TIME

heres a question i actually just came up with... haven't really thought about it... do all living things experience time like humans do? like how would you describe, say a cat experiences a year for us. Because other animals live life not knowing their life expectancy, not having a system of telling time... im actually gonna think about this... thank you.

not all humans experience time the same way. generally americans view time as very linear, yet others view it as cyclical, or even outwardly expanding... other cultures from the past have had some pretty strange views as well. read up.

There is no such thing in existence as that which we call time. Instead there is only motion.

You have the motion of the earth which shapes our nights and days. But the Sun never ceases to shine, so night and day are merely constructs of human imagination we use to concieve of the distance traveled around the earth on its axis.

Without the motion of the second-hand on your stopwatch from one point to another, how would you calculate a duration of time?

But since everything is in motion all at once, (constantly), a begining and and end again are constructs of our imagination.

Animals may experience the sensation of time if they concieve of themselves as we do.

I however like to think of it this way: Take a tortise, a dog and a human being... each expires after a short time on this Earth; 120, 12 and 60-90 years respectively.

Instead of counting the dog's years "times 7", perhaps we could acknowledge that different lifeforms have different rates of deterioration.

As you know dogs operate at higher body temperatures than humans which could contribute to their speedy demise.

And that different rate of deterioration from species to species is more evidence of different physical conditions than it is of a different experience of time / (motion).

Elephants however have a sense of when they will die as do Whales and other sea creatures.

I on the one hand feel I have lived long, but consider 120 years a good stopping point for me.

i think that animals must be aware of a beginning and an end of their lives, and the ageing process that occurs between those two points. other than that i agree with methuzual on the point about any measurement of time being a purely human construction

animals don't have the wisdom to understand time.. if they did it would be the same to them as it is to us.. sometimes seeming faster cause of a fun situation in which u aren't focusing on the clock, or sometimes slow cause all u do is watch the clock... but dogs for example just go with the flow they dont have plans for the weekend.. they aren't smart enough to percieve a thing like time, that doesnt mean they dont get bored.. just that they dont understand time