Alien adjustment of time

ChrisIB

Honorable
If talking about time, do you not have to make a distinction between physical time and a creature's sense of time.
Most creatures have self awareness, it seems to be a biological brain construct, but the self awareness of a bird may let it experience time more quickly and be able to evade those 'slower' than it (even though both have the same neuronal speed).
It would represent an important evolutionary advantage that may be a feature of successful aliens.
And once the mechanism of self awareness is understood, any advanced culture would also be able to scientifically adjust the rate that time is experienced.
 
The subjective experience of time does appear to vary, generally in proportion to metabolic rate:
Small animals see the world in slow motion, or why your puppy is so hyperactive - ExtremeTech

For a long time I've been fascinated by what appears to be a human capacity to experience time at different rates. For example, in a car crash time can seem to slow down dramatically - apparently under stress the rate of perception can provide a window to act rapidly; more rapidly than would possible under ordinary conditions. And I've heard stories about Eastern masters of martial arts who can do things that would appear to require a speed of perception and action that most of us don't have conscious access to.

I think it may indeed be possible to control this subjective experience of time, at least for short times, through either some learned capability, or through some kind of scientific advancement - a pill perhaps. But I think that it would be confined to a limited interval - we evolved to experience time at this rate; I would think that any attempt to increase the rate of perception for any long interval would have dire health consequences. But I think it may be possible to engineer a biological human-like being that has a higher intrinsic rate of perception. It might also have a very short lifespan, and have to eat 10 meals a day to survive, though.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
There's a theory about lifespans, two or three weeks for a house fly would be equivalent to about 80 years for a human, similarly a dog's life of about 8 to 12 years would be about the same span of life, different types of life exist for about the same amount of time but at differing rates through time...

...
 

ChrisIB

Honorable
What will the self awareness of an AI be like? time for them must seem to be almost stopped.
And what happens when time perception approaches the infinite? is that god?

Anecdotally, variations within our species might explain why some great intellects died early, some sports people perform well, indeed, why some find it difficult to sit at a desk from nine till five.
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
Humans are and have always been diurnal creatures. Electricity has a lot to do with out perception of time; it allows us to divorce ourselves from the schedules we are born with or acclimated to. From personal experience screwing around with that schedule for long periods of time didn't do me any favors but that probably had to more with sleep deprivation than exactly when I was sleeping.

Looking at the pic I have of my great-grandparents in the classic American Gothic pose they would probably wonder why we're all in such a hurry.

I think it may indeed be possible to control this subjective experience of time, at least for short times, through either some learned capability ......

That struck a chord. I was a distance cyclist for many years until the profusion of cell phones and one Cadillac Escalade in particular put that to bed. When you're out there for hours with your head down pumping away you get into a zone, a bubble of sorts, in which you're regulating your breathing and 'output' at a level well beyond what you would normally. Still aware of what's going on around me but very inwardly centered, not particularly focused. Hard to describe. Many times I got home and was surprised at how much or little time had passed.
 
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pepe

Celestial
Hundreds of animals have taken the mirror test and including ourselves only ten have displayed any degree of being self aware. The European magpie from the skies, the bottlenose dolphin and orcas from the seas, us, the elephant, bonobos and the three great apes with a rhesus macaque.

Being time aware and self aware I think are two different things, self obviously coming after time.

In a time of chaos I believe only the memory of that time appears to be drawn out. The hyper elevated sense of awareness I think permits the recall of many more moments and detail, thus giving the illusion of a slowing in time when looked back upon.
 

pepe

Celestial
A girl I knew who was sectioned as insane and removed from society became sane and told me she didn't recognise herself or have any sense of time during that period. I too have had a psychotropic episode in front of the mirror, where after staring into my eyes intensely, became a face I saw as another's. Same feeling as a kid when flying over the lift and drop of the open road when in the back seat and realising the old fella has lost control after landing, only to just correct and regain in time.

Hugely distressing in the split second and looked away immediately.

De humanising.
 

ChrisIB

Honorable
In a time of chaos I believe only the memory of that time appears to be drawn out. The hyper elevated sense of awareness I think permits the recall of many more moments and detail, thus giving the illusion of a slowing in time when looked back upon.
Interesting but I'm not sure I trust memory to that extent, it is itself, after all, just one of the constructs of self awareness.
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
In a time of chaos I believe only the memory of that time appears to be drawn out. The hyper elevated sense of awareness I think permits the recall of many more moments and detail, thus giving the illusion of a slowing in time when looked back upon.

I don't know if the research into exactly how memory works would bear this out, but doesn't it seem sometimes like we are actually recording every damned thing we see and hear and the only problem is getting to that particular memory? People with autobiographical memories seem to be doing exactly that. The problem isn't the storage it's the inventory, like a FAT table. So when we have these hyper-aware moments it seems as if we very quickly switch to the 'scan the raw stream' mode.

Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory: Quality and Quantity of Retention Over Time
 

AlienView

Noble
Still, the question remains - What does 'the perception of time' have to do with the reality of the time that passes?

The Earth rotates around the Sun every 24 hours and that's how we measure time, real time.

Probably the only advantage any species, including Man, would have is in his ability to master the World
in 'real time' and take advantage of it - Most of us, including me, live in a dream world where we like to
see time pass pleasantly - Unfortunately, sooner or later, it catches up to us.

Luckily our 'hypothetical' aliens have solved the problem - They bend space and time and that's how
they got here - Hence the UFOs !!!ae9;
 

nivek

As Above So Below
The Earth rotates around the Sun every 24 hours and that's how we measure time, real time.

Yet what if a habitable planet orbiting another star rotates every 38 hours or 56 hours and the intelligent life on that planet uses that to measure real time...Which time would actually be 'real' time, our 24 hour rotation or their 38 hour rotation?...What about other galactic neighbors who might be on a planet with a 22 hour rotation?...Isn't this really subjective and relative time or is all time measurements relative and subjective??...Can there be an objective/universal real time that anyone anywhere in the universe can gauge?...

...
 

AlienView

Noble
Yet what if a habitable planet orbiting another star rotates every 38 hours or 56 hours and the intelligent life on that planet uses that to measure real time...Which time would actually be 'real' time, our 24 hour rotation or their 38 hour rotation?...What about other galactic neighbors who might be on a planet with a 22 hour rotation?...Isn't this really subjective and relative time or is all time measurements relative and subjective??...Can there be an objective/universal real time that anyone anywhere in the universe can gauge?...

...
I agree, and it is accepted that time is relative - Relativity proves it, right?

Still, within any fixed area, say this solar system {the Sun, Earth, and other planets}, we have established
a consistent measurement of time that stands outside of its physical perception - A minute is still a minute
anywhere in this solar system even though any conscious being may perceive the minute differently,
We use science to measure it.

I would speculate that within this galaxy, The Milky way, IF we find other intelligent life forms, and even if
their day lengths are different, we could adapt to each others different time - Further I will speculate that
in the same way we have:

"Coordinated Universal Time (or UTC) is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is within about 1 second of mean solar time at 0° longitude, and is not adjusted for daylight saving time. In some countries, the term Greenwich Mean Time is used........"
Quote source:
Coordinated Universal Time - Wikipedia

We could establish a Universal Time for this galaxy by measuring the motion of the planets and solar systems
located withing the Milky-way. - Exactly how will be complicated.

But a Universal Time covering the whole universe is beyond my conception and may be impossible.
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
Still, the question remains - What does 'the perception of time' have to do with the reality of the time that passes?

If it does then it's an example of the observer effect.

We are marking the passage of time with the orbit of our planet around our star. Maybe the logical reference to another species would be our positions relative to the rotation of the galaxy.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
A minute is still a minute
anywhere in this solar system even though any conscious being may perceive the minute differently,
We use science to measure it.

If one were to take a pocket watch (rewindable) and keep it going whilst traveling all over the galaxy that watch would stay at the same time rate as it was designed...Although it was designed to gauge time in relation to earth's orbit around our star it would maintain that time rate no matter how far from earth it was carried...So in a way it is for the holder of that watch a universal measurement of time, the traveler and carrier of that watch can use that rate of time measured on the pocket watch to go about his or her affairs...Even if the pocket watch carrier were to live for a few years on a planet that rotates around a star in 42 hours or 18 hours, it would not change the timepiece measurement although it would not match up to the orbital rotations of that planet...(Just hypothesizing on this piece by piece lol)

...
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
You live in a small town that has a big clock someplace it's a remnant of our perception of time from another era that we tend to drive past and ignore. At one time that clock was probably the single reference for a lot of people because that's all that was required. 'Consensus reality' across several small towns told them it was 5 o'clock.

I think it was the railroads that came along and spoiled all the fun by synchronizing clocks. I have my grandfather's Bulova M68 Accutron that's 'railroad approved' - theoretically it was much more accurate than its contemporaries. Different era, different perception of time even though the same number of minutes passed each day.
 

ChrisIB

Honorable
NASA has suggested that any first contact will likely be with an AI.
If their self awareness of time is accelerated, and their movements equally so, then we would not be able to see them (unless they stayed very still).
However, video might show them. Smell might also be a factor and domestic items that shifted position.
 

Shadowprophet

Truthiness
I don't necessarily think the Intelligence will be artificial. While we don't possess the technology at the moment, memory engrams can be identified, Engram (neuropsychology) - Wikipedia And even transferred to another being. https://www.mdlinx.com/internal-medicine/article/1669

I honestly and fully believe that we may encounter a race of advanced beings that have overcome death by means of cloning and transferring their consciousness into machines or other cloned bodies. For us, Defeating death seems impossible. However, It's only a matter of time and technology, Think of how many times with modern medicine we have"Defeated and defied death already" Population control and resources may become an issue sure, But Immortality may one day only be an issue of morality.
 
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ChrisIB

Honorable
I honestly and fully believe that we may encounter a race of advanced beings that have overcome death by means of cloning and transferring their consciousness into machines or other cloned bodies.
Thought the movie Freejack had an interesting take on that, and the wonderfully dark Lexx (not the series)

Things moving very fast probably won't trip a PIR but dogs might stand a chance with their sense of smell.
 

SOUL-DRIFTER

Life Long Researcher
If talking about time, do you not have to make a distinction between physical time and a creature's sense of time.
Most creatures have self awareness, it seems to be a biological brain construct, but the self awareness of a bird may let it experience time more quickly and be able to evade those 'slower' than it (even though both have the same neuronal speed).
It would represent an important evolutionary advantage that may be a feature of successful aliens.
And once the mechanism of self awareness is understood, any advanced culture would also be able to scientifically adjust the rate that time is experienced.
An advanced species can control time via the Multiverse. Hopping into one universe where time is either faster or slower and then hopping back again at a specific desired point in time.
 
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