RE: A Different Perspective on the Existence of Time: Thought as the smallest Unit of Time
This was a very interesting read. What is complicated, as you mentioned, is that time is infinitely divisible, but for humans it is discretized to a second. For other organisms it might be discretized to other amounts. Flying insects for example operate at the time scale of milliseconds. That is why it is very hard to catch a fly. It has a different mental time scale and so it can adjust to a threat much faster than a human would take to catch it.
But then on a completely different scale, time appears to be a phenomenon-- especially as it pertains to 'thought instances'. Different people think on different time scales. Some people like to think slowly. Others like to think quickly and in some cases more fuzzily, because we might be limited to a common human baseline. But thoughts are mere fluid beings with an imprecise nature. How would you define a single thought? They are more like simultaneous threads. Wanted to share some of my thoughts.
Great article!
It's really hard to define what a thought is. It's like asking what a "color" is. You can show some colors or just give some technical gibberish like different electro-magnetic wavelengths getting interpreted by the brain etc.
Nope. No 2 thought instances exist simultaneously in a single mind. The rapid succession might give us the illusion of multi tasking. But only one happens at a time.
This is part of the evolution. I do think humans can achieve this level or even higher levels of sensitivity through training. Take martial art for an example.
Thanks for your thoughts :-)