Beyond Biocentrism: Rethinking Time, Space, Consciousness, and the Illusion of Death

by Robert Lanza

Are you a truly nerdy, geeky person who cares about such technological or physics details? If so, consider the many wrinkles in how time seems to flow, all introduced by the very technology designed to measure it: Wrinkle one: Satellites travel at 8,700 miles per hour, slowing their clocks. Wrinkle two: They’re distant from Earth in a reduced gravitational field, which accelerates their time relative to Earth’s surface. Wrinkle three: GPS users on the Earth’s surface are located at various distances from Earth’s center (at Denver’s high altitude versus low-altitude Miami, say), producing a variety of time-passage rates. Wrinkle four: The difference in Earth’s rotation speed at separate ground-based locations produces inconsistencies in their agreement about the passage of time, which is called the Sagnac effect. Wrinkle five: Time runs slower for all earthly observers (as compared to any future lunar colonists) because of our planet’s 1,040-mph equatorial spin. (The speed decreases the farther one is from the equator.) Wrinkle six: Satellites’ time passage continually changes because their slightly elliptical orbits make them speed up and slow down, plus they zoom through irregularities in Earth’s gravitational field due to things like our planet’s equatorial bulge.