Those geniuses at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have figured out something profound. If you think about it, this makes sense: It takes a tenth of a second for visual information to get from your eyes to your brain, so everyone has the ability to predict what’s going to happen a tenth of a second into the future. That’s what you’re actually seeing, is that prediction. If you weren’t, everything would look like it was recorded a tenth of a second ago.
So this makes all of us somewhat clairvoyant, just so we can experience our world in real time. This also explains how lots of magic tricks are done. In his research paper, clear-thinking scientist Mark Changizi mentioned 50 types of visual illusions that work because your brain is attempting to predict what will happen 1/10th of a second into the future. This is weird, and changes everything in a small one-tenth-of-a-second way.
Via Impact Lab
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By Crunchlabz webdesign at 9:09 AM ON 05/21/08
Err, nothing we see is real time. If you look at the moon you see what it looked like more then a second ago, not a prediction from your brain.
"[..] everything would look like it was recorded a tenth of a second ago."
I doubt you would notice it. This is part of the reason you need to stay 2 seconds away from the car in front of you.
By JustCurious at 11:26 AM ON 12/06/08
Haven't you got it ass backwards? If it takes a tenth of a second for the info in the eye to reach the brain, we're looking at info which is 1/10th of a second older i.e. looking into the past not the future. E.g. it takes 8 minutes for the light from the surface of the sun to reach the earth which means we see a sun which is 8 minutes younger than it actually is.