Eli and insanity?

[BravoHotel]

So this morning during a conversation about the perception of time and how it seems to speed up as you grow older I realised that this could be interesting to apply to Eli Oskar and their immortality.
The theory behind time speeding up as we grow older is that it is due to the decline in new experiences as they are remembered more vividly than the everyday. http://www.wbur.org/npr/122322542/why-d ... -get-older
The link there explains it much better but to elaborate on his example of life being like a journey to work the basic principle is life is like a jouney to work.

The first time this journey is made it feels long as all the details are new information to be taken in, as you repeat this journey however less detail is taken in as their is less new information processed and remembered each time and so the journey seems shorter each time you take it until you either no longer pay attention to making it or don't even recall any aspect of taking it (this point I presume would be death or madness).

Of course new experiences or different experiences on this journey will change this perception as again there will be more new information making more of the jouney be remembered giving it the appearance of being longer and so new information and novel experiences can give the perception of a longer life.

My question is at what point along this jouney do, if at all, Eli and much later Oskar go insane and how can their hibernation prevent this. As they over their infinite amount of time, as long as they are able to feed continuously, aren't exposed to sunlight, or on the unfortuanate recieving end of a stake to the heart would they be able to live for before their perception of time becomes short as they no longer experience new information would be driven to some type of insanity.

Now assuming that as Eli says that she has literally spent half of her 220 years hibernating which I take to mean that she is only awake during the autumn and winter months then she has been concious for somewhere under 110 years if take into consideration her "rest" state during daylight. This would mean that already she would be well along in her journey and her memories of her previous months of being awake are seeming shorter each time.

One thing I think that negates this is how long Eli and Oskar hibernate for, as a lot can change in six months, but how much will be new to them each time and how much new information will they even notice of it each time to increase or help create fixed points in their perception of time.

Of course I suppose other things about their "infected" biology can be taken into account but, how much longer can Eli be concious before her recent memories become a confusing probably insanity causing blur, which I would guess would be similar to some form of dementia.

My guess would be around fifty more years of conciousness for Eli before it would either begin to or fully takes its toll. If it sadly should.

[metoo]

I can't see why Eli or Oskar would go insane. Bored, maybe, but not insane.

Having been conscious for 30+ years by now, I can't say that time has sped up. It's only when I look back that I might get that impression, not when I look forward or just observe the present. I guess Eli and Oskar would have similar experiences. Time would pass at it's normal varying pace, but when they look back they might find that what seems just like yesterday actually happened a decade or two ago. Or a century.

[dongregg]

From the excellent article:

"Older people have novel experiences — lots of them. Some of us have crazier middle ages than youths. We fall in love, out of love. Then our parenting years are filled with watching our babies' first thises, first thats. Retired people travel — if they can afford to — to duplicate some of those rushes of novel experiences.

"Yes, it's true, the youngest years are chock full of novelty, but Duke's Warren Meck points out that when you hit your 60s and 70s, and time is beginning to run out, experiences get more precious and once again you remember all the details."

Best bet for me--fall in love with Eli and Oskar at 70 and start learning Swedish. Best bet for Eli--fall in love with Oskar at 220 and start an adventure in a new place.

I am one of those rare Huck Finns who has found adventure every day. Being a hippy IT consultant in Silicon Valley in my mid 20s and continuing as a freelance consultant for 30 plus years guaranteed all the challenge and novelty one could ask for--including living and working in many great cities. And it doesn't seem as though time is slowing down at all. I left IT 12 years ago became, in order of appearance, a college professor, a state licensed mental health counselor, a doctor of higher education, and the head of the university's learning resource center tutoring stats, math, and writing.

My dear wife, who not a teacher, shakes her head in disbelief (or is it irritation?) when I say I have to prepare for each lecture. She doesn't get that I never give the same lecture twice. Why not? Because each lecture and my activities outside the lecture hall are a constant learning experience. This has nothing to do with age. It's about curiosity and a sense of wonder.

Here's an anecdote that indicates how time can seem to pass differently for two people: Between the ages of 35 and 40, I became friends with an employee of one of my clients, and we have stayed friends all this time. I e-mailed him last year about a mutual acquaintance. My friend replied that he had pretty much forgotten "all of that," that it seemed to have happened on another planet. Yet, for me, it's all folded into what seems to be a single flowing, exciting experience from the time I was a toddler to now.

I agree with the article that hitting 60 or 70 or can concentrate one's mind wonderfully (pacem Dr. Johnson), but it's a shame if a person's life is not itself enough to have the same effect at every stage.

I am blessed. If I am Huck Finn, life is my Mississippi River.

Oh, by the way, I've found a greater concentration of interesting people on our forum than I have found anywhere and at any time. I think we're all blessed with something special.

[PeteMork]

From the excellent article:

"Older people have novel experiences — lots of them. Some of us have crazier middle ages than youths. We fall in love, out of love. Then our parenting years are filled with watching our babies' first thises, first thats. Retired people travel — if they can afford to — to duplicate some of those rushes of novel experiences.

"Yes, it's true, the youngest years are chock full of novelty, but Duke's Warren Meck points out that when you hit your 60s and 70s, and time is beginning to run out, experiences get more precious and once again you remember all the details."

Best bet for me--fall in love with Eli and Oskar at 70 and start learning Swedish. Best bet for Eli--fall in love with Oskar at 220 and start an adventure in a new place.

I am one of those rare Huck Finns who has found adventure every day. Being a hippy IT consultant in Silicon Valley in my mid 20s and continuing as a freelance consultant for 30 plus years guaranteed all the challenge and novelty one could ask for--including living and working in many great cities. And it doesn't seem as though time is slowing down at all. I left IT 12 years ago became, in order of appearance, a college professor, a state licensed mental health counselor, a doctor of higher education, and the head of the university's learning resource center tutoring stats, math, and writing.

My dear wife, who not a teacher, shakes her head in disbelief (or is it irritation?) when I say I have to prepare for each lecture. She doesn't get that I never give the same lecture twice. Why not? Because each lecture and my activities outside the lecture hall are a constant learning experience. This has nothing to do with age. It's about curiosity and a sense of wonder.

Here's an anecdote that indicates how time can seem to pass differently for two people: Between the ages of 35 and 40, I became friends with an employee of one of my clients, and we have stayed friends all this time. I e-mailed him last year about a mutual acquaintance. My friend replied that he had pretty much forgotten "all of that," that it seemed to have happened on another planet. Yet, for me, it's all folded into what seems to be a single flowing, exciting experience from the time I was a toddler to now.

I agree with the article that hitting 60 or 70 or can concentrate one's mind wonderfully (pacem Dr. Johnson), but it's a shame if a person's life is not itself enough to have the same effect at every stage.

I am blessed. If I am Huck Finn, life is my Mississippi River.

Oh, by the way, I've found a greater concentration of interesting people on our forum than I have found anywhere and at any time. I think we're all blessed with something special.

Hear, Hear! I began my 'wildly successful' writing career On this forum at the age of 67. I'm not sure I've ever been quite as focused for as long a time as these last 4 years! All thanks to this magical film and book, and most especially, JAL.

[sauvin]

I'll cheerfully admit not yet having read the linked-to article, but had some thoughts as I read the OP's post just before hauling off for work.

She's twelve years old. She's been twelve years old for a couple of centuries. And, she's just moved in next door. If you live long enough to ask her how old she is really, she'll say she really is twelve - but she'll get a worried and confused look on her face and say that she's been twelve for a very long time (sorry, folks, every time I see Eli, I see Lina). If you ask her if she's dead, a small glint of amusement will show through the worried expression when she says "no... can't you tell?"

One of the things I don't imagine her doing is sitting in the courtyard watching Oskar practise his lumberjack skills and wondering why her telomeres aren't getting any shorter, or her DNA fragmenting from too much moonlight, or something.

We've gone down this road a few times, although I don't recall any firm conclusions being drawn that meet with general agreement. It seems to be a given that she's physically frozen at twelve years (more or less), and one presumes this means in all sorts of different ways, including brain chemistry, rates of cell division and death - every little thing. This doesn't necessarily impact things like serotonin levels that can be impacted from without (she can get depressed, in other words, and can be lifted out of a depression), but these are largely ephemera within the present context.

Together with the fact that we don't honestly know how our brains tick to begin with, or which parts of our personalities and outlooks might be mostly because of hardware, software, firmware or just plain sloppy squishy wetware, the very moment we agree that Eli is physically frozen at twelve, all bets are off. Since she's probably been sucking down oceans of every kind of blood-borne pathogen known to man (and probably a few yet to be discovered, and maybe a few that've disappeared before microscopes got to be a fad), and she still manages to look not one day older, it seems pretty much a given nobody's going to bash her brains in, do a necropsy on her and find evidence of her brain matter turning to mush, stone or some kind of fungus.

Sometimes we can point to precise reasons people go crazy. Eat lots of fish known to contain lots of mercury, you'll find out! Sometimes people turn their brains to mush by toking up, shooting up or huffing stuff; other times, they were unfortunate enough to be caught in a cloud of some really nasty gas. Can't see these things happening to Eli, either, otherwise the mere fact of living in close proximity to a creature that seems to insist on creating and living in semi-toxic environments would have gotten her years ago. The very same thing allows her to heal broken bones and torn ligaments is what's keeping her brains in more or less "twelve year old" condition.

This doesn't necessarily imply that she'll stay "sane" throughout eternity, though. A very large part of what we call "sanity" is the ability to discern physical and social worlds we live in in (more or less) the same way as everybody else, and interact with it (more or less) the same way anybody else would. Eli's personal reality, not to mince words too much, is pretty far out. The novel itself suggests this rather broadly early on, shortly after Eli and Oskar start talking for real, when he remarks that her speech is "antiquated".

One of the many theories we've had on the forum over the years is that Eli routinely recruits helpers of a (more or less) Haakan-like sort not only to serve as go-fer and insulating cut-out, but also as a point of social contact to help her try to stay (more or less) in touch with where humanity is going. Without this kind of personal interactive contact, what you won't get from any radio or television, she really would sail off the cultural radar, and be very readily identified as somebody we'd call "crazy".

Some years ago, I read a kind of anthology of short stories about vampires, each story exploring a different facet of what being such a creature (or associating with one) might be like. In one, a fairly long-lived vampire became romantically involved (if I recall properly) with a human girl. As their relationship progressed, he became increasingly less stable, until one night, he went to an opera that he'd remembered going to some centuries before. Familiar sounds, familiar songs, even familiar costumes and settings brought back memories - emotional events - and he wound up hightailing it back to his coffin for another Long Sleep. This story speculated that after such a sleep, he'd been purged of any humanity he might have retained or regained, going on for long periods of time as said humanity seeps gradually back in. Trouble is, more human a vampire becomes (according to this story), less effective he becomes as a vampire. They apparently don't fare any better than we do when food aversion develops. These "long sleeps", apparently, serve to recharge his vampire batteries.

We don't get from the novel that this is necessarily what happens to Eli, but it remains to me as a possibility, along with whatever physical pressures might mount (maybe the parasite needs to shut its host down for a few months at a whack while it takes a vacation from constantly having to repair genetic damage and suchlike). What we're given is that she sleeps for long periods of time every now and again, and when she wakes up, she's "small again". We don't know what this means in terms of physical strength or stature, or in what kinds of factual knowledge she might have acquired between hibernations.

Together with her apparent physical stasis, these possibly purgative hibernations restore her mentally, emotionally and physically to some kind of base state; the implication is that she won't get a whole lot "crazier" than she is when we meet her. One presumes that something similar would apply to Oskar when he turns.

[BravoHotel]

Having been conscious for 30+ years by now, I can't say that time has sped up. It's only when I look back that I might get that impression, not when I look forward or just observe the present. I guess Eli and Oskar would have similar experiences. Time would pass at it's normal varying pace, but when they look back they might find that what seems just like yesterday actually happened a decade or two ago. Or a century.

As you say it is when looking back on these events time seems to be speeding up.

That was the idea that I was trying to articulate, that over Eli's infinite lifespan her perception of past events will increase in speed as she no longer has novel stimuli causing his/her brain to take in all the new learny details to give her a richer more detailed picture of that event to give it the appearence of being longer when she looks back on it.

As less newer experiences are learned less detail is taken in, meaning that, less of past events are remembered looking back on them meaning all her memories of the past start to give the appearence of time speeding up as this effect increases marginally over time (don't know if the maths will help explain what I mean but it's here anyway http://everything2.com/user/Professor%2 ... with%20age) causing her to possibly no longer to be able to recall memories from the recent past, giving her in effect some form of memory impairment.

I was wondering how much hibernation which would be essentially like time travelling six months into the future might provide her with enough new experience to slow this process but of course sauvin has provided me with and angle I hadn't thought of to take into account.

That Eli's hibernation may purge her somewhat of her humanity and work as a kind of maintenance period where she goes back to a base state (I suppose a good example might be restoring a computer to a previous state) I saw her hibernation merely for practicality to save energy during the long daylight months and hadn't really considered what may go on during it.

Also of course that some of this effect may be due to the ageing of the brains cells which Eli's don't, so I suppose between hibernation periods she only remembers the important things such as Oskar and important events and learning experiences from her previous awakening and as stuff is naturally forgotten from the things she does remember that over her/his infinite lifespan she will never run out of capacity for memories as long as the things she actively tries to remember such as her/his mother and future experiences she may actively try to preserve never fills this but I suppose we even forget parts of the things we try to remember so I suppose that is this more or less solved I guess thanks for that sauvin I suppose this means we are one step closer to understanding what it'is truly like to be Eli.

[metoo]

Sorry, but I don't think that the ideas discussed in the linked text has much to do with how the human mind actually works. And who is T. L. Freeman? I tried to google him, but didn't learn much. He apparently published a book in 1983 called "Why it's later than you think", but that's all that I could find. Finally, don't be too impressed with the "math". To sprinkle one's text with mathematical symbols and formulas is all too often used to make nonsense look like science.

[BravoHotel]

Sorry, but I don't think that the ideas discussed in the linked text has much to do with how the human mind actually works. And who is T. L. Freeman? I tried to google him, but didn't learn much. He apparently published a book in 1983 called "Why it's later than you think", but that's all that I could find. Finally, don't be too impressed with the "math". To sprinkle one's text with mathematical symbols and formulas is all too often used to make nonsense look like science.

Forgive me this is an error on my behalf I should have checked my scources a little I'll admit I used the article because seemed to help articulate my point as I found it difficult to describe as I often do with difficult concepts and it explained what I was trying to say.

Although there are other places I have seen I've seen people describe this effect Vsauce a youtube channel describes it in a video entitled "How old can we get" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LyCC6jjcx8)

In the video he links to this article (http://www.livescience.com/2117-time-sl ... ncies.html)
I may have taken the idea at too much of its face validity and I can look into it more should this thread progress to find other scources I just found a concept that I liked and thought would be interesting to apply to this concept to Eli

As for the math I'll admit I don't understand much of it, again I was trying to help my explanation with it, I'm sorry I do respect your opinion I was trying to elaborate on what I didn't think I'd made clear enough.

[metoo]

Wikipedia has an article on the subject, with lots of references.

I believe there is a difference between past, present, and future when it comes to perception of time. The mechanisms would plausibly be different, and therefore the experience as well as the explanation. So the question of perception of time isn't a single one, but three:

• Do we perceive the flow of time in the past differently as we age?
• Do we perceive the flow of time in the future differently as we age?
• Do we perceive the flow of time in the present differently as we age?

Back to Eli and turned Oskar. When they look back, they will likely experience telescoping, i.e. that distant events feel more recent than they actually are. E&O would, as opposed to normal children, have a long life to remember, which might strengthen this effect. Regarding the present and future, I wonder what influence the immaturity of their brains would have. To the extent that perception of time depends on brain maturity, Eli might never experience any speeding up of time. Infants and young children apparently don't experience time, this is something that develops during the first years of life. When this is complete I can't say, but the present view is that the brain isn't fully mature until the age of about 25.

Conclusively, I don't think that life would speed up for O&E, and thus they would not go insane because of that. They would sometimes be bored and time would crawl to them, while at other times they would be busy and time would fly. Which one would dominate I don't know, but I guess that they would have rather a lot of time to kill.

[Elias Eriksson]

I think that maybe they would not go insane really. Since they are kind of still 12 years old, there minds are still not fully developed on some levels and it kind of shows when they get excited by simply playing around with toys, puzzles. Even tho Eli has over 200 years, it's like she has stopped in time even if she still learns a lot of things. As someone said above, they would probably get bored after some couple of years, since that would be normal for someone that lives for so long.
Also, they have to hunt so they can eat which may contribute for the cycle of "keeping feelings alive". They also move around a lot, knowing different places and people, relearning hunting grounds.
I also think that there lives would be way more hard after the ending of LTODD, because of cameras, internet and all that. Would be easy to get a picture of them and the police would be involved much more easily than in LTROI.