David Eagleman joins Long Now board

he walls of David Eagleman’s lab are covered with scribblings related to studying time, including the equation for entropy and analysis of scenes from science-heavy films. John B. Carnett

The walls of David Eagleman’s lab are covered with scribblings related to studying time, including the equation for entropy and analysis of scenes from science-heavy films. John B. Carnett

Neuroscientist and author David Eagleman has joined The Long Now Foundation as our newest (and youngest) board member.  Eagleman first came to our attention when Brian Eno started raving about his book of short stories, Sum: 40 Tales from the Afterlives.  Since that time he has done several collaborations with Brian, and most recently been a speaker in our Seminars About Long-term Thinking.

Posted today on the Popular Science website you can find an article on Eagleman’s research on how the brain perceives time where Eagleman staged a 15 story fall for the reporter to experience “time dilation” (video and except below):

Sorting out how the brain handles time-related information could reveal the cause of several mental illnesses. But some basic information still eludes researchers, in particular an explanation for “time dilation,” the notion that time seems to slow during life-threatening situations.

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The Long Now Foundation is a nonprofit established in 01996 to foster long-term thinking. Our work encourages imagination at the timescale of civilization — the next and last 10,000 years — a timespan we call the long now.

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