Physics, Metaphysics, Quasiphysics.
On the way home from my walk to the park periphery tonight I experimented with more running than usual. My pace of running is roughly twice my rate of walking, though the impact and stress on my body hasn't allow for me to to replace walking entirely. I employ it as my body allows.
Twice the rate: my thoughts turned on that. The pace, back to space and time: the additional exertion at twice my normal walking rate meant that for every minute I ran, the distance covered was doubled: I'd create one minute from another minute I would have spent walking to cover the same space. A minute that I would have later, for coding, or drawing, or posting to Livejournal. A one-to-one exchange rate with only a surcharge of pain and possible bodily expense.
Running, I was converting more fuel into more energy, and that energy into time. Still producing endorphins, working muscle, and burning fat, a process of material conversion that could be considered an unconventionally connoted sense of self-immolation.
Of course too much running could produce an injury, potentially destroying hypothetical time. That's less directly measurable.
Dot dot dot.
Sometimes when I sit at my desk coding manically to some manner of up-tempo IDM or EBM or what-have-you it will strike me that I am converting caffeine into code. Or, if I have billed enough to pay for my needs, converting water or fruit or alcohol into digital paintings or origami or electronic basslines. Not directly, of course, but it's still demonstrably a system of inputs and outputs; the outputs qualitatively rely on the inputs. The effect of a nectarine on my tongue leads me to a different mood than a cup of bitter coffee. Blast, now I want a nectarine.
But I have none. And it's time for a few hours of sleep.
Converting unconscious hours into usable conscious ones at a non-linear rate.
A body is an interesting machine.