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How to Measure the Subjective Passage of Time?
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  • Update Date: 09 Apr 2025
Playlist
  • subjective time
  • passage of time
  • past and future horizons
  • modeling
  • sociophysics
Video Introduction

This video is adapted from 10.3390/e26060528

A simple model is built to evaluate quantitatively the individual feeling of the passage of time using a sociophysics approach. Given an objective unit of time like the year, I introduce an individualized mirror-subjective counterpart, which is inversely proportional to the number of objective units of time already experienced by a person. An associated duration of time is then calculated. Past and future individual horizons are also defined together with a subjective speed of time. Furthermore, I rescale the subjective unit of time by activating additional clocks connected to ritualized socializations, which mark and shape the specific times of an individual throughout their life. The model shows that without any ritual socialization, an individual perceives their anticipated life as infinite via a “soft” infinity. The past horizon is also perceived at infinity but with a “hard” infinity. However, the price for the first ritualized socialization is to exit eternity in terms of the anticipated future with the simultaneous reward of experiencing a finite moment of infinity analogous to that related to birth. I then extend the model using a power law of the number of past objective units of time to mitigate the phenomenon of shrinking of time. The findings are sound and recover common feelings about the passage of time over a lifetime. In particular, the fact that time passes more quickly with aging with a concomitant slowing down of the speed of time.

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If you have any further questions, please contact Encyclopedia Editorial Office.
Galam, S. How to Measure the Subjective Passage of Time?. Encyclopedia. Available online: https://encyclopedia.pub/video/video_detail/1556 (accessed on 05 December 2025).
Galam S. How to Measure the Subjective Passage of Time?. Encyclopedia. Available at: https://encyclopedia.pub/video/video_detail/1556. Accessed December 05, 2025.
Galam, Serge. "How to Measure the Subjective Passage of Time?" Encyclopedia, https://encyclopedia.pub/video/video_detail/1556 (accessed December 05, 2025).
Galam, S. (2025, March 20). How to Measure the Subjective Passage of Time?. In Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.pub/video/video_detail/1556
Galam, Serge. "How to Measure the Subjective Passage of Time?." Encyclopedia. Web. 20 March, 2025.
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