Waking up before an alarm clock

[trust]

what do yall think about this?

Have you ever woken up right before your alarm clock goes off?
Einstien tells us that when an observer increases its speed time slows for the observer. If the observer goes the speed of light time stops. Therefore, it can be reasonably concluded that if an object were to go faster than the speed of light it would start moving backwards through time.
Now what if when your alarm clock goes off it startles your brain awake, and your brain fires off the message to wake up at a speed faster than the speed of light? That would mean that that signal goes back in time and you wake up right before the alarm clock goes off.

it blows my mind but i can see where he's going with that.

[Blaze]

Haha, that's an interesting theory. 

[iago]

I don't think that makes any sense.

I think a better theory is that your body gets used to waking up at a certain time, and starts to take care of it. My proof is that I often wake up at the same time on weekends, too, when my alarm isn't even set.

[trust]

Maybe it's a coincidence.

What he's saying, from what I gathered, is that your brain hears the alarm but notifies us so quickly that we go back in time (it notifies us faster than the speed of light) and wake up before the alarm even goes off.

Just for context though, I got that off a site where people post their theories while stoned so..

[Ergot]

I'm going with iago on this one, probably due to behavioral conditioning, but if it was true for like a different time than the person normally awakes yea, I guess...

[Sidoh]

Lol, yeah, in terms of physics, it's nonsense.  It's interesting because it's funny, though.

[iago]

Maybe it's a coincidence.

What he's saying, from what I gathered, is that your brain hears the alarm but notifies us so quickly that we go back in time (it notifies us faster than the speed of light) and wake up before the alarm even goes off.

Just for context though, I got that off a site where people post their theories while stoned so..

Well, sound (like an alarm) travels at the speed of sound. That's slower than the speed of light. So I don't see how that can make sense.

It definitely sounds like a stoned theory. Reminds me of, "Whoa my hands are HUGE, and they can touch anything except themselves! Oh wait, they can do that too"

[trust]

Maybe it's a coincidence.

What he's saying, from what I gathered, is that your brain hears the alarm but notifies us so quickly that we go back in time (it notifies us faster than the speed of light) and wake up before the alarm even goes off.

Just for context though, I got that off a site where people post their theories while stoned so..

Well, sound (like an alarm) travels at the speed of sound. That's slower than the speed of light. So I don't see how that can make sense.

It definitely sounds like a stoned theory. Reminds me of, "Whoa my hands are HUGE, and they can touch anything except themselves! Oh wait, they can do that too"

light is seconds faster than sound, so it might still work.

and your hand can't touch the back of it self, which sucks.

[rabbit]

Neural messages are transmitted about 200 times slower than an electrical message, which is a few hundred times slower than sound, which in turn is a few hundred times slower than light.  There is no possible way for a neural message to travel faster than the speed of light.

[Sidoh]

Maybe it's a coincidence.

What he's saying, from what I gathered, is that your brain hears the alarm but notifies us so quickly that we go back in time (it notifies us faster than the speed of light) and wake up before the alarm even goes off.

Just for context though, I got that off a site where people post their theories while stoned so..

Well, sound (like an alarm) travels at the speed of sound. That's slower than the speed of light. So I don't see how that can make sense.

It definitely sounds like a stoned theory. Reminds me of, "Whoa my hands are HUGE, and they can touch anything except themselves! Oh wait, they can do that too"

What they're saying is when you hear the alarm, neural pathways are traversed faster than the speed of light, c and thus, our 'consciousness' travels back in time.   This is why I said it's nonsense; it's actually a lot slower than c and it's really silly to believe something as mundane as a series of neurons can cause something to travel faster than c.

But yeah, those two totally seem like they use the same amount of critical thinking: very little.  They both have lots of "creative" thinking, but not very critical.

Maybe it's a coincidence.

What he's saying, from what I gathered, is that your brain hears the alarm but notifies us so quickly that we go back in time (it notifies us faster than the speed of light) and wake up before the alarm even goes off.

Just for context though, I got that off a site where people post their theories while stoned so..

Well, sound (like an alarm) travels at the speed of sound. That's slower than the speed of light. So I don't see how that can make sense.

It definitely sounds like a stoned theory. Reminds me of, "Whoa my hands are HUGE, and they can touch anything except themselves! Oh wait, they can do that too"

light is seconds faster than sound, so it might still work.

and your hand can't touch the back of it self, which sucks.

lol.  The speed of light is nearly 900,000 times faster than the speed of sound in dry air at 20 degrees C.

I suspect you're trolling, but this is slightly interesting conversation to me, so I decided to indulge you.

[trust]

I'm not trolling. I know nothing about this sort of stuff and the theory interested me.

[Sidoh]

I'm not trolling. I know nothing about this sort of stuff and the theory interested me.

Ah.  Well, I'm pretty sure there's a fair amount of research on this issue already.  It seems that I've encountered the subject a few times, but I can't recall exactly what their conclusions were.  However, I think what iago suggested initially basically sums it up.  You tend to wake up when you're used to waking up.

[rabbit]

It's tuning the internal chemical clock to do things at certain times, nothing more.

[Sidoh]

It's tuning the internal chemical clock to do things at certain times, nothing more.

Right, but, as I did, you used a bunch of general, non-technical, non-descriptive language.  I was speaking of the papers because I'm sure they describe the whole ordeal in much more detail.

[rabbit]

Okay, here's how it works.  Neural messages are chemical reactions.  Unless your body can accelerate molecules to FTL speeds, it ain't gonna happen.  Is that technical enough?

[Sidoh]

Okay, here's how it works.  Neural messages are chemical reactions.  Unless your body can accelerate molecules to FTL speeds, it ain't gonna happen.  Is that technical enough?

I wasn't referring to that part.  I've already acknowledged that this is the case (you posted before me, but only because I went afk for a while before hitting "post").

What they're saying is when you hear the alarm, neural pathways are traversed faster than the speed of light, c and thus, our 'consciousness' travels back in time.   This is why I said it's nonsense; it's actually a lot slower than c and it's really silly to believe something as mundane as a series of neurons can cause something to travel faster than c.

I was speaking of your explanation of the commonly accepted reasons for why this is.  You gave a good high level description of it (I'm pretty sure iago said in his first post that's what it was), but you should link some literature!  I know I've read one or two articles on this topic.

Anyway, I think this has come to a conclusion.  All questions have been answered and there's no reason to continue this discussion.

[rabbit]

I officially link my argument to every neuroscience and physics textbook in existence.

[Sidoh]

I officially link my argument to every neuroscience and physics textbook in existence.

I guess the only reason you spoke up is because you pretty much said the same thing as iago and I, but you said it as if you were clearing up the issue when it'd already been cleared up.

[rabbit]

I'll clear you up!

[Rule]

Neural messages are generally transmitted about 20010 million times slower than an electrical message light, which is a few hundred travels about a million times slowerfaster than sound, which in turn is a few hundred times slower than light.  There is no possible wayIt is extremely unlikely for a neural message to travel faster than the speed of light.

This makes more sense to me.  From what I remember, our reaction time is about 0.1 seconds, and is at best 0.01 seconds (test yourself by tapping as quickly as you can on a stopwatch).  This means nerve impulses travel at most 10 to 100 m/s.  The speed of light is ~3*10^8 m/s.  Most electrical currents travel at a similar speed -- sometimes 10 to 100 times slower.  So "light" and "electrical message" could pretty much be used interchangeably in the above quote, but it seems more direct just to make the comparison with light, unless you want to write something a little more long-winded about nerve impulses. The speed of sound in air is about 350 m/s.

Of course, there are many problems with this theory, but perhaps most notably -- pretty much your entire body would have to be travelling at some speed relative to the alarm clock, not just some nerve impulse.

[trust]

Okay, here's how it works.  Neural messages are chemical reactions.  Unless your body can accelerate molecules to FTL speeds, it ain't gonna happen.  Is that technical enough?

My body is awesome.