If a fly sees everything in slow motion then how does he stay in the present?

Question

What I mean is, if a car is going faster than another, it is eventually miles and miles ahead, why doesn't a fly gain time so that he is eventually on a completely different day to you and therefore doesn't notice when you try to swat him because he is reacting to something in the future instead?

Answer 1

When people say he sees things in slo-mo, it means that his reaction times, and his acceleration capability, are far faster than ours. It's analogous to us watching a snail. "Normal" happenings for a fly involve incredibly fast flight maneuvers -- rotations, direction changes and speed changes. Check out a couple of flies interacting, such as mating or whatever they're doing when it looks like fighting, and you'll see what I mean. Our movements, although large in scale, are glacial compared to the fly's. So he sees us in apparent slo-mo, compared to what he's used to.

Answer 2

I think this question has basically been answered already. The only thing thats confused you is an assumption that slow-mo for the fly is different from 'regular' time for everything else. The fly would indeed have problems surviving if it had to watch reruns of things in slow-mo and couldnt see what was happening in the present. What it means is the fly's perception of time is dramatically different - the time it takes neurons to pass messages across a synapse in your brain is not trivial - a smaller body with smaller lengths between different neurons will have faster response times. The fly's normal perception of time is sped up. As for the fly eventually being on a different day I think you're confusing yourself to dangerous degrees. Flies live in the present. Things that are quick to us are slow to them because they react faster and have a different perception of passing time.

Answer 3

A fly does not see in slow motion. They see in normal motion for flies. It is the same as watching a film, normally with 24 frames per second, but taking out 23 frames. SO if you walk very very slowly in front of a fly you will seem invisible to it as you will be "inbetween" the missing frames of its projected vision. This is how you catch , or swat flies effectivley. If you lunge at them they see you and fly away, if you become "invisible" to them you will have swatted them before they even see you.

Answer 4

We all react to future events. Have you ever tried crossing a road? You know you must get out of the way of a moving vehicle.
It's called predicting danger!
Anyway, a fly just sees things differently to us. It doesn't have any mystic foresight!
It still lives in the present. Otherwise you'd never see it, if it lived in the future and you were still in the present.

Answer 5

I would double check that statistic, because what I have hear that they simply have a quick reaction speed. They also are able to see in a near 360 degree radius, which helps them not be snuck up on.

Answer 6

EH!
Imagine your eyes see at 12 frames a second, like a camera.
Now you get excited and you see at 24 frames a second.
Because you are processing data twice as fast, you will see things moving half the speed.
Nothing to do with temporal equations.
It is how slow motion cameras work.

Answer 7

a fly only lives one day
and he just has a fast reaction time so when we move it seems slow compared to him
so hes not going to get far ahead of us in the one day he lives

Answer 8

Different creatures have different perceptions of time because of their biology, ours is different to theirs, theirs is different to your cat or a tortoise, etc etc. So the fly is in his own 'present', and we see him in our 'present'.

Answer 9

this may sound complicated

You know how when your drunk time flies but it feels its ownly been 5 mins, just like that.

Answer 10

errrrr you lost me there , I think theres some sort of logic to it but hey who am i to criticse