From: daavid@bohra.cpg.oz.au (Daavid Turnbull)
Subject: Re: Tao of Crashing
Organization: Computer Power Software
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 12:02:33 GMT

In article <1992Oct12.030308.9650@leland.Stanford.EDU> dhinds@leland.Stanford.EDU (David Hinds) writes:
> In article <45320004@hpmwgde2.sr.hp.com> budn@hpmwtd.sr.hp.com (Bud Noren) writes:
>>tomk@netcom.com (Thomas H. Kunich) writes:
>>
>>>No amount of training can compensate for the inability to react as
>>>fast as traffic accidents occur.
>>
>>But you neglect the time dilation phenomenon inherent in bike crashes.
>
> I think that this phenomenon is in fact largely an illusion.  There is
> no way for your brain to instantly start working faster, at the moment
^^^^^^^^^                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
On what do do you base such a strong conclusion?  I can think of a number
of analogies where this is a sensible explanation.  Consider a computer
dividing its resources between the various applications.  One of these
applications suddenly goes into condition RED and all the resouces are
channeled into the task in need.  In all practical terms this task 
"instantly starts working faster"!

> of an unexpected accident.  And there is no time for significant control
> over what your body will do; the neurons just don't work that fast.  A
Twaddle!  The word is that over 90% of the brains funtioning is unaccounted
for.  Your perception of your brains functioning is that things move 
slowly.  My perception of my brains functioning is that in a physical
crisis situation there is "significant control over what my body will do"!

> more likely explanation for the apparent "time dilation" is that in
> retrospect, our brains automatically reconstruct a coherent sequence
> of thoughts and events, which becomes our "memory" of what happened.
Doubtless this is what occurs to a certain extent before we get to
recount the story... but this need not have anything to do with the 
perception of time slowing down/thought processes speeding up.

> There is no stopwatch in the brain that can time stamp each "thought"
> along with the corresponding events in the outside world; it takes a
> significant fraction of a second for a signal to propagate from one side
> of the brain to the other, so it isn't meaningful to talk about when a
> particular thought happens anyway.  You may end up with the memory that
But it takes micro seconds to get a signal from the eye to the cerebellum.
The clever brain would organise itself so that the interested componets
did not have to send messages from one side to the other over the corpus
cullosum.

As for stop watches there is empirical evidence that human brain functions
with buffers on many of the senses of a few seconds.  Most of what is
perceived is lost in a few seconds but if something significant occurs
that information can be transferred to more episodic memory.  For example
the cocktail party effect, where your name is mentioned accross the room
and you are able to recount the content of conversation in that context
for a few seconds before your name was mentioned... but a minute before
hand... forget it, it has fallen into the bit bucket at the end of your
buffer.

> you did something for a particular reason, when in fact the reason
> occurred to you a second or so after it was all over.
>
David,
	I started this this thread weeks ago bu suggesting that by mentally
preparing yourself you could minimise the amount of damage that your
body was unfortunate to suffer.  Since then I have seen many good posts
that have supported the notion that you have far more control than you
might initially be aware of.  I have seen none that have said "I started
to think about it an ended up in a crumpled heap on the ground".

I hope that this thread has helped some mentally prepare for the inevitable.

 -daavid

-- 
	Daavid Turnbull
	daavid@bohra.cpg.oz   +61 3 823 0222    (fax) +61 3 824 8068
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