There is a rhythm to most everything. To our breathing, the way we walk, and apparently to how we see. We know this to an extent through illusions based on patterns. If a light is strobes at a particular speed it can affect how we interpret an object. We still see everything but how our brain unravels the image is quite different. If there is quick successive flashing we don’t see the moments between of dark after the light – damn you science and your scary ways. So if there an object moving during the dark period we don’t perceive that moment of movement. This means what we see is not in fact what we get. Our eyes still see that movement during the dark period but our brain doesn’t process it. This is important for many reasons. Our brains develop tricks to speed up certain functions much like a bio-computer if you will. Why waste that processing power when I can write a script that does it for me. Our bodies are complex codes. And we are just scraping the surface of understanding how we’re wired and programmed. This is at one point exciting and horrifying. Illusions are one thing but understanding how a brain interprets could be used for ill intent.
One of the latest findings points to different rhythms within us. One of those patterns is our circadian clock. This is our master schedule for all our functions. “The circadian clock is an internal daily body clock that controls alertness, appetite, sleep timing and hormone secretions.*” Affecting this clock can affect our health almost immediately affect us, either negatively or positively. This clock however is not exclusive to the realm of the brain as it is thought to belong to other body parts and organs as well. There is a some manner of feedback. It’s more like a band than a solo performance.
Another tempo that is being investigated is brain oscillations. Our whole brain processes in spurts. We do not think in an even flow but in quick moments strung together. We can’t perceive this as our brains create our perceptions. Different functions have different timings. For instance “…a prominent brain rhythm associated with visual cortex functioning that cycles at a rate of 10 times per second (10Hz).”** So this means we see ten images per second and our brains cobble it together to see flowing time. So time is our method to splice these images together. But there lies a problem we don’t take in time uniformly. Our brains do neat little tricks every once in a while that seem to bend time. One is called Chronostasis***. It’s that moment where it actually makes us go back in time… sort of. Not Doc Brown back in time just gain a fraction of second. It’s when you look at watch and notice the second hand pause a bit when you first look. We take an extra moment to process and it freezes time for our perception. Time I unaffected just our perception of it. Our brains intentionally tricks us so we can better perceive an objects movement at our first glance. So the first time you see something moving you have this extra moment of sight not because time slowed down just your perception of time was changed in a manner you saw more. That’s only way too complicated. And this of course brings me to one of my favorite things: film.
Film works so well because it plays along with the same trickery of our brain. Film is closer to reality than I originally thought, probably closer than anyone thought actually. The reason being is frames – those pictures spliced together to make a coherent and fluid display. In animation there is usually twenty four frames per second. Less than that and it starts looking a bit off. Our brains notice the lack of finite change and it drops us out of the imaginary state where we can be absorbed into the world presented to us. We cannot as easily be part of that world with the frame rate reminding us and planting us back in reality. Any first year philosophy student then might ask what is reality.
After you’re done ignoring them and avoiding a bitch fest you can rationally think about the question. Is your reality different from others. Sometimes this is incontrovertible. There are instances of false memory. And not implanted false memory. These false memories are created within the minds of normal people and are so vivid, so real (to them) they swear up and down it happened. There is also the notion of time. By this I mean our perception of time itself. As five year old your backlog of knowledge and experience is not the same as someone who is fifty. Your sense of time is different. You don’t know what ten years feels like. The passing days seem to linger forever. It’s the same day perceived entirely differently. There’s also the thought that different animals and life perceive differently. We only have so many rods and cones in our eyes so we can perceive only so much color. Does this mean that there isn’t more? Is something only real or possible if its observed?
Have you ever told a story to a group of friends and one person in the group was there and they tell it very differently? And not like your shirt was light red not deep red different like no Kyle totally didn’t hook off with Denise he passed out in the bathroom and almost went to the hospital.
But there are commonly methods of perception and rhythm inherent to humanity. The brain patterns of animal one would think differ and this brings up a whole different idea about how existence is seen; who is to say some animal doesn’t perceive in only two dimensions, or maybe four dimensions or any other sense taken to levels we cannot think to perceive? But we, as members of the human race, intrinsically know our own rhythm. A perfect rhythm is impossible to be played by man. We always precede or antecede a beat after a while. Only by moments seemingly imperceptible. A drummer who plays to the beat misses the beat in a way that we find correct. A drum beat perfectly is found to be slightly foreign and mechanical and not as pleasing to the ear. A drum beat that has imperfection placed in on purpose sounds even more alien as it lacks the correct human rhythm.****
So what does mean? This understanding of inherent rhythm. I take this as a sign of beauty. I see it a grand design in a sense and that we are all part of one big rhythm of life, of existence. There are notes within us that echo among all of creation. It’s kind of magical.
Ben
*http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-body-clock-genes-unravelled.html
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Thanks for posting. You are awesome!