Long-Eyed and Painless

It is a fact of biology that the legth of the optic nerve in an organism affects the time offset perceived by it. There is a certain null point; with a nerve of this length, the brain perceives the present. Any longer, and the organism will see further and further into the future. Any shorter (i.e. closer to the brain), and the organism will see with a time delay.

In humans, the optic nerve length is nearly exactly at this null point. It is, in fact, a tiny bit short of it, which accounts for the nearly immeasurable delay between occurence and perception in humans. In most semi-intelligent animals, in fact, the optic nerve length is close to this null point. Contrary to what intuition may tell you about the advantages of seeing into the future, evolution favours the present because of the complexities that come about with offsets in hand-eye coordination.

The most advanced animal brains on the planet, dolphins, are still only able to handle about 0.69 seconds of future offset. Some microorganisms and insects see into the future , since appendage-eye coordination plays a smaller role in their survival. This explains some of the more mysterious behaviours of ants and bees.

Neuroscientists, biologists, and physicists are working to perfect a technology that will allow the eyeballs to extend forth from the head, with an elastic optic nerve. This, of course, can only go so far - tests of current candidate materials show a theoretical maximum of 4.20 seconds into the future.

Suggestions have been made that Wi-Fi optic nerve transmission may be possible to allow greater separation, but whether the nervous-temporal link would still apply without a physical connection remains to be seen.