Key ideas from Dean Buonomano

• The brain doesn't use oscillators like man-made clocks but relies on neural dynamics - patterns of activity flowing through networks to tell time
• Mental time travel distinguishes humans from most animals, enabling agriculture by connecting actions now with benefits months or years later
• Cyanobacteria with 22-hour clocks outcompeted those with 26-hour clocks when light cycles matched their internal timing, proving evolutionary advantage
• "Neurons that fire together, wire together" - Hebbian plasticity allows the brain to form associations and predict sequences
• The brain integrates visual and auditory signals within 200-400 milliseconds, fixing timing mismatches between seeing lips move and hearing sound
• Time travel may only be possible in our minds through memory and imagination, not in physical space according to presentist physics
• Industrial Revolution required synchronized human behavior in factories, making reliable timekeeping essential for economic progress beyond just steam engines
• Quantum mechanics shows human cognitive limitations - we can calculate it mathematically but don't truly understand it intuitively