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Sunday, September 4, 2011

Ten Things Everyone Should Know About Time

Did you know that you live in the past? About 80 milliseconds in the past, to be precise. Use one hand to touch your nose, and the other to touch one of your feet, at exactly the same time. You will experience them as simultaneous acts. But clearly it takes more time for the signal to travel up your nerves from your feet to your brain than from your nose.

The reconciliation is simple: our conscious experience takes time to assemble, and your brain waits for all the relevant input before it experiences the 'now.' Experiments have shown that the lag between things happening and us experiencing them is about 80 milliseconds.

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