Time. We Never Have Enough and Is It Your Brain’s Fault?

Author Alan Burdick’s new book, “Why Time Flies,” examines his own life as he watches his kids grow up but also how our brains observe and process time.  He discussed it with Robert Siegel on All Things Considered, my favorite show on public radio.  What I found fascinating is our brain’s ability to “think on its own” and actually trick our perception of reality by anticipating when and how long things take.  

He says, “Our brains do a lot of work to hide what you might call reality from us. So, every time you type, for instance, on a computer keyboard there’s actually about a 35-millisecond delay between you pressing a key on the keypad and that letter appearing on the screen. But as far as your brain is concerned, it happens instantaneously. There’s no gap. It’s actually been shown that your brain can sustain about a tenth-of-a-second delay between your action and its consequence.”

Think about that – and your place in time can get pretty philosophical.

Listen to the podcast or read the transcript here.