From The Economist:
But an objective measure which probably correlates with subjective experience does exist. It is called the critical flicker-fusion frequency, or CFF, and it is the lowest frequency at which a flickering light appears to be a constant source of illumination. It measures, in other words, how fast an animal’s eyes can refresh an image and thus process information.
For people, the average CFF is 60 hertz (ie, 60 times a second)...Dogs have a CFF of 80Hz…
Having the highest possible CFF would carry biological advantages, because it would allow faster reaction to threats and opportunities.
Hypothesis: evolution pushes animals to see the world in the slowest motion possible…
From Bill Belichick (Head Coach, New England Patriots):
As they gain more experience and more understanding…they usually play with a little more patience, maybe a little more recognition…
So many different things happen in a split second…the more of those things that you can do right, slow down, get the most important things, not get distracted by all the stuff that’s happening, but just really zero in…
I think a good quarterback or a good linebacker, a good safety, even though you have a lot of bodies moving out there, it slows down for them and they can really see it…
It’s like being at a busy intersection, just cars going everywhere. The guys that can really sort it out, they see the game at a slower pace and can really sort out and decipher all that movement…
From James Gleick (in the NYRB):
If time is like a river, are we standing on the bank watching, or are we bobbing along?
Every observer has a reference frame, and each reference frame includes its own clock. Simultaneity is not meaningful. Now is relative.
As Smolin puts it, “the clocks can be funky—that is, they can run at different rates in different places, and each can speed up and slow down.” We don’t have to like that. Every experiment confirms it...
No observer has access to the now of any other observer. Everything that reaches our senses comes from the past.
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