Key
tp = (((1/*age)*5k)* tc).
where tp is
psychological time
tc is chronological time
5k a
constant with the nominal value of five.
5k gives an outcome
where chronological time =
psychological time for the
individual at age 25.
It is a truism that time runs "faster" as we become
older. Not only does the future seem to race towards us faster, but the
historical past telescopes. Events from our parent's past (and earlier)
which seemed unimaginably remote in childhood suddenly have the
perspective of a very recent past at fifty years of age.
Many interesting questions emerge from the phenomena of psychological
time. What is it's source? There is an obvious relativism involved, but
relative to what?
The kind of logarithmic scale involved in psychological time does
have its psycho/physiological analogies. Anyone who has taken a hot
shower knows that our sense of hot and cold is not directly
proportionate to the turn of the tap. My own sense of time is that the
past and future is infinite at birth and closes on a double parabolic
curve to zero at death. This might be conventionally symbolized by an
equation such as:
tp = (((1/*age)*5k)* tc). Let tp be psychological time, tc be
chronological time and 5k a constant with the nominal value of five. 5k
gives an outcome where chronological time = psychological time for the
individual at age 25. This assumes age 25 as the peak of biological
maturity.
Let us apply this to a familiar example. I can remember contemplating
with horror at age 17 the prospect of a four year university course. No
wonder: its reality to me at that time was 58.2 months of grind. Now at
fifty such a dalliance would take only 33.9 months of my real personal
time. Quite a remission!
At age five, four chronological hours between meals would have the
ravenous personal reality of 8.9 hours, while the grazing break for a
bibulous fifty year-old only comes to 2.8 hours.
