Last night during my family's "family time", as usual we read the bible and one part of last nights reading caught my attention. It said that for God one thousand years is like a day, and a day like a thousand years.

That got me thinking a little about "time", and the "perception of time". Also on the effects of "perception of time" on growth rate of living organisms. For most, if not all, living organisms on our planet, "perception of time" is directly related to the Sun, or more accurately the time of a single complete rotation of the earth with respect to the sun(a day). So if days were shorter or longer, would our life expectancy change? (with all other factors remain controlled). Would we grow up/mature (physically) faster?

I've tried to find material regarding this topic but I cant seem to get any. If anyone has any comments on the topic, or would like to share some knowledge it is most welcome, as well as if anyone could provide some links to good reading material.

Thank you ^^

I suppose that even in our system currently, 1 second is all but a reference.

If we were to take rotation of the planet as a reference to time, notice that different planets have different length of year respectively, for example Uranus takes 88 days to complete its rotation. But in its perspective, it has completed one Uranus year.

So by that logic, I suppose even if the time perception is different, the life span of human is unaffected. While there are fictions e.g. Superman or even Einstein's theory; when one move with the speed of light, time becomes relative (or something).

Changes would not happen within 1 lifespan. But consider the evolution of a species living on a habitable system about the distance of Uranus from the Sun. It would be curious to see what effect the different periods of seasons etc would have on the development of lifeforms

Einstein's theories is far from fiction.

All of it have experimental evidence and even technological application that you might not be aware off.


Topic in hand, i guess due process of evolution, life on earth would definitely be affected by shortened days.

If you need a little bit of a slap, try watch this video... good knowledge

Wow, thats really throwing in something totally unrelated. Although i have to point out that neither the rotation of the earth nor the distance of the moon from earth are constant (earth slowing down, moon moving further away), while the speed of light IS constant. Anyway to a believer, its a clear sign. To a skeptic however, it seems like coincidental math.

Oh ye of little faith!

EDIT: did some further reading up on this issue, ad I dont think its a matter for debate here. You are welcome to open a separate thread to discuss the existence of scientific prophecies in religious texts ridhuan

This post has been edited by joe_star: Feb 11 2010, 12:06 AM

Nah the math is also wrong, like you said the distance is not constant, thus its implying the speed of light changes after time? Hahahaha

I believe time the bible meant is spirit, spirit does not confined with time. our soul is eternal whether you are entrapped in heaven or hell or in this physical world.

only physical world can influence the time being, and once released you are infinity to go

I think perception of time can influence growth. Chicken in commercial farming grow faster than chicken breed naturally. I was told they make the chicken sleep and wake more by tampering with the light. Some metabolism for growth takes place when we sleep. I hope some people in commercial chiken frming can shed some light here.

believe it or not, our perception in time could actually change. Our eyes take in information at 30 frames per second. In certain situations, the number of frames per second could actually go up, which means more information processed within the same amount of time. People around us wont notice the difference, but what about ourselves? As the fps boosted guy, you will perceive time slower through your eyes, but no scientific evidence showing your body will change accordingly (slowing down relatively to surroundings), but you can trick your body to slow down aging by reducing metabolic rate through certain activities.

Time is relative.

A rabbit takes 1 minute to reach the goal while a turtle takes 20 minutes, a snail might take 1 hour.

It takes a pentium III 1 year to finish a complex calculation while it takes maybe 1 day for a Quad Processor to complete the same thing.

For humans, driving 200km/h per hour may seem too fast for most people, but for race drivers or people with quick reflex it may consider normal. A person with fast reflex is like a quick computer compared to people with slow reflex.

Also the metabolism rate, pulse signal travelling inside our body, rate of cell lifespan, how fast it grows affects how people see time compared to other species.

For example 1 minute for a human seems very fast but for snail/turtle will slow reaction it might seem long.

10 years may be nothing to humans while 10 years may seem like a lifetime for a dog.

And since god is much superior than humans. We can assume god normally take in information 1000 times faster than us, move 1000 times faster than us, while on the other hand last forever. So the bible says 1 god day is equivalent to 1000 human days.

I think Buddist also have similiar concept when it comes to heaven vs earth day.

The Japanese tale of Urashima Tarō has similiar theory.

I think the topic is about "perception of time on growth rate of living organisms" not "for God one thousand years is like a day, and a day like a thousand years".

On the later, I dont think we can pinpoint it to 1=1000. The people of those times do not count to such high numbers. The 1000 is use to indicate a long time. The use of the term "one thousand years is 'LIKE' a day". I think its is use to indicate God is timeless. 1day =1000 years and 1000years = 1 day. Another paraphrase of this is "I am the Alpha and Omega". It indicated that God controls a "time machine" to enable Him to freely travel from the begining, end or any point in time.

in a word: no.

while the sun is a nice reference to the amount of time passed, your internal biological clock has no connection with any external reference point. else eskimos living near the poles would be pretty long living immortals.

or scientifically, you would still live your normal lifespan of 100 or so year even if you travel near the speed of light.

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Added on April 8, 2010, 12:52 ami'm sure those chemically and hormonally enhanced chicken feed has nothing to do with it.

This post has been edited by lin00b: Apr 8 2010, 12:52 AM

Actually the chicken reference [faceless] used is actually quite a good example of how perception of time influences growth rate.

I did some little searching regarding that and found that the chickens perception of time, did in fact influence its growth rate. But only indirectly.
- Artificial lighting is used in chicken coops to increase the number of hours of daytime. And due to the increased daylight, the chickens are tricked to eat more, when they should have been sleeping/resting. This causes the chickens to have an increased growth rate (size). -

It doesnt cause the chickens to mature faster though.

Here's something else to think about regarding the topic at hand..
While awake, our body cells are busy working, and while we sleep they replenish. Doesnt that mean that if a person sleeps more/less, it would influence their growth rate? And a persons perception of time is probably very likely to influence their sleep cycle. Thoughts?

I once read a great novel called John Dies in the End, written by David Wong. It's a great read by the way.

In it, the protagonist believes that our perception of time, that is, how we experience the linear passing of time, is determined by how many actions we are capable of doing in in a set period of time. For instance, as humans, 1 minute feels so short because you can barely do anything in that time period. But to a computer that can do billions of calculations in just a second, a minute will feel like an eternity to a sentient computer.

As the perception of time having any relation to growth rate, i dunno lol. But i notice that small, fast moving creatures such as rodents and insects have very short lifespans, while large, slow moving creatures like turtles can live over a hundred years.

Thanks Mesosmagent. These were my thoughts after I read your first post. Let me put your question from another angle.

Assume that the sun appearance does not matter.

In situation A, people lived a 23-hours-day. That is 6-8 hours sleep, 8-10 hours work, and the balance is leisure pursuit. In 100 neutral (24 hours a day) days, we had 2400 hours. These people had been through 104 days (2400/23). We can call this situation “Shorter Hours” or “Longer days”. Base on the assumption they will begin a new day every 23 hours. Regardless of daylight of night they will sleep, work, and enjoy leisure.

For Situation B people lived a 25-hours day. In 100 neutral days, the only lived 96 days. We can call this “Longer Hours” or “Shorter Days”.

The question now is will people of the Longer Days aged more than people of the Shorter Days?

if both of them die at the end of the 100th neutral day,

A would be 104 days old, B would be 96 days old. but they lived for the same amount of time.

I once ask GOD for a million bucks, he said "give me a second" .

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Added on April 10, 2010, 2:48 amBest explained.

This post has been edited by jayfreaky: Apr 10 2010, 02:48 AM

Of course the live the same amount of time lim00b. The question is will they age more. The topic is can perception of time aged a person.

hum... personally I believe that time does not exist, it's just a measurement of change. (to be discussed here http://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?showtopi...hl=time+travel)

But in the case of perception of time, and the effects on biology, then yes, there is definately "some" effects, though it might not be time based, it is not about slowing or quickening time.

It's about, whether our body is performing at an optimum, rate. if we lack sleep because the day simply won't turn to night, and we can't recover more from over sleeping... then naturally our body will be affected. "Age" here refers to the displayable features of the being, therefore a weak and degenerated person who will not recover will be considered to have aged. But in essence, he is still the same age, and time does not change for him, he just dies earlier... haha.

Our biological clock, in away won't change that's true, and it's a good observation with the eskimos (lin00b ) But I believe it can be confused,
our biological clock is like a pedulum, it ticks on constantly, we get a gauge of time, based on the number of ticks.

The pedulum ticks are fairly accurate, but could vary alittle, and if a person is in a hyped state, his ticks may be quicken, giving him a feeling like time is moving slowly.

Our internal time can be adjusted, such as in the case of Jet Lag.

Just my mind fart.

This post has been edited by TheDoer: Sep 14 2010, 09:44 AM