While technically manufactured clocks display time continuously across many scales—from milliseconds to the calendar year—biological clocks tick differently. There are many different types, each of which displays time very specifically only at certain scales. Neuroscientist Dean Buonomano speaks of a „different-clocks-for-different-time-scales strategy“ in the evolution of the brain: „Even the simplest of digital wristwatches can accurately measure hundredths of a second, seconds, minutes, hours, days, and months. In the brain, however, the neural circuits responsible for timing Beethoven’s Fifth have no hour hand, and the circuits that govern our sleep-wake cycle have no second hand.“

Literature:

Buonomano, Dean (2017), Your Brain is a Time Machine: The Neuroscience and Physics of Time.

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