary, time is expressed in the idea of duration and connects us, cultured and technologized people, with the variability of life itself, which does not depend on us.
Every time you have to ask: where is the place of time? Where is it in mathematics? Where is it in psychoanalysis? Where – in everyday life? These are always different images, created by the collision of memories and expectations, forgotten and obsessive desire …
It can shrink, making our existence mechanistic, or it can stretch to infinity, opening up in us the capacity for madness and faith.
Anthropologist’s opinion
“Time is culture”
Marina Butovskaya, anthropologist, doctor of historical sciences, professor at the Center for Social Anthropology of the Russian State University for the Humanities
“Representatives of different cultures feel and structure time differently. The Datoga, the traditional pastoralists of Tanzania, with whom I have worked for many years, can know exactly under what circumstances a person was born, but it is useless to ask the date of birth. They do not know their age either, only classifying themselves as a group: a child, a teenager, a young man, a parent, a grandfather.
They agree on the time of the meeting approximately: “at dawn”, “at noon”, “when it gets dark”. Important events (for example, weddings) are timed to coincide with the time of the year – when the rains begin, at the beginning of the dry season … The following is a clarification: the ceremony will take place on the full moon or “when the moon completely wanes.”
The day and hour are not specified, but the Datogi know unmistakably when the event is to take place. Time in the European sense is not important for them, and no one is annoyed that the event can start a few hours later. Everyone is waiting peacefully and does not understand why we Europeans are so impatient.
Ideas about accuracy, however, differ in industrial cultures, so the presence of a watch does not yet ensure compliance with agreements. In Latin America, North Africa or the Middle East, an hour and a half late is acceptable. The person waiting is resting, drinking coffee, leafing through a book or listening to music.
But in Germany, Sweden or Holland, being late for a few minutes is already a bad form.