I'm sorry it's been so long! I've been kept from blogging by a crazy combination of family events, sinus infection, a new roommate, and Final Fantasy IX. Due to the antepenultimate item on that list (some of you were perhaps wondering if and when I would work old ante' into a post... it just happened), I don't think I can offer you a well-developed, thorough post today.
What I can do is bring to your attention a couple crazy questions/ideas about memory and time.
1. Superior Autobiographical Memory
I first heard about this [phenomenon; condition; ability; syndrome] on an awesome episode of 60 Minutes. People with SAM -- and there are only 8 known cases in the world! -- can remember every day of their lives. The easiest way for me to explain it to you is this:
Think about your memories of two days ago. What you did, what you were wearing, what you had for lunch, etc. Your amount of recall of that day is seemingly the amount of recall a SAM person has for every day of their lives. If you give them a date, literally any arbitrary date from any year in their adult life, they mentally "flip" to that date in a mental calendar system and rattle off a bunch of random facts.
I offer no questions, analysis, or offshoot tangents. This phenomenon is so crazy that it stands alone. Like the cheese in "The Farmer in the Dell."
2. Age and the perception of time
Several years ago it occurred to me that age might affect our perception of time intervals. For instance, a few months ago I celebrated the completion of my 26th year of life. That year was to me, at the time of that celebration, 1/26 (or 3.8%) of all my time spent on the earth. To a ten-year-old, a year is 10% of shis life; to an old person, maybe around 1.4%.
So I began to wonder, does a year still feel like the same length of time regardless of one's age? Lengths of time that are equal often feel different -- the one minute it takes to wait for something to download or the thing in the microwave to heat up feels much longer than the first minute of basically any positive experience.
[Those examples are somewhat non sequitur, since the change in perception is due to emotional state rather than age. I was just trying to show that, in principle, not all equal lengths of time feel equal.]
There are all kinds of questions that stem from this. To a 2,000-year-old person, would a day seem more like an hour? To an old person, do birthdays just seem to keep happening? When I was a kid, did I think days were long and years were almost endless?
Well, that's all folks
As soon as I kick this illness, I will try to compose something thoughtful and/or eloquent for you.
Please share any thoughts on the above, or anything related to memory, age, or time.
Jon
To start off I always feel bad for avid 60 Minutes watchers. There always seems to be some large event that is pushing 60 Minutes out of its normal time slot. It probably is even more annoying if those people aren't the people that enjoy the events that are moving their show's time. Stinks to be them I guess.
ReplyDeleteTo respond to your blog, SAM sounds terrifying to me. I have enough stuff bouncing around in my head that I don't want there in the first place, but the thought of being able to recall past days in vivid detail that may have not been great to go through the first time freaks me out.
Also, I think that a year can seem to go faster the older one is. That's why older people talk so much about regretting things they did or now don't have the time to do. If you ever meet a 2000 year old person let me know, but I'm pretty sure you won't. The bible mentions something about not living that long.
I enjoyed this one just like the others, even if you were (are) sick.
Was thinking about this today because I realized college (now that I'm graduating) went really quickly whereas when I look back on the four years of high school, it seemed to go on much longer (despite being the same amount of time). Don't have anything else other than to remark about that.
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