eitime

Eitime is a term used in informal and speculative contexts to describe a time-like quantity tied to information, events, or perceived processing rate rather than physical clock time. The exact definition varies by discipline: in some science fiction and theoretical discussions, eitime is a subjective metric that expands or contracts with the flow of information; in computer simulations and information-theoretic models, eitime is an event-driven or information-sensitive clock that advances when certain conditions are met rather than at a fixed rate.

Origins of the concept are scattered, with the term appearing in online discussions and speculative writing since the early 2000s. There is no standard etymology or formal adoption, and implementations differ across proposals. Common variants describe eitime as one of several information-related time notions, such as information-time (speed determined by information content), event-driven time (time advances with events), or entropy-time (linked to the rate of entropy production).

In practice, eitime is used mainly as a thought experiment or modeling abstraction. It serves to illustrate how experiences of duration might depend on cognitive load, information density, or processing throughput, and to explore how simulations can synchronize progress with event occurrence rather than wall-clock seconds. Critics note that eitime lacks empirical grounding, suffers from definitional ambiguity, and has limited applicability outside theoretical or hypothetical contexts.

See also: time, subjective time, information theory, event-driven modeling.