"How to stop time"

[bohagon]

Hi everyone.

This is my first post, although I have been reading certain threads every now and then - and even though I am not an active skeptic when it comes to organizations et cetera, I try to follow the skeptic world as closely as I can and would consider myself skeptic by heart.

Anyway, the reason I am finally posting is this link (no url posting, sorry, but):wwwDOTgrasshopperDOTcom/mind-games/how-to-stop-time/

A friend of mine sent it to me and I am not sure what to make of it. To me, it obviously feels like a simple optical illusion (Why would looking away from a clockface activate my time stopping-abilities? Also, the music I am listening to still continues when time is supposed to be "stopped"). However, when asking Google, there is enough scientific reasoning around relativity and other fancy words that I have no idea about (I am a graphic designer for christ sakes!) to make me more interested in what is going on here in general. The site itself does not really do that much to convince me, but I cannot simply dismiss something without all the facts...

What is your take on this? I tried to search the forum, but could not find any clear discussion about this little gimmick. It would also be interesting to hear more about the genereal reasoning about time and perception this is based on.

 

[robinson]

www.grasshopper.com/mind-games/how-to-stop-time/

I've seen this before, and the second hand does "stop", it works with a real clock as well. I have no idea why. It is without a doubt, weird.

I don't think the clock, or time, actually stops, but my perception of the second hand certainly seems to.

I have that site bookmarked from sometime in the past, and I know it was from a link on these forums. I don't know what topic it was, but this has come up before.

 

[athon]

It has to do with how your brain interprets visual information between eye movements.

Your eyes jerk about from focus to focus. Each movement is called a 'sacchade'. The thing is, between movements, your eyes don't send visual information. This means for a tenth of a second, you're effectively blind. So your brain makes up this information using what it knows and what it expects.

When you look at a clock, often the light from the moving second hand is reaching your eye, but you're momentarily blind to it. Now, here's the really weird part - your brain takes the information from after the event...and patches it backwards. Your memory knows no difference, but your brain makes you forget that you saw nothing and patches in a visual history. The problem is, it didn't know that the hand moved; it only saw the clock face effectively straight after. So it shows a static hand in retrospect. This all happens on the smallest of time scales, but it's enough to make you think you saw the second hand frozen and then start up again.

So it is indeed an illusion. And a very cool one at that.

Athon

 

[robinson]

Some people think it’s just a simple optical illusion, that they merely stopped seeing the second hand which was actually still moving (which gets entertaining with banishing incantations of blind spots, foveal vision, saccades and such.) But if they ask themselves why it started moving again from the point it stopped (and most won’t), their explanation doesn’t quite pan out. Some will just dismiss it as a curious blip that doesn’t really fit into their radar about “reality” and it won’t be cause for further concern. But a few of us will notice the crack between experience and beliefs and want to play. Does it stop sound at the same time? For some people, for others not, which is curiouser still.

http://www.grasshopper.com/mind-games/how-to-stop-time/

I can count 2 seconds while it is stopped, and it does indeed start moving again, with no jerk or jump in the movement. How strange. I thought the saccadic masking was a good explanation.

 

[politas]

When push comes to shove, we aren't really seeing the world the way we think we are. Our brain builds a complex three dimensional representation of the world around us, and updates it as information comes in.

 

[EHLO]

This is a nifty illusion, more so that some people actually believe they are stopping time because the second had "appears" to slow down or stop to them.

The Saccadic Masking info was interesting but doesn't seem to mention the relationship with peripheral vision, which this illusion clearly plays on. It might explain why the second hand appears to start again from where it was left, but not why it appears slowed in the first place?

I was trying to find some info on something like the "frame rate" of peripheral vision which I believe is higher (ie. seeing flickering lights/TV in periphery), but was unsuccessful.

The fallibility of our perception always astounds me.

 

[politas]

I was trying to find some info on something like the "frame rate" of peripheral vision which I believe is higher (ie. seeing flickering lights/TV in periphery), but was unsuccessful.

The main difference between peripheral vision and directed vision is the colour perception. Most colour in our field of vision is just filled in by our brains' sophisticated scene simulation capability.

 

[Dilb]

When I look off to the side, I can't see the second hand in enough detail to notice the motion, so if I didn't pay attention to where it actually was, it was easy to think it had stopped. Clearly though, when I tried to note the actual time, the second hand advanced even when I 'stopped' it.

 

[blobru]

Hey bohagon.

In addition to what's been posted, I think the illusion might have something to do with the optic disk (blind spot where the optic nerve exits the eye). It's located to the right of center in the right eye and left of center in the left. When you look 20 seconds ahead and the second hand's on the left side of the clock face, your right eye is dominant, and the second hand focus is right of center. When the second hand's on the right side, left eye dominant, focus left of center. If those are the blind spots, then the brain is getting no new data while the second hand sweeps through either, sort of a news black out; so, based on what other posters have suggested I'm guessing it fills out the picture with old info instead -- the secondhand pre-blind spot -- voila the stopped clock.

Fairly wooish site, eh? On a linked page they reject the blind spot, saccade, and other anatomical explanations and then offer their own: subjective time dilation! There's a hint that with enough practice you may be able to slow down your experience of time at will:

Time dilation has applications in sports, video games, sensations you would like to prolong, or just having an extra 5 minutes to think of a snappy come-back in a split-second of clock time. Perhaps, with a little practice and calibration, these possibilities are closer than we think.

Exaggeration not surprising considering their advertised research into "human potential".

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

I don't have the time to do that right now since I must leave soon but I have a couple quick questions:

1) Is the "We can stop time" the best reasonable explanation for this?

2) What are the implications of the ability for us to stop time? Time for who? Time in general? Does this mean we can control everyone else's time? Is time seen, like gravity, as a universal force that affects all of us? Is it otherwise suggested to be a personal perception?

3) If we stop the time enough times, what should be the new evident changes that we would witness around us?

When push comes to shove, we aren't really seeing the world the way we think we are. Our brain builds a complex three dimensional representation of the world around us, and updates it as information comes in.

I like this and I think I'll keep it as a friendly reminder of the dichotomy of Reality vs How we perceive it.

 

[ynot]

Obviously this is no more than an effective optical illusion and the clock never actually slows or stops. This can be easily proven in two ways . . .

(1) Two people look at the clock and only one diverts their gaze. The clock should run slower for that person, but when both look directly at the clock again they will both agree on the position of the hand (regardless of how many times this is repeated).

(2) Place two synchropnised clocks on the same page. Divert your gaze so one appears to slow or stop but not the other. Then look directly at both clocks and you will find they are both still synchonised.

Believers often use “weird” (but fully known and understood) effects to support their woo beliefs (bed of nails, walking oh hot embers/broken glass, tearing phone books in half, etc.). All this does is highlight the fact that they don’t have any real evidence to support their beliefs.

ETA - My avatar appears to prove perpetual motion. Does anyone believe it does?

 

[TjW]

I think it works best if you take a jump to the left, and then a step to the right. Put your hands on your hips, and pull your knees in tight. But it's that pelvic thrust that really drives you insane.

 

[bohagon]

Thanks for all the answers! They confirmed what I suspected and nevertheless made for an interesting read!

 

[politas]

I think it works best if you take a jump to the left, and then a step to the right. Put your hands on your hips, and pull your knees in tight. But it's that pelvic thrust that really drives you insane.

You know, I was walking down the street, just having a think, when this snake of a guy gave me an evil wink. He shook me up; took me by surprise; had a pickup truck and the devil's eyes. He stared at me and I felt a change. Time meant nothing; never would again.

 

[JoeEllison]

This is one of the things that helps me completely discount all anecdotal evidence as completely useless and unreliable.

 

[negativ]

Dammit, these optical illusions rarely work on me. I find it somewhat disappointing. Maybe I "experimented" with LSD too often as a teen (well, to be honest, it was 'full-scale RESEARCH'). Pareidolia-at-will is a very entertaining skill to have, by the way.


This one works, though.

 

[Abe_the_Man]

It does look like it stops briefly but try "freezing" the second hand for more than 3 or 4 seconds. When you look back it makes a noticeable jump than if you only freeze it 1 or 2 seconds. Also I have a real clock next to my computer. It is very cheap and makes a very obnoxiously loud ticking sound which continues even while i "freeze" time.

 

[devnull]

its just your brain filling in for the blind spot in your eyes. Ive seen another illusion where you can make a line disappear on a piece of paper which works on the same principle.

 

[lionking]

Welcome bohagon. Obviously you didn't watch the first series of "Heroes". This is how Hiro started out and in no time he was master of the whole space/time continuum.