I found one of the most interesting points that Professor Firestein mentioned during the talk was the fact that humans did not have a sense of time in the sense we do now until the invention of timepieces during the modern era. This perked my interest in the history of time; for example, did ancient civilizations track time by smaller segments than days, and if so, what was the variation in ancient temporal systems? How did we come to settle on a system divided by hours, minutes, and seconds, and – while humans have vastly different languages, currencies, and cultures – how did we just come to settle on one uniform timekeeping system? It’s fascinating to think about how our lives could be different if, for example, our units of time were smaller or larger than they are now, and whether time is a factor that has a long-term influence on the development and function of our modern society.
I also noted Professor Firestein's comments about the effects of timekeeping on our experience of time because I am fascinated with the ways in which the cultures we live in affect us on such deep levels. Related to this topic, I found his discussion of our sense of progress, which many people think of as innate, interesting because he argues that it is a relatively new thing for humans to think about the future in terms of progress. I wonder if there are any studies about people who do not think about time or progress in ways that perhaps the majority of people do, and what those ways of thinking say about our society.