What would it even mean to change the speed of time? Reading Sean Carroll’s “From Eternity To Here”, he makes an interesting point:
“We live in a world that contains all sorts of periodic processes, which repeat a predictable number of times in comparison to certain other periodic processes. And that’s how we measure duration: by the number of repetitions of such a process. When we say that our TV program lasts one hour, we mean that the quartz crystal in our watch will oscillate 117,964,800 times between the start and end of the show (32,768 oscillations per second, 3,600 seconds in an hour).
…
“As human beings we feel the passage of time. That’s because there are periodic processes occurring within our metabolism – breaths, heartbeats, electrical pulses, digestion, rhythms of the central nervous system. We are a complicated, interconnected collection of clocks.”
So speeding up time across the universe doesn’t make much sense. Every process would still happen at the same relative rate, including our thoughts and metabolism. Modern physics tells us that there isn’t an objective frame of reference – different objects can, in fact, experience different relative times.
The real question is what would happen if we speed up our own processes relative to everything else in the universe. We wouldn’t feel any different – the “internal clocks” Carroll talks about would all still be in sync with each other – but we would notice all outside processes happening much less frequently compared to our thoughts and motions.
But much like the dilemma facing Calvin and Hobbes, which way would you go? As I read Carroll’s book, I started to ask: If you could change your relative speed, would you want to be faster or slower?
The reason to speed yourself up is obvious: you get a comparative advantage over everyone else. Imagine being able to think more, run further, and react more quickly in the same duration of “external time”. Who wouldn’t want that?
But there are advantages to slowing yourself down, too. Slowing down your body’s processes would be like stretching your life experience over a longer period of external time. Any benefit you get from the rest of the world is amplified. Randall Munroe at XKCD seems to have thought about it before in his comic about ‘Time Vultures’:
And it goes beyond food – assistants, coworkers, and fellow citizens could accomplish more. You would get to take advantage of all the medical breakthroughs, technological advances, and political developments that people come up with during your “stretched” lifespan.
As I talked with my friends about the question, many of them brought up the same point: there’s a risk in permanently changing too far. And that brings me to my last point, that Barry Allen (alter-ego of ‘The Flash’) is arguably in a special version of hell. Yes, after being struck by lightning in his lab, he was granted superhuman speed. Sounds great, but if you follow the thought process to its horrifying conclusion you get “The Ballad of Barry Allen” by Jim’s Big Ego:
I’ve got time to think about my past
As I dodge between the bullets
How my life was so exciting
Before I got this way
And how long ago it was now I never can explain
By the clock that’s on the tower
Or the one that’s in my brainAnd I’m there before you know it
I’ll be gone before you see me
And I’d like to get to know you
But you’re talking much too slowly
And I know you want to thank me
But I never stick around
‘Cause time keeps dragging on…
And on…
And on
The game theory dynamics are complex. It seems like to the extent that you’re competing with others, you want to be faster. To the extent that you’re cooperating/collaborating with others, you want them to be faster. And overarching all of it, there’s a coordination factor in that you don’t want to be too different from others.
At the moment, this is all just a fun thought experiment. But I know that the next time I’m bored in a meeting or enjoying a particularly nice moment, I’ll wish I could tweak my speed just a bit.