Why birds do not fall while sleeping • Hacker News Board

Re: Why birds do not fall while sleeping

#151

Post by HarHarVeryFunny » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 3:00 PM UTC

tsimionescu wrote: post #53

kortilla wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI isn’t being trained on random though. It’s the corpus of a large portion of all of humanity’s written communication. I don’t think it’s a good analogy to evolution. A single training session will iterate more than the number of generations of all birds.

> A single training session will iterate more than the number of generations of all birds. But that's not the right analogy. Evolution happens at the individual level, and even to some extent at the individual gamete level. So it's actually every single fecundated bird egg that ever existed, and even every single spermatozoon and egg cell every time two birds mated. Not to mention every division of every bacterial ce…

> Evolution happens at the individual level

I don't think that's the right way to think about it. Genetic variation originates at an individual level, but "evolution" (differentiated survival of genetic variants) mostly happens at population level after genetic changes have spread among the population. In particular this is the case with "punctuated equilibrium" that has been observed in the fossil record (long periods of stability, interspersed with short periods of rapid change).

What happens is that many genetic variations are subtle and don't have an immediate survival benefit to the individual, so will just accumulate in the population as a whole as they are spread by breeding. Once in a while some environmental change occurs (famine, drought, disease, new predator, etc/etc) that may make a set of accumulated genetic changes, previously benign, now become more important to survival. With multiple sub-populations of the same species that have genetically drifted apart over multiple generations, some will now become more successful than others in this new (changed environment) evolutionary landscape.

Ultimately this sub-population genetic drift may lead to inability of these sub-populations (e.g. plains elephants vs forest elephants) to interbreed, and then no-going-back speciation has occurred, and further drift is guaranteed (due to no interbreeding to merge genetic changes).

Re: Why birds do not fall while sleeping

#152

Post by danans » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 3:08 PM UTC

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…

> I.e. why wasn't in simpler in evolutionary terms to come up with some mechanism where 1% of the brain was dedicated to the relatively simple task of "station keeping",

Supposedly this is how dolphins sleep, shutting off part of the brain and using the other half to swim.

https://us.whales.org/whales-dolphins/how-do-dolphins-sleep/....

Re: Why birds do not fall while sleeping

#153

Post by anvil-on-my-toe » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 3:12 PM UTC

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?

Better to whole-ass one thing than half-ass two things. Sleep allows a focused effort on cellular repair, garbage collection, memory consolidation, and learning.

The 24-hour dark-light cycle on Earth is the most energetically significant thing that happens here, and species capitalize on the parts of the day that play to their strengths.

Re: Why birds do not fall while sleeping

#154

Post by BobaFloutist » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 3:18 PM UTC

Agentus wrote: post #121

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…

Evolution is like DFS depth first search, it isnt looking for an optimal way optimally its just going down a branch until it finds a satisfactory solution. Sleep according to sleep scientist matthew walker, isnt what it seems. If i remember correctly theres even more brain activity and it serves certain goals like behavior refinement, among other things not just refreshing yourself. There might not be more benefit by…

My simple conception is that evolution loves local maxima.

Re: Why birds do not fall while sleeping

#155

Post by akovaski » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 3:21 PM UTC

m463 wrote: post #66

dystroy wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at the article, you'll see the picture of such sculpture (a rather impressive one, by the way).

I didn't see that, are you talking about the bird's leg?

The last image is a pair of pictures of Needle Tower and Needle Tower II, which you can search for if the image doesn't load in the article for you.

Re: Why birds do not fall while sleeping

#156

Post by HarHarVeryFunny » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 3:25 PM UTC

danans wrote: post #152

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…

> I.e. why wasn't in simpler in evolutionary terms to come up with some mechanism where 1% of the brain was dedicated to the relatively simple task of "station keeping", Supposedly this is how dolphins sleep, shutting off part of the brain and using the other half to swim. https://us.whales.org/whales-dolphins/how-do-dolphins-sleep/... .

I think all aquatic mammals do this - they don't have much choice since they need to surface to breathe, so need to be semi-awake all the time.

Re: Why birds do not fall while sleeping

#157

Post by nkrisc » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 3:31 PM UTC

lpat wrote: post #100

nkrisc wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Because if we were designed from scratch we could have been designed in any optimal shape or form Only if you assume the designer had infinite time, knowledge and resources. But life on Earth did not have to be created by some omnipotent god who created universe. It only requires more advanced intelligence than us. Although theoretically even we may reach this level in the future with advances in bioengineering. >…

Intelligent design is a code word for the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions.

If there’s some other scientific theory of “intelligent design” you’re referring to, please enlighten me as I’m not aware of it.

> Depending on what you consider "evidence" the same sentence could be said for evolution.

There is empirical evidence for evolution.

Re: Why birds do not fall while sleeping

#158

Post by hackeraccount » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 3:33 PM UTC

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…

My favorite version of this argument is from Catch-22.

It starts with a discussion about the miseries people suffer and if they have any utility at all. Is pain a useful warning of problems or could that information be gotten across in a better way?

It ends with the two characters agreeing that neither believes in God, with one not believing in a good and kind God and the other not believing in an evil malevolent God.

https://risingentropy.com/catch-22/

Re: Why birds do not fall while sleeping

#159

Post by HarHarVeryFunny » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 3:38 PM UTC

jajko wrote: post #117

interludead wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sleep has crucial role in survival and well-being

Yeah but what role? 24h always at least a bit running brain has also crucial role in survival. I get some form of maintenance is needed, but 8h every day seems like an overkill for very significant disadvantages. Many other mammals require significantly less sleep.

It seems that the brain needs sleep for maintenance/cleanup purposes to process and file away memories of the days activity.

Animals also burn less calories when asleep, meaning they need less food to survive. Any change to sleep less would need to have major benefits of offset the loss of this benefit, as well as only being possible if the "maintenance" need for sleep were reduced or eliminated.

Re: Why birds do not fall while sleeping

#160

Post by glxxyz » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 3:50 PM UTC

Agentus wrote: post #122

johnisgood wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, adjusting our sleeping position has to do with the sensation of pain, a stimuli (pain, discomfort, pressure points) that cause most individuals to reposition during sleep, i.e. it is the sensation of pain from pressure buildup that triggers the need to move during sleep. You are right, it is to prevent prolonged compression of tissues, to avoid bedsores, nerve damage, etc. That said, this is not the whole story,…

I can do more than that. I used to wake up sweaty half the time from sleeping as child. Now that never happens as an adult, i instead wake up with my sweater mysteriously taken off. I wish sleep self would learn to put a sweater on if it turns cold though.

I swear I used to be able to switch off my alarm clock while still fully asleep