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Why Are Human Teeth So Messed Up?

aeon.co

161–168 of 168 posts

Re: Why Are Human Teeth So Messed Up?

#161
post #92

It always struck me as funny that if you want to get into Medicine you can either do the normal MD course that covers 95% of the body (obviously, you may be able to specialize much later on) OR you can do the other 5% as a Dentist (and again, you may chose to specialize later). Teeth suck, I'm hanging out for "I can't believe they're not teeth" implants so I can stop worrying about the damn things.

Having an implant takes a lot more maintenance than regular teeth and no one really knows the long-long term results (modern implants haven't been around long enough). While an implant may offer a much better quality of life vs having a severely poor tooth (or none at all), don't be fooled into thinking you just get one and then you're set for life. They are considered an excellent option in a lot of cases, but you s…

I was not warned about any implant specific problems during my implant last month, nor have I experienced any in the 20 years since my first implant. I was told they date back to the 60s. There is no extra maintenance of any kind. It is, in my case, a 100% replacement for the real tooth.

The anchor does, I think, prevent you from getting braces later on if you should need them.

Re: Why Are Human Teeth So Messed Up?

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neato, from a 'user' perspective how is it? Does it feel or work any different to a usual tooth?

Just like a normal tooth, except the surrounding part of my mouth is a little "bulkier" at the back where the cadaver bone was placed. No complaints at all.

Interesting! Thanks for the info though, always been something I found quite interesting

Re: Why Are Human Teeth So Messed Up?

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a corollary prediction: AIs will disagree. Too many people imagine AIs are somehow "perfectly rational" and therefore will never disagree, they'll just tap into a unified decision making engine and automatically integrate all of their knowledge. In order to integrate knowledge you need more knowledge. And in order to integrate that you need more still. It's turtles all the way down. If anything, AIs are at a…

If AI is to agree they need all the facts. And as we keep adding facts almost daily, there is simply no chance that the AI will have all the facts. We like to think of logic as 1+1=2. But logic is more like A+B-C*D/E=F. Where any number of those being either completely unknown (we sometimes do not even know we are missing them), or some wide range of potential values.

You need a third model to map facts from one model into facts in another model. Doesn't really solve the problem.

Re: Why Are Human Teeth So Messed Up?

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have kids? Everybody thinks everything causes choking. People stop you on the street to tell you how to feed your toddlers. Grapes were particularly suspect in our neighborhood. People cut them in half, believing it was safer. You are right, I'm sure, about chewing being important to learn; and it would have to be a tiny piece in order for it to be hard to choke on it, anyway, so cutting it small certainly won…

Well, grapes do cause choking in young kids. Just the right size to wedge in the airway. But yeah I'm sure many warnings are overdone.

I don't doubt it! I just can't imagine that half a grape is safer than a whole grape for small kids.

Re: Why Are Human Teeth So Messed Up?

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wisdom teeth spread their roots the older they get. Basically the roots look like this at first || and after they get settled in, they're more like this: _/\_ and at that point getting them out WILL suck. So if you have any family history of your wisdom teeth being f'd up, get them removed as soon as possible. My top two wisdom teeth were out before I even noticed the dentist was doing anything. Then I got stupid and…

I had the opposite problem: they were still very low down when they started impacting the other teeth, and as a result they were still rooted in the cranial nerve. I had to wait longer for them to grow out further and impact even harder before I could get them taken out without high risk of facial paralysis. As it was I still lost feeling in one half of my tongue.

And you still have lost feeling? Do you bite it a lot?

Re: Why Are Human Teeth So Messed Up?

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the opposite problem: they were still very low down when they started impacting the other teeth, and as a result they were still rooted in the cranial nerve. I had to wait longer for them to grow out further and impact even harder before I could get them taken out without high risk of facial paralysis. As it was I still lost feeling in one half of my tongue.

And you still have lost feeling? Do you bite it a lot?

It was worse in the beginning, now it is more like the front-left 1/3 is numb. No, I don't really bite it. It made speaking in the beginning difficult, but I've learned how to work around it.

Re: Why Are Human Teeth So Messed Up?

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, grapes do cause choking in young kids. Just the right size to wedge in the airway. But yeah I'm sure many warnings are overdone.

I don't doubt it! I just can't imagine that half a grape is safer than a whole grape for small kids.

A half is much safer because the skin is split.

The whole reason that grapes are dangerous for small kids is that the throat can't break the skin.

Of course, better to tell them to bite first.

I cringe a bit when I see people do the throwing the grape in the air and catch it in their mouths.

Re: Why Are Human Teeth So Messed Up?

#168
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you happen to have a reference on that?

A quick Google Books search found, Tosefta Berachot: Translated Into English with a Commentary https://books.google.com/books?id=ronqNAPipaEC&pg=PA189

Thank you!
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