Down and Fast, Part 2

Now let’s talk about Time (“Let’s talk about makin’ love”)! Say, for a moment, that I had the project of making an exact replica of your brain out of silicon and fiber optics, substituting gigahertz micro-computation for neuronal activity and speed of light transmission for nerve signals. Since the rate of axon-firing in the human brain is approximately 1000 times a second and the speed of nerve transmission is approximately 100 meters per second what we would have is your brain running a MILLION times faster!! But what about your ‘mind’-- your consciousness, your feelings, your Experience? Would these be a million times faster as well?

We don’t really know the answer to that question, because we have no idea what consciousness really is. Is it some basic attribute of Nature that emerges whenever certain systems of complexity and inter-relationship are evolved? Is it everywhere, but taking different forms and focus depending on where and who is interacting with it? All worthy directions of pursuit towards a great Mystery. But let’s propose a working hypothesis for the purposes of this Graphic Novel: Consciousness adapts to whatever conditions it would be ‘relevant’ to exist in. So, if I have a ‘mind’ that operates a million subjective seconds for every ‘ordinary second’ AND, importantly, I have a ‘body’ and a ‘world’ where those thoughts can ‘act’ out a living scenario at the same speed – then consciousness takes a form in the domain of subjective time that functions effectively. What is the upper bound…can Consciousness exist a BILLION times faster (or slower, for that matter)? Can a being experience in a single ordinary decade the subjective equivalent of the entire history of the known universe? I suppose it depends on whether a ‘world’ could be built to live in - operating in this enhanced form of time – and whether that world would be primarily ‘actual’ or ‘virtual’. We may get to find out…soon.

Let me coin some more terms (sorry, but to talk about this sort of unprecedented change old vocabulary just comes up lame): a subjective time-space ‘domain’ that is ten times faster than our current ‘native’ one we will call Fast1, a hundred times faster Fast2, a million times faster Fast6, etc. It simply follows powers of ten. Now, a being whose body and environment operates at a size one tenth our regular human-realm size we will call Down1, a hundredth Down2, a millionth Down6 and so on…

So, one solution to the seemingly inevitable result of having Fast6 minds is to operate them in Down6 body/environments. After all, if I drop a rock on my foot in Down6 space, it only takes a millionth of the time to fall as it does up ‘here’ in Down0. Reality would not be so simple of course – we could ask how fast could I move a ‘limb’ to pick up that rock? Surely, a lot faster than us huge, monstrous current bodies as anyone can see who has closely observed insects. The surface-area-to-volume ratio of tiny beings guarantees that there relative strength and speed is epic; a flea can jump a subjective ‘kilometer’. But it isn’t a direct linear conversion, so some things multiply thousands while others multiply millions. However, for the beings in Skinz’n’Klowdz, this is almost a non-issue, with physically and perceptually enhanced ‘realities’ subjective perception and environmental rates can be perfectly matched.

But what does it mean personally and socially to have subjective states where on the one side is a single year and on the other is a million years? Where my second-long pause in ‘conversation’ is 11.5 days to my partner? And even more mind-boggling, where parts of my own mind span these same subjective domains?