So mammals are NOT Tabula Rasa at all.
Some people today need to learn this.
Mammals dream about the world they are about to experience before they are born
181–190 of 193 posts
Re: Mammals dream about the world they are about to experience before they are born
#182Earlier 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…
> Most human babies take 9-18 months to walk, and this is commonly attributed to the fact that human babies have immature brains... Isn't it just a matter of priorities? Many birds spend a similar proportion of their life unable to fly, but they're safe in a nest. If you're a foal on the savanna, you need to get up.
Yes, I agree. Horses are exclusively prey animals in a natural setting. A newborn human would have had it's armed "pack" to protect it from predators.
Re: Mammals dream about the world they are about to experience before they are born
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah - I just meant specifically 3D visual modeling. I think some fears are known to be innate among apes - fear of the dark, snakes, and falling. Also paying attention to faces? The cataracts thing was an article I saw on HN a few years ago, but don’t remember the title.
> don’t remember the title. Found this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17687533 which leads to: https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/people-cured-blindne... which leads to: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1993/05/10/to-see-and-not... > TO SEE AND NOT SEE By Oliver Sacks May 2, 1993 > A NEUROLOGIST'S NOTEBOOK about Virgil (pseud.), who lost his eyesight as a child, and regained it at age 50. Tells how he c…
Yep - that looks like the stuff I was remembering, nice find.
Re: Mammals dream about the world they are about to experience before they are born
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you missed the point: they're going to be born and have to deal with reality in any case. There would be no possible consequence of a failed unit test.
Not if the host aborts
The woman has no idea if the baby is passing "unit tests" or not, and so no abortion can depend on hypothetical "unit tests." Quit with this made-up nonsense.
Re: Mammals dream about the world they are about to experience before they are born
#185Re: Mammals dream about the world they are about to experience before they are born
#186Earlier 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…
Having gone through it, while it's true you need more calories after the baby is born (I breastfed and pumped exclusively and was told it's about 500 calories per day vs 300 or so extra prior to birth) the strain on your body is lessened because you are producing a single item (milk) going to one part of your body that's drained periodically.
In contrast, by the third trimester of pregnancy, your total blood volume has increased by approximately 50% (3-4 pounds of additional blood), not to mention an extra 2-3 pounds of retained fluid, 2 pounds of amniotic fluid, and 1.5 pounds of placenta. All told, this is another ~10 pounds on top of the baby. Additionally, the mother / placenta is performing all respiratory and blood filtration functions on behalf of the fetus (the kidneys don't really do much prior to birth other than produce urine).
> https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/pregnancy-week-...
Personally, while breastfeeding and newborn care was exhausting, it felt more akin to training for an athletic event vs having another entity symbiotically tied to my system like pregnancy.
Re: Mammals dream about the world they are about to experience before they are born
#187Re: Mammals dream about the world they are about to experience before they are born
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Instead, the mother delivers and the neonate’s growth rate slows relative to its fetal growth rate, keeping both the offspring’s and the mother’s energy requirements in check. Growth rate slows after birth, so that would account for some of that. Mother’s also would not need to carry around the weight of the baby, and would be more able to provide for the child.
Women in Africa (in traditional societies), carried their babies on their backs while they worked the fields, carried water, etc.
Baby-wearing is pretty popular in modern times and other parts of the world too.
Though it's not 24/7.
Re: Mammals dream about the world they are about to experience before they are born
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
What I was trying to say is the baby is growing faster. If you stay at average weight throughout your life, like you're tracking along the 50% line on the growth chart, then your fastest weight gain is in your first year. On average that's when you gain the most weight (even in absolute terms), despite the fact that you're much much smaller than, say, a growing teenager.
Re: Mammals dream about the world they are about to experience before they are born
#190A maze and cheese simulator.