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Mammals dream about the world they are about to experience before they are born

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Re: Mammals dream about the world they are about to experience before they are born

#131

Post by mandelken »

eru wrote: post #130
jacinda wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this is commonly attributed to the fact that human babies have immature brains that cannot mature due to birth canal constraints, which is constrained by pelvis size which is constrained by the need to walk upright Interestingly, the EGG hypothesis postulates that the constraining factor is not pelvis size, but rather that neonates consume so much energy that we give birth just before a women's metabolic limits wou…

> Interestingly, the EGG hypothesis postulates that the constraining factor is not pelvis size, but rather that neonates consume so much energy that we give birth just before a women's metabolic limits would otherwise be overrun (leading to both maternal and infant death). Based on this, the increased energy demands of our larger brains mean that we have to sacrifice neonatal motor skills or drastically improve the m…

Perhaps it’s more than just calories or energy intake, but as well doing the breathing, immuno responses, digesting, filtering blood etc. for both mother and baby?

Re: Mammals dream about the world they are about to experience before they are born

#132

Post by mortehu »

jacobolus wrote: post #98
danielheath wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve seen a 2mo with the leg strength required. If you balanced them they would hold themselves up, no problem. The balance comes much later than the strength.

The balance can also be trained relatively quickly, but newborns typically get very little practice. If you start occasionally holding your baby up by the thighs when they are 4–5 months old (their back/abdomen muscles at that point are typically plenty strong), after about a month they will have the balance to hold their torso upright when sitting on an adult’s shoulders, for at least a while. By age 8–9 months they…

Based on my experience with our first child, these might be placebo exercises, and the babies might have met those goals on their own. Assuming you haven't done a randomized trial.

Re: Mammals dream about the world they are about to experience before they are born

#133

Post by g3e0 »

Reminds me of the theory that dreaming (and music) evolved to "practice" hypothetical situations and emotions before they happen - https://whatismusic.info/blog/AUnifiedTheoryOfMusicAndDreami...

It's easy for me to believe that this could have initially evolved to give babies slightly more preparation for the outside world (and therefore a slightly higher chance of survival), and that we just happen to retain the ability throughout adulthood.

Re: Mammals dream about the world they are about to experience before they are born

#134

Post by agent008t »

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #118
agent008t wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting on 6kg in a year is not that fast, people do sometimes gain weight faster than that in adulthood.

That's not growth, just fat accumulation which is a much simpler process.

And a child puts on 100% bone and muscle?

Re: Mammals dream about the world they are about to experience before they are born

#135

Post by agent008t »

Nition wrote: post #124
agent008t wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting on 6kg in a year is not that fast, people do sometimes gain weight faster than that in adulthood.

I'm going by average weight gain from normal growth. But let's look at height instead then. Average height at age 12: 59". At age 13: 62". 3" of growth. At birth: 19". At one year: 29". 11" of growth. Try matching that just by eating more. (obviously, yes, it's easier for a small thing to grow than a large thing. But it's still crazy fast. Imagine being 50% taller in a year)

You talked about weight gain, in absolute terms. A novice powerlifter can easily put on both more absolute weight and absolute strength in a year than a newborn.

Re: Mammals dream about the world they are about to experience before they are born

#136

Post by archibaldJ »

Once upon a time, I woke up from a dream and was greeted by friendly beings. They looked at me in wonder, and were surprised I’m awake. The lights in the room were very cozy. Soon I went back to sleep, and there I was, veritably back in this world again. Now I do not know whether I had taken LSD and visited a different world, or I had temporarily woken up from this dream, and now making sense of the waking up as “a LSD experience”.

Re: Mammals dream about the world they are about to experience before they are born

#137

Post by lelanthran »

retrac wrote: post #31
teruakohatu wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are these innate patterns of activity priming mammalian brains in a similar way? A newborn foal can stand within 55 minutes of being born and can walk or run within 90 minutes. That is crazy fast training speed. Is it training initialization or is it a form of transfer learning? Most human babies take 9-18 months to walk, and this is commonly attributed to the fact that human babies have immature brains that cannot…

> That is crazy fast training speed. Is it? If we ignore compute requirements, how long would a good algorithm take to learn something like balancing a quadrupedal robot, based on real-time feedback to its outputs? It is a simpler problem, but drone flight software based on learning, can re-learn how to fly a quadcopter after something like losing a propeller and a sudden shift in weight distribution, in a few second…

> If we ignore compute requirements, how long would a good algorithm take to learn something like balancing a quadrupedal robot, based on real-time feedback to its outputs? It is a simpler problem, but drone flight software based on learning, can re-learn how to fly a quadcopter after something like losing a propeller and a sudden shift in weight distribution, in a few seconds.

Firstly, the drone software is not re-learning anything; when a baby walks unaided for the first time and you place a rattle in their hands, do you really refer to that as "re-learning walking"?

Secondly, forget about computational requirements and just look at how many iterations have to be run to reach success; mammals (and humans specifically) can "learn" to recognise an entire class of something just from one or two images of that something. Learning something else doesn't "forget" the old thing. A NN trained to recognise faces in images can't, to me knowledge, be trained to also balance a bi-pedal robot, or ride a bicycle.

IOW, what I see currently is that NNs are very one-dimensional - the net that becomes optimised for one task becomes unoptimised for that task if you subsequently add new tasks.

Re: Mammals dream about the world they are about to experience before they are born

#138

Post by FartyMcFarter »

agent008t wrote: post #134
FartyMcFarter wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not growth, just fat accumulation which is a much simpler process.

And a child puts on 100% bone and muscle?

No, but I'm not sure what point you're trying to make?

Re: Mammals dream about the world they are about to experience before they are born

#139

Post by watwut »

jacinda wrote: post #70
teruakohatu wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are these innate patterns of activity priming mammalian brains in a similar way? A newborn foal can stand within 55 minutes of being born and can walk or run within 90 minutes. That is crazy fast training speed. Is it training initialization or is it a form of transfer learning? Most human babies take 9-18 months to walk, and this is commonly attributed to the fact that human babies have immature brains that cannot…

> this is commonly attributed to the fact that human babies have immature brains that cannot mature due to birth canal constraints, which is constrained by pelvis size which is constrained by the need to walk upright Interestingly, the EGG hypothesis postulates that the constraining factor is not pelvis size, but rather that neonates consume so much energy that we give birth just before a women's metabolic limits wou…

> constraining factor is not pelvis size

I kind of doubt that, because if baby is after term, the risk is supposed to be childbirth itself being too dangerous. And they induce birth if the baby is too big too.

Large baby is considered a risk on itself.

Re: Mammals dream about the world they are about to experience before they are born

#140

Post by tk75x »

agent008t wrote: post #134
FartyMcFarter wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not growth, just fat accumulation which is a much simpler process.

And a child puts on 100% bone and muscle?

Plus fat and some water, yes. And furthermore, to go from a 10 pound baby to a 100 pound adult, I will make the claim that a baby has to gain 900% body mass.
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