David Eagleman

get to different places in the brain, and then it has to get stitched together with other senses.

And by the time all of this gets done, and you're served up a conscious perception of what happened, the event's already long gone by that point, and you're living in the past.

And by the way, I've...

been pursuing a hypothesis that taller people live farther in the past than shorter people because it takes longer to get all the signals there.

So anyway, yes, we're never perceiving time directly.

And when you are thinking back on an accident situation, you're probing your memory.

You're saying, what just happened?

a moment ago.

And so all you're ever perceiving is your conscious perception.

Now, by the way, of course, your body can do things much faster than that unconsciously.

Like when your foot gets halfway to the brake, when you realize a car is pulling out of the driveway ahead of you, that happens before you're consciously aware.

You become aware by the time your foot's already on the move.

So your brain can do lots of things

That way, you know, when you're hiking with friends and you find yourself ducking out of the way of a tree branch that's swinging back towards you before you even realize that you're ducking, you know, that kind of stuff can happen.

But as far as our conscious perception of the world, that's always an old story.

I don't think so, actually, only because the human brain is enormous compared to, let's say, a fly, a house fly brain.

The reason it's really hard to swat a fly is because the signals are moving around fast in that brain.

Sorry, I should say the signals are moving along the neurons in a fly brain exactly the same speed that they're moving with us.

But it can get across the brain and do everything it needs to and get to the motor system of the fly really quickly because there's just not that much territory to cover.

In contrast, the human brain is enormous.