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Why birds do not fall while sleeping

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Re: Why birds do not fall while sleeping

#81

Post by yann63 »

meindnoch wrote: post #78
avar wrote: post #77

This article doesn't even try to address what I feel is the deeper and more interesting question (but probably one that can't be answered): Why is it that horses, cows, giraffes and birds have all had to come up with a purely passive solution of "locking" themselves in place, either via their joints (for the four-legged), or via the tendon mechanism described here for birds? I.e. why wasn't in simpler in evolutionary…

Also, why didn't any animal evolve a way to avoid sleep completely?

There's a species of bird (Chinstrap penguin) which kinda does that: it sleeps by intervals of 4 (four) seconds only. Many times through day & night. Can these 4 seconds naps be considered sleep? I don't know, but it goes along your question. Source: https://www.nationalgeographic.fr/animaux/insolite-decouvert...

Re: Why birds do not fall while sleeping

#82

Post by pnut »

cryptoz wrote: post #4
dhosek wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kangaroos engage in quadrupedal (actually pentapedal—using their tail as well) locomotion at slow speeds.

Humans also engage in quadrupedal locomotion, often at any speed and sometimes up stairs too. Also, I see both of my dogs standing on 2 legs every day, often walking short distances like that. According to wikipedia this only happens when they are trained to do it (?!) but we never trained them and they've been doing it since a few months old. Maybe I should update https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipedalism to indicate…

And in the case of humans possessed by Satan, they frequently will engage in quadrupedal locomotion at speed down stairs and across walls/ceilings, bent over backwards like a demonic crab.

Re: Why birds do not fall while sleeping

#83

Post by lpat »

nkrisc wrote: post #72
Crazyontap wrote: post #12

When I was younger, I was fascinated by evolution, especially the intricacies of how things just work. This fascination also explains why many people believe in the intelligent design theory. However, witnessing the rapid evolution of AI with just a few hundred GPUs, enough data, and power, I no longer wonder what a billion years of feedback loops and randomness can achieve.

The fascination with “intelligent design” is cherry-picking. The is no shortage of “unintelligent design” in the natural world. Take humans, for example. You can block your trachea and die through the simple act of eating. An intelligent (and omniscient) designer could have avoided that by better designing our overall our overall structure. Or take the fact or ear bones are modified jaw bones. Or if you believe in in…

That's pretty weak argument against intelligent design.

1. The designer does not have to be "omniscient" only intelligent. Some people believe in it's omniscience but I don't think it's a requirement.

2. How do you know that our trachea is not an optimal design when you take into account all the tradeoffs?

3. You're surrounded by items created by intelligent design (us) and all of them have flaws, reused parts and tend to break. Obviously you wouldn't argue based on this that they weren't designed by intelligent beings.

Re: Why birds do not fall while sleeping

#84

Post by interludead »

Crazyontap wrote: post #12

When I was younger, I was fascinated by evolution, especially the intricacies of how things just work. This fascination also explains why many people believe in the intelligent design theory. However, witnessing the rapid evolution of AI with just a few hundred GPUs, enough data, and power, I no longer wonder what a billion years of feedback loops and randomness can achieve.

It makes the idea of randomness and feedback loops in nature more tangible

Re: Why birds do not fall while sleeping

#85

Post by interludead »

meindnoch wrote: post #78
avar wrote: post #77

This article doesn't even try to address what I feel is the deeper and more interesting question (but probably one that can't be answered): Why is it that horses, cows, giraffes and birds have all had to come up with a purely passive solution of "locking" themselves in place, either via their joints (for the four-legged), or via the tendon mechanism described here for birds? I.e. why wasn't in simpler in evolutionary…

Also, why didn't any animal evolve a way to avoid sleep completely?

Sleep has crucial role in survival and well-being

Re: Why birds do not fall while sleeping

#86

Post by delichon »

nkrisc wrote: post #72
Crazyontap wrote: post #12

When I was younger, I was fascinated by evolution, especially the intricacies of how things just work. This fascination also explains why many people believe in the intelligent design theory. However, witnessing the rapid evolution of AI with just a few hundred GPUs, enough data, and power, I no longer wonder what a billion years of feedback loops and randomness can achieve.

The fascination with “intelligent design” is cherry-picking. The is no shortage of “unintelligent design” in the natural world. Take humans, for example. You can block your trachea and die through the simple act of eating. An intelligent (and omniscient) designer could have avoided that by better designing our overall our overall structure. Or take the fact or ear bones are modified jaw bones. Or if you believe in in…

I consider myself an intelligent designer but have to make compromises in design all the time. The only kind of designers that don't are ones with cartoonish super powers like deities.

Re: Why birds do not fall while sleeping

#87

Post by smusamashah »

nkrisc wrote: post #72
Crazyontap wrote: post #12

When I was younger, I was fascinated by evolution, especially the intricacies of how things just work. This fascination also explains why many people believe in the intelligent design theory. However, witnessing the rapid evolution of AI with just a few hundred GPUs, enough data, and power, I no longer wonder what a billion years of feedback loops and randomness can achieve.

The fascination with “intelligent design” is cherry-picking. The is no shortage of “unintelligent design” in the natural world. Take humans, for example. You can block your trachea and die through the simple act of eating. An intelligent (and omniscient) designer could have avoided that by better designing our overall our overall structure. Or take the fact or ear bones are modified jaw bones. Or if you believe in in…

When you notice these flaws you are seeing it in very very short term. What we are today is what eventually worked for a million years. The design you see today is the way it is because it had to be robust enough (including those problems) to survive to this day.

The examples you quote do look like a problem today, but I think they must have worked to some benefit to bring us here.

Re: Why birds do not fall while sleeping

#88

Post by nkrisc »

lpat wrote: post #83
nkrisc wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fascination with “intelligent design” is cherry-picking. The is no shortage of “unintelligent design” in the natural world. Take humans, for example. You can block your trachea and die through the simple act of eating. An intelligent (and omniscient) designer could have avoided that by better designing our overall our overall structure. Or take the fact or ear bones are modified jaw bones. Or if you believe in in…

That's pretty weak argument against intelligent design. 1. The designer does not have to be "omniscient" only intelligent. Some people believe in it's omniscience but I don't think it's a requirement. 2. How do you know that our trachea is not an optimal design when you take into account all the tradeoffs? 3. You're surrounded by items created by intelligent design (us) and all of them have flaws, reused parts and te…

> How do you know that our trachea is not an optimal design when you take into account all the tradeoffs?

Because if we were designed from scratch we could have been designed in any optimal shape or form.

> You're surrounded by items created by intelligent design (us) and all of them have flaws, reused parts and tend to break. Obviously you wouldn't argue based on this that they weren't designed by intelligent beings.

Show me an intelligent designer who can literally design the universe, but is still not intelligent enough to avoid these flaws even we can recognize. I don’t think we are intelligent enough to design a completely novel life form, let alone as many as exist on earth in all their forms.

This is all beside the point that there’s no evidence of any kind for intelligent design, only supposition based on nothing more than intuition and feelings.

Re: Why birds do not fall while sleeping

#89

Post by nkrisc »

smusamashah wrote: post #87
nkrisc wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fascination with “intelligent design” is cherry-picking. The is no shortage of “unintelligent design” in the natural world. Take humans, for example. You can block your trachea and die through the simple act of eating. An intelligent (and omniscient) designer could have avoided that by better designing our overall our overall structure. Or take the fact or ear bones are modified jaw bones. Or if you believe in in…

When you notice these flaws you are seeing it in very very short term. What we are today is what eventually worked for a million years. The design you see today is the way it is because it had to be robust enough (including those problems) to survive to this day. The examples you quote do look like a problem today, but I think they must have worked to some benefit to bring us here.

Yes, you’re describing evolution.

Re: Why birds do not fall while sleeping

#90

Post by 9dev »

smusamashah wrote: post #87
nkrisc wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fascination with “intelligent design” is cherry-picking. The is no shortage of “unintelligent design” in the natural world. Take humans, for example. You can block your trachea and die through the simple act of eating. An intelligent (and omniscient) designer could have avoided that by better designing our overall our overall structure. Or take the fact or ear bones are modified jaw bones. Or if you believe in in…

When you notice these flaws you are seeing it in very very short term. What we are today is what eventually worked for a million years. The design you see today is the way it is because it had to be robust enough (including those problems) to survive to this day. The examples you quote do look like a problem today, but I think they must have worked to some benefit to bring us here.

GP is arguing for something else though, namely that intelligent design is a fallacy. It’s advocacies argue that god created humans a mere 10k years or so ago, which obviously implies we didn’t evolve over millions of years, but were in fact created with inexplicable flaws. It’s all bullshit, of course, but there are people believing that.
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