Living in the Past

July 29, 2013 at 7:16 pm #17465

Participant

Hi Firstly sorry if I’ve posted this in the wrong area, or this is the wrong forum to post this on……

I recently stumbled across this video on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTOODPf-iuc

its a really interesting video about how the things we see actually happened about 80ms ago due to the time it takes for our brains to process information pick out the bits it thinks we needs and sends it to our concious thought, please take the time and check out the video to get an idea of the background to my question/discussion

so my question is…. ( assuming you have seen the video to make things clearer)

is this part of the reason we believe animals (for e.g. cats and dogs) have a sixth sense? if they process information faster than we do due to having less neurons and information has less distance to travel, does it mean their perception of time is faster than ours giving the "illusion" of a sixth sense and seeing events before (to our brains) they have happened
I understand that other things can come into play with this so called sixth sense like sounds that are inaudible to us but if time perception differs between humans and animals surly that would play a large roll?
does being more "intelligent" actually make our brains process information from the outside world slower?

please discuss.

p.s. sorry if it was long winded, and please stick to layman’s terms I’m a bit of a newby

August 1, 2013 at 2:36 pm #114132

JackBean

Participant

I admit I haven’t watched the video, but if the difference of only 80 ms, you cannot relate that to any sixth sense because that requires more than 1s ahead.

August 7, 2013 at 12:31 pm #114150

animartco

Participant

hi Xaphan I agree with Jack Bean. It isn’t long enough to have led to the belief in a sixth sense. But lots of animals have much better hearing than we do. A dog for instance can hear its masters distinctive footsteps or the particular engine sound of his car from much further away than we could. This isn’t to say that there aren’t unexplained cases of apparent sixth sense.
On the time it takes our brains to process. It is thought that perhaps we act, before the actual decision to act has been made. I often find myself getting up before being aware of the need for a cuppa. Also, strange facts. Did you know that when you see a red sun sinking below the horizon, it isn’t actually there? It has already set. (Though I don’t think this is due to the slowness of our brains) 😆

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