Vous êtes sur la page 1sur 3

I.

Terminology

1. Biorhythm

A biorhythm is an attempt to predict various aspects of a person's life through simple mathematical cycles. The
theory was developed by Wilhelm Fliess in the late 19th century. According to the theory of biorhythms, a person's
life is influenced by rhythmic biological cycles that affect his or her ability in various domains, such as mental,
physical and emotional activity. These cycles begin at birth and oscillate in a steady (sine wave) fashion throughout
life, and by modeling them mathematically, it is suggested that a person's level of ability in each of these domains can
be predicted from day to day. The theory is built on the idea that the biofeedback chemical and hormonal secretion
functions within the body could show a sinusoidal behavior over time.

2. Chronobiology

Chronobiology is a field of biology that examines periodic (cyclic) phenomena in living organisms and their
adaptation to solar- and lunar-related rhythms. These cycles are known as biological rhythms. Chronobiology comes
from the ancient Greek (chrnos, meaning "time"), and biology, which pertains to the study, or science, of life.
The variations of the timing and duration of biological activity in living organisms occur for many essential
biological processes. These occur (a) in animals (eating, sleeping, mating, hibernating, migration, cellular
regeneration, etc.), (b) in plants (leaf movements, photosynthetic reactions, etc.), and in microbial organisms such as
fungi and protozoa. They have even been found in bacteria, especially among the cyanobacteria (aka blue-green algae,
see bacterial circadian rhythms).

3. Time perception

Time perception is a field of study within psychology, cognitive linguistics and neuroscience that refers to the
subjective experience of time, which is measured by someone's own perception of the duration of the indefinite
and unfolding of events. The perceived time interval between two successive events is referred to as perceived
duration. Another person's perception of time cannot be directly experienced or understood, but it can be objectively
studied and inferred through a number of scientific experiments (ex. comparison to predetermined time perceptions).
Time perception is a construction of the brain that is manipulable and distortable under certain circumstances.
These temporal illusions help to expose the underlying neural mechanisms of time perception. Although the
perception of time is not associated with a specific sensory system, psychologists and neuroscientists suggest that
humans do have a system, or several complementary systems, governing the perception of time.

4. Slow motion perception

Slow motion perception is a postulated mental state wherein time seems to be slowed down. People experiencing life-
threatening situations sometimes report that time seemed to have slowed down.
Research conducted by David Eagleman established that time does not actually slow down for a person during a life-
threatening event but, rather, it is only a retrospective assessment that brings about such a conclusion. He measured
time perception during free-fall by strapping palm-top computers to subjects' wrists and having them perform
psychophysical experiments as they fall. By measuring their speed of information intake, he concluded that
participants did not have increased temporal resolution during the fall but, because their memories are more densely
packed during a frightening situation, the event merely seems to have taken longer.

5. Weber's law

E. Heinrich Weber was one of the first people to approach the study of the human response to a physical stimulus
in a quantitative fashion. Fechner was a student of Weber and named his first law in honor of his mentor, since it was
Weber who had conducted the experiments needed to formulate the law. One formulation states:
"Simple differential sensitivity is inversely proportional to the size of the components of the difference;
relative differential sensitivity remains the same regardless of size."
What this means is that the perceived change in stimuli is proportional to the initial stimuli.
Weber's law also incorporates the Just Noticeable Difference (JND). This is the smallest change in stimuli that can be
perceived. As stated above, the JND is proportional to the initial stimuli. Fechner found that the JND is constant for
any sense.
II. The Demonstration

According to Weber's law, the perceived change is proportional to the duration of the initial stimuli. Basic laws of
chronobiology say that this proportion is experienceable as real time, too. Therefore, a person's time perception must
be proportional to the given person's total lifespan. This results in Fechner's law. Let's see an example.

The ability to perceive differences in light intensity could be related to how good that individual's vision is.

Fechner's law applies to all senses, meaning that the perception of time is not constant.

Fechner's law can be written as

where C is the constant of integration and ln is the natural logarithm.


To solve for C, assume that the perceived stimuli becomes zero at some threshold stimuli S0. Using this as a
constraint, set p = 0 and S = S0. This gives:

Substituting C in the integrated expression for Weber's law, the expression can be written as

Let's generalize this expression.

Note that

This expression cannot be considered a biorhythm, as the perception of time can be irrational in some cases.

Let us assume that an immortal person exists. In that case, , and the total duration of experienced stimuli
is unknown (X). Therefore,

The perception of time of an immortal person would equal the smallest nonnul number. This means that an immortal
person would experience time in an infinitely fast way (or maybe the person wouldn't experience time at all) compared
to others. In both cases, the given person would experience even stimuli in an infinitely fast way, so in under a
fraction of a millisecond, he would have experienced all the possible stimuli of this world (and others, ic. multiverses
exist).

In conclusion, if immortality would be achievable, an immortal person would be an all-knowing person.

Immortals don't wonder. They don't think. They know.


III. Citations and sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biorhythm
http://kiwicloud.pe.hu/res/Wikipedia_Consciousness.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_motion_perception
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronobiology
https://www.chronobiology.com/about-chronobiology/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weber%E2%80%93Fechner_law
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_perception
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Federico_Sanabria/publication/7385750_The_failure_of_Weber's_law_in_tim
e_perception_and_production/links/02b053883679d30553cb75cb.pdf
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/jphysiol.1878.sp000004/pdf
http://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/bulletin/03/nbsbulletinv3n1p59_A2b.pdf

Vous aimerez peut-être aussi