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It’s About Time

The cliche phrase "time is money" needs to be subverted by better metaphors, according to Odell

Artist and writer Jenny Odell, author of the new book Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock, was recently interviewed by Wired. Odell’s 2019 book is called How to Do Nothing. In the interview, Odell discussed how the invention of the clock has altered the way people think about time, labor, and productivity. The cliche phrase “time is money” needs to be subverted by better metaphors, according to Odell, ones that emphasize meaning instead of mere activity. When she was asked how she avoided productivity “burnout” in her own writing life, Odell responded, If you’re not thinking of time as money, the other thing that you could be trying to find is meaning. That’s ultimately what I want out Read More ›

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Asteroid near Earth

Sci-fi Saturday: An Asteroid Lingers Near Earth and Devours Time

Or, at any rate, it devours our perception of time, as one man discovers

“Flyby,” a short sci-fi film at DUST by Jesse Mittelstadt (January 28, 2021 13:22 min) “When a passing asteroid begins to affect how people perceive time, one man struggles to keep up with a life that is quickly disappearing into the future.” Note: Language and mature scenes warning. When watching the opening sequence of “Flyby,” it’s hard not to think of space cigarillo Oumuamua, for which Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb made the case that it was an extraterrestrial lightsail. Loeb has recently published a book on these and similar reflections, Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (January 26, 2021). Back to the film, which takes quite a different tack, of course, addressing altered perceptions Read More ›

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Twisted clock face. Time concept

Do Time and Space Mean the Same Thing to Humans as to Computers?

Futurist George Gilder tells us, humans don’t treat physical and chemical forces or clock pulses the way computers do

Recently, we have looked at four of the six assumptions that, according to futurist George Gilder in Gaming AI, are generally shared by those who believe that, sometime soon in a Singularity , we will merge with our machines: Four of them are: 1) The brain is a computer and Big Data is a Big Answer (here) and 2) maps are territories and reality follows our rules (here). Now here are the final two: • The Locality Assumption: Actions of human agents reflect only immediate physical forces impinging directly on them. • The Digital Time Assumption: Time is objective and measured by discrete increments. (p. 50) Gilder tells us that the Locality Assumption means that “minds respond to local inputs Read More ›

Clouds tunnel

Do Near-Death Experiences Defy Science?

NDEs do not defy science. They sometimes challenge human senses. which are based on our biology

For example, if the human eye’s usual limitations were not a factor, previously unknown colors—which we know from science to exist—might be perceived.

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