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Portions of the brain fall asleep and wake back up all the time

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Re: Portions of the brain fall asleep and wake back up all the time

#51

Post by visarga »

kakarot wrote: post #30
visarga wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We won't have true AI until AI stands on its own. Just as a bootstrapped compiler can compile itself, an AI should be capable to reinvent itself without outside help. Until then, it's just a child-AI, dependent on human brains to be designed and optimized.

But humans aren't even capable of that, and we are intelligent. It still takes a lifetime of learning and experience to create a functional human being, and many never get it right.

One person can't create himself, but people can "compile" other people into existence and teach them, all without the help of technology.

Re: Portions of the brain fall asleep and wake back up all the time

#52

Post by narutouzumaki »

posterboy wrote: post #39
nxc18 wrote: post #20

Taking some time to reflect on and consider my own thinking behavior has been interesting. Just like exploring any other system, subjecting myself to sleep stress (in order to meet aggressive deadlines) has allowed me to see what happens when certain things fail, revealing functional boundaries. I see it as kind of analogous to when you starve a circuit/device of power - it behaves in unexpected ways, revealing imple…

That's the "sound" of your braincells dying. At least that's what I heard relating to tinitus.

What? Can you elaborate?

Re: Portions of the brain fall asleep and wake back up all the time

#53

Post by talideon »

stephengillie wrote: post #50
KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #4

You know how every generation conceives of the brain as a machine that's analogous to the latest technology of that generation? Like in the 19th century, the brain was a steam engine, and then in the 20th it was a computer? Well, apparently now the brain is a smartphone.

The brain is a network of routers.

The brain is a series of tubes.

Re: Portions of the brain fall asleep and wake back up all the time

#54

Post by pjc50 »

posterboy wrote: post #39
nxc18 wrote: post #20

Taking some time to reflect on and consider my own thinking behavior has been interesting. Just like exploring any other system, subjecting myself to sleep stress (in order to meet aggressive deadlines) has allowed me to see what happens when certain things fail, revealing functional boundaries. I see it as kind of analogous to when you starve a circuit/device of power - it behaves in unexpected ways, revealing imple…

That's the "sound" of your braincells dying. At least that's what I heard relating to tinitus.

Not sure of that.

A relative of mine had tinnitus which was cured by hearing aids; the theory offered there was that tinnitus was effectively the brain turning the automatic gain control on hearing up too far.

Re: Portions of the brain fall asleep and wake back up all the time

#55

Post by tomrod »

titzer wrote: post #45
KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #4

You know how every generation conceives of the brain as a machine that's analogous to the latest technology of that generation? Like in the 19th century, the brain was a steam engine, and then in the 20th it was a computer? Well, apparently now the brain is a smartphone.

The difference is that this time around we have massively augmented our data processing capabilities and improved our ability to investigate brain function at multiple scales. We can now formulate falsifiable theories and test them. Science was still pretty immature in the 19th century in that it wasn't always possible to crisply state theories in ways that give rise to testable predictions. Is the brain solely a com…

> We can now formulate falsifiable theories and test them. Science was still pretty immature in the 19th century in that it wasn't always possible to crisply state theories in ways that give rise to testable predictions.

Doesn't that still hold true today with string theory and social sciences?

Re: Portions of the brain fall asleep and wake back up all the time

#56

Post by Insanity »

imjustsaying wrote: post #6
nitrogen wrote: post #3

I seem to recall similar research in rats or mice that found that "sleep" states occurred randomly when awake, and slowly synchronized into moving waves of "sleep" when asleep. If I am indeed remembering correctly, then it would seem more likely that this localized sleep mechanism is shared by all mammals, including humans. I'm sure many of us have experienced cycles of awareness while supposedly fully awake as well.…

Evidence that birds sleep in mid-flight http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms12468

Thank you for this interesting paper!

Re: Portions of the brain fall asleep and wake back up all the time

#58

Post by leereeves »

geon wrote: post #47
visarga wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We won't have true AI until AI stands on its own. Just as a bootstrapped compiler can compile itself, an AI should be capable to reinvent itself without outside help. Until then, it's just a child-AI, dependent on human brains to be designed and optimized.

That's a pretty arbitrary definition. And how long time do you give it? The human race haven't solved that problem in some 20k+ years. If we build an AI today, would you wait that long to decide if it is "true"?

If humans create an AI, but that AI can't create an AI, then humans are still smarter than that AI.

But someone else being smarter doesn't mean the AI isn't intelligent.

Re: Portions of the brain fall asleep and wake back up all the time

#59

Post by stordoff »

bemmu wrote: post #34
nxc18 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this obsession with the "purpose" of dreaming. As far as I have experienced its just noise on the wire that we sometimes are conscious enough to recognize. Having spent enough time in extremely sleep-deprived states for projects recently, I've experienced firsthand a lot of funky stuff going on (e.g. falling asleep and waking up with a full page of class notes in front of me, or realizing that I've…

I have never experienced this. How sleep-deprived do you have to be before you start dreaming while editing a document?

For me at least, it seems to depend on why I'm sleep deprived and what I'm doing. I spent 100 hours straight through working on my dissertation (only breaks to go fetch food etc.), and felt fine for the entire period - no fatigue, no noticeable cognitive effects, I was alert and coherent - right up until I stopped writing. Then it all just hit me all at once - speaking coherently was a challenge, there was an afterimage if I looked around too quickly, my mind was full of scattered and fragmented half-thoughts (not dreaming, but a similar feeling), and I ended asking a friend to go with me to a building I'd been to hundreds (possibly thousands) of times because I wasn't sure I'd find my way there. To put it simply, I was mentally a mess, and just needed to crash for 18 hours to recover.

On the other hand, I'm currently sleep deprived due to insomnia (it's 1320 on Tuesday, and I've had less than an hour sleep since 0900 on Friday), and the effects have been much more gradual. It's a steady build-up of fatigue and general "brain slowness" for lack of a better word (e.g. I was playing Picross last night, and puzzles that normally would take me less than ten minutes took me more than half an hour), but I'm more or less fine - no visual effects, my thoughts are coherent, and it doesn't feel much different to how I'd be after a long day working (just significantly more severe).

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