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.
