Eliminate Sleep? Is evolution proof that we can't get rid of the need for sleep?

[Fritzo]

Maybe we're just super addicted to things like sleep and breathing.

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

Originally posted by: funkymatt

Originally posted by: Mr Pickles

Originally posted by: Arcadio

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: Arcadio
Never mind evolution. In a few decades, our technological advances will be so great, that we will be able to modify our own bodies to fit whatever needs are necessary. We will be in full control of our biological systems. If a person is about to die: no problem! just transfer the information in that person's brain to a blank template and continue living.

That may be possible some day, but it is going to take a lot longer than a few decades. You and I will not see it in our lifetimes. We will see improvements, but not as drastic as you are describing in that time period. Not only will it take a while for the science to be perfected, but then you also need to consider all of the moral conflicts and government legislation necessary.

You're forgetting about the exponential rise of technological advancements that is presently occurring. The mistake that most people make is that they think technological progress will always advance at the current rate, when in reality the rate of technological advancement is also increasing. In other words, the more progress we make, the faster we will be able to achieve new progress. So right now, with current technology, we are experiencing many tech advances. But those same tech advances will develop even more tech advances, faster than before. And those new tech advances will develop even more tech advances, even faster than before..

Really? Because many futurists believe we are heading for a technology progress plateau due to our reliance of the silicon chip and our inability to increase the amount of transistors it can hold. Some not only believe that we're heading for a plateau but actually a steady decline in progress within humanity as a whole because of this. I'll look for a relative link for citation.

This is the first time I've legitimately acknowledged your presence on this forum, Arcadio. Even though its a tangent off the main topic. Don't let me down, son.

These same futurists have been saying the same thing for years, even though there are technological breakthroughs that constantly enable the preservation of Moore's law.

Yes, but those techs are slowing and more importantly we are reaching natural barriers that we have yet to overcome. Just to name a few, AFAIK we have yet to develop a way to transmit electrons (or an electrical signal) in a wire smaller than an electron's diameter. Also there is a very real issue of leakage, with the smaller techs we have issues where some barriers on the chip are only a few atoms wide. When they are that thin, we get data loss and because of that runs hotter (has to do more work for the same amount of data).

Look at clock speeds. With current tech we can't make chips faster without getting into techs like N2 cooling (which is both dangerous and costly). I agree with Mr. Pickles that we are beginning to reach a plateau with technology, and unless we have some breakthroughs we won't be able to further our technological progress.

 

[Crono]

Originally posted by: RadiclDreamer

Originally posted by: Xavier434
I have been trying to invent the Enertron for years now, but I am still hungry.

Nice Crono Trigger reference, am I the only one that got it?

Nope, I got it. That machine always made me sad

Nice username, btw. I never played that game (not counting the first 10 minutes I tried like 5 years ago - I think I need to have another go at it).

 

[zinfamous]

Originally posted by: DisgruntledVirus

Originally posted by: Arcadio
Evolution eliminates unnecessary needs. Sleep is necessary. Therefore, sleep cannot be eliminated.

OP is saying that evolution should have let us evolve so we don't need sleep (or as much sleep). Sleep would become unnessary. Therefore, sleep could be eliminated.

Holy shit. In this case, 'Arcadio is closer to understanding the reality behind this. Just look at what 'Arcadio says.

The problem with the OP is that he's got a twisted view of how evolution works. (though it is not completely true that evolution eliminates what is unnecessary)

 

[zinfamous]

Originally posted by: sdifox

Originally posted by: sao123

Originally posted by: sdifox

Originally posted by: Don Rodriguez
Think about it.

If we were able to eliminate sleep - wouldn't it have been facilitated via evolution?

As it appears as humans as a whole, (not talking about specific age groups), our sleep necessities appear to have remained the same - we have not even even lessened the volume necessary... (as a whole, not age groups). People claim to be able to function on less sleep, but as far as I can find there is no scientific proof of this....

edit: also - almost all animals need sleep - the better majority of them - wouldn't evolution have "taken care" of that also?


right?

Sleep = regeneration/recuperation period. Makes perfect sense in evolution. Try to explain rest/sleep with ID.

God rested on the 7th day. deal with it.

According to Christian beliefs, you are made in the IMAGE of God. Not made like god. Just because God can go at it for 6 day straight and then rest doesn't mean you can. You are most definitely not God.

Explain why humans slept before the advent of Christianity and still slept after Christianity.

well, to be technically fair, this is the Hebrew god we are talking about, who did exist before Christians. But yes, humans have been sleeping before any god appeared.

 

[SlitheryDee]

Because evolution isn't all that great at endowing those subject to it with every best possible adaptation. We'll do much better when we have the technology.

 

[zinfamous]

Originally posted by: Arcadio

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: Arcadio
Never mind evolution. In a few decades, our technological advances will be so great, that we will be able to modify our own bodies to fit whatever needs are necessary. We will be in full control of our biological systems. If a person is about to die: no problem! just transfer the information in that person's brain to a blank template and continue living.

That may be possible some day, but it is going to take a lot longer than a few decades. You and I will not see it in our lifetimes. We will see improvements, but not as drastic as you are describing in that time period. Not only will it take a while for the science to be perfected, but then you also need to consider all of the moral conflicts and government legislation necessary.

You're forgetting about the exponential rise of technological advancements that is presently occurring. The mistake that most people make is that they think technological progress will always advance at the current rate, when in reality the rate of technological advancement is also increasing. In other words, the more progress we make, the faster we will be able to achieve new progress. So right now, with current technology, we are experiencing many tech advances. But those same tech advances will develop even more tech advances, faster than before. And those new tech advances will develop even more tech advances, even faster than before..

you're ignoring the limits imposed on the natural world, which simply can't be overcome by something so "simple" as technology. This kind of thinking happens when one's understanding of science is at a rather base level.

Though inaccurate, I still think your one-line description of evolution was more accurate than the OP's logic.

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: Crono

Originally posted by: RadiclDreamer

Originally posted by: Xavier434
I have been trying to invent the Enertron for years now, but I am still hungry.

Nice Crono Trigger reference, am I the only one that got it?

Nope, I got it. That machine always made me sad

Nice username, btw. I never played that game (not counting the first 10 minutes I tried like 5 years ago - I think I need to have another go at it).

Glad you two caught it hehe.

 

[Pheran]

Beggars in Spain

It's an excellent read.

 

[videogames101]

Originally posted by: DisgruntledVirus

Originally posted by: funkymatt

Originally posted by: Mr Pickles

Originally posted by: Arcadio

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: Arcadio
Never mind evolution. In a few decades, our technological advances will be so great, that we will be able to modify our own bodies to fit whatever needs are necessary. We will be in full control of our biological systems. If a person is about to die: no problem! just transfer the information in that person's brain to a blank template and continue living.

That may be possible some day, but it is going to take a lot longer than a few decades. You and I will not see it in our lifetimes. We will see improvements, but not as drastic as you are describing in that time period. Not only will it take a while for the science to be perfected, but then you also need to consider all of the moral conflicts and government legislation necessary.

You're forgetting about the exponential rise of technological advancements that is presently occurring. The mistake that most people make is that they think technological progress will always advance at the current rate, when in reality the rate of technological advancement is also increasing. In other words, the more progress we make, the faster we will be able to achieve new progress. So right now, with current technology, we are experiencing many tech advances. But those same tech advances will develop even more tech advances, faster than before. And those new tech advances will develop even more tech advances, even faster than before..

Really? Because many futurists believe we are heading for a technology progress plateau due to our reliance of the silicon chip and our inability to increase the amount of transistors it can hold. Some not only believe that we're heading for a plateau but actually a steady decline in progress within humanity as a whole because of this. I'll look for a relative link for citation.

This is the first time I've legitimately acknowledged your presence on this forum, Arcadio. Even though its a tangent off the main topic. Don't let me down, son.

These same futurists have been saying the same thing for years, even though there are technological breakthroughs that constantly enable the preservation of Moore's law.

Yes, but those techs are slowing and more importantly we are reaching natural barriers that we have yet to overcome. Just to name a few, AFAIK we have yet to develop a way to transmit electrons (or an electrical signal) in a wire smaller than an electron's diameter. Also there is a very real issue of leakage, with the smaller techs we have issues where some barriers on the chip are only a few atoms wide. When they are that thin, we get data loss and because of that runs hotter (has to do more work for the same amount of data).

Look at clock speeds. With current tech we can't make chips faster without getting into techs like N2 cooling (which is both dangerous and costly). I agree with Mr. Pickles that we are beginning to reach a plateau with technology, and unless we have some breakthroughs we won't be able to further our technological progress.

You guys appear to be forgetting, if we can't make things smaller, we can make them larger. Think about the first computers. Massive. We use our small CPUs in large scale.

On the note of scalability, parallel processing, and clock speed...

Why do you think so much effort is being made to make modern programs multi-threaded? We're getting around the clock speed barrier by increasing the number of cores in CPUs. It's solutions like that that makes me think we will find different ways to increase our computing power, whenever we hit practical limits like we did with clock speed.

Also, think quantum computing.

 

[SSSnail]

So God created heaven and earth, then he said "Let there be light". He should have turned on the light first.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pbEjOH7t0Q

 

[GenHoth]

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: Crono

Originally posted by: RadiclDreamer

Originally posted by: Xavier434
I have been trying to invent the Enertron for years now, but I am still hungry.

Nice Crono Trigger reference, am I the only one that got it?

Nope, I got it. That machine always made me sad

Nice username, btw. I never played that game (not counting the first 10 minutes I tried like 5 years ago - I think I need to have another go at it).

Glad you two caught it hehe.

It's one of my favorite games

 

[MrDudeMan]

lol @ turning this into a Christian bashing argument

 

[SunnyD]

Gosh, I just read the OP subject line as "Eminate Sheep:..." wtf?

 

[mxyzptlk]

who the hell wants to eliminate sleep? FUCK that guy right now :|


I like's my dozing time.. Right now the only creatures who are allowed to interrupt my sleep are my cat and my girlfriend and if one of them does it, it had damn well better be via blowjob..

 

[takeru]

is there a study about long term affects of sleep deprivation? like, compare people who NEED 8+ hours of sleep to function properly as opposed to people that have been accustomed to sleeping only around 3-4 hours a day, and still function the same as someone with a full nights sleep?

 

[takeru]

Originally posted by: mxyzptlk
who the hell wants to eliminate sleep? FUCK that guy right now :|


I like's my dozing time.. Right now the only creatures who are allowed to interrupt my sleep are my cat and my girlfriend and if one of them does it, it had damn well better be via blowjob..

i don't think your cat giving you a blowjob will feel good at all....

 

[Mr Pickles]

Originally posted by: takeru

Originally posted by: mxyzptlk
who the hell wants to eliminate sleep? FUCK that guy right now :|


I like's my dozing time.. Right now the only creatures who are allowed to interrupt my sleep are my cat and my girlfriend and if one of them does it, it had damn well better be via blowjob..

i don't think your cat giving you a blowjob will feel good at all....

I shudder at the thought of their rough tongues.

 

[funkymatt]

Originally posted by: videogames101

Originally posted by: DisgruntledVirus

Originally posted by: funkymatt

Originally posted by: Mr Pickles

Originally posted by: Arcadio

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: Arcadio
Never mind evolution. In a few decades, our technological advances will be so great, that we will be able to modify our own bodies to fit whatever needs are necessary. We will be in full control of our biological systems. If a person is about to die: no problem! just transfer the information in that person's brain to a blank template and continue living.

That may be possible some day, but it is going to take a lot longer than a few decades. You and I will not see it in our lifetimes. We will see improvements, but not as drastic as you are describing in that time period. Not only will it take a while for the science to be perfected, but then you also need to consider all of the moral conflicts and government legislation necessary.

You're forgetting about the exponential rise of technological advancements that is presently occurring. The mistake that most people make is that they think technological progress will always advance at the current rate, when in reality the rate of technological advancement is also increasing. In other words, the more progress we make, the faster we will be able to achieve new progress. So right now, with current technology, we are experiencing many tech advances. But those same tech advances will develop even more tech advances, faster than before. And those new tech advances will develop even more tech advances, even faster than before..

Really? Because many futurists believe we are heading for a technology progress plateau due to our reliance of the silicon chip and our inability to increase the amount of transistors it can hold. Some not only believe that we're heading for a plateau but actually a steady decline in progress within humanity as a whole because of this. I'll look for a relative link for citation.

This is the first time I've legitimately acknowledged your presence on this forum, Arcadio. Even though its a tangent off the main topic. Don't let me down, son.

These same futurists have been saying the same thing for years, even though there are technological breakthroughs that constantly enable the preservation of Moore's law.

Yes, but those techs are slowing and more importantly we are reaching natural barriers that we have yet to overcome. Just to name a few, AFAIK we have yet to develop a way to transmit electrons (or an electrical signal) in a wire smaller than an electron's diameter. Also there is a very real issue of leakage, with the smaller techs we have issues where some barriers on the chip are only a few atoms wide. When they are that thin, we get data loss and because of that runs hotter (has to do more work for the same amount of data).

Look at clock speeds. With current tech we can't make chips faster without getting into techs like N2 cooling (which is both dangerous and costly). I agree with Mr. Pickles that we are beginning to reach a plateau with technology, and unless we have some breakthroughs we won't be able to further our technological progress.

You guys appear to be forgetting, if we can't make things smaller, we can make them larger. Think about the first computers. Massive. We use our small CPUs in large scale.

On the note of scalability, parallel processing, and clock speed...

Why do you think so much effort is being made to make modern programs multi-threaded? We're getting around the clock speed barrier by increasing the number of cores in CPUs. It's solutions like that that makes me think we will find different ways to increase our computing power, whenever we hit practical limits like we did with clock speed.

Also, think quantum computing.

your first paragraph is waaaaay backwards. lol.

but yeah, quantum computing is where I was going. data can be in multiple states at the same time. :wow:

 

[videogames101]

Originally posted by: funkymatt

Originally posted by: videogames101

Originally posted by: DisgruntledVirus

Originally posted by: funkymatt

Originally posted by: Mr Pickles

Originally posted by: Arcadio

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: Arcadio
Never mind evolution. In a few decades, our technological advances will be so great, that we will be able to modify our own bodies to fit whatever needs are necessary. We will be in full control of our biological systems. If a person is about to die: no problem! just transfer the information in that person's brain to a blank template and continue living.

That may be possible some day, but it is going to take a lot longer than a few decades. You and I will not see it in our lifetimes. We will see improvements, but not as drastic as you are describing in that time period. Not only will it take a while for the science to be perfected, but then you also need to consider all of the moral conflicts and government legislation necessary.

You're forgetting about the exponential rise of technological advancements that is presently occurring. The mistake that most people make is that they think technological progress will always advance at the current rate, when in reality the rate of technological advancement is also increasing. In other words, the more progress we make, the faster we will be able to achieve new progress. So right now, with current technology, we are experiencing many tech advances. But those same tech advances will develop even more tech advances, faster than before. And those new tech advances will develop even more tech advances, even faster than before..

Really? Because many futurists believe we are heading for a technology progress plateau due to our reliance of the silicon chip and our inability to increase the amount of transistors it can hold. Some not only believe that we're heading for a plateau but actually a steady decline in progress within humanity as a whole because of this. I'll look for a relative link for citation.

This is the first time I've legitimately acknowledged your presence on this forum, Arcadio. Even though its a tangent off the main topic. Don't let me down, son.

These same futurists have been saying the same thing for years, even though there are technological breakthroughs that constantly enable the preservation of Moore's law.

Yes, but those techs are slowing and more importantly we are reaching natural barriers that we have yet to overcome. Just to name a few, AFAIK we have yet to develop a way to transmit electrons (or an electrical signal) in a wire smaller than an electron's diameter. Also there is a very real issue of leakage, with the smaller techs we have issues where some barriers on the chip are only a few atoms wide. When they are that thin, we get data loss and because of that runs hotter (has to do more work for the same amount of data).

Look at clock speeds. With current tech we can't make chips faster without getting into techs like N2 cooling (which is both dangerous and costly). I agree with Mr. Pickles that we are beginning to reach a plateau with technology, and unless we have some breakthroughs we won't be able to further our technological progress.

You guys appear to be forgetting, if we can't make things smaller, we can make them larger. Think about the first computers. Massive. We use our small CPUs in large scale.

On the note of scalability, parallel processing, and clock speed...

Why do you think so much effort is being made to make modern programs multi-threaded? We're getting around the clock speed barrier by increasing the number of cores in CPUs. It's solutions like that that makes me think we will find different ways to increase our computing power, whenever we hit practical limits like we did with clock speed.

Also, think quantum computing.

your first paragraph is waaaaay backwards. lol.

but yeah, quantum computing is where I was going. data can be in multiple states at the same time. :wow:

I didn't know where I was going with that whole post until I was nearly done, so it was a kind of ramble...

 

[Arcadio]

Originally posted by: Mr Pickles

Originally posted by: Arcadio

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: Arcadio
Never mind evolution. In a few decades, our technological advances will be so great, that we will be able to modify our own bodies to fit whatever needs are necessary. We will be in full control of our biological systems. If a person is about to die: no problem! just transfer the information in that person's brain to a blank template and continue living.

That may be possible some day, but it is going to take a lot longer than a few decades. You and I will not see it in our lifetimes. We will see improvements, but not as drastic as you are describing in that time period. Not only will it take a while for the science to be perfected, but then you also need to consider all of the moral conflicts and government legislation necessary.

You're forgetting about the exponential rise of technological advancements that is presently occurring. The mistake that most people make is that they think technological progress will always advance at the current rate, when in reality the rate of technological advancement is also increasing. In other words, the more progress we make, the faster we will be able to achieve new progress. So right now, with current technology, we are experiencing many tech advances. But those same tech advances will develop even more tech advances, faster than before. And those new tech advances will develop even more tech advances, even faster than before..

Really? Because many futurists believe we are heading for a technology progress plateau due to our reliance of the silicon chip and our inability to increase the amount of transistors it can hold. Some not only believe that we're heading for a plateau but actually a steady decline in progress within humanity as a whole because of this. I'll look for a relative link for citation.

This is the first time I've legitimately acknowledged your presence on this forum, Arcadio. Even though its a tangent off the main topic. Don't let me down, son.

Well, I'm sure that with current knowledge we should be able to develop alternative ways to keep the growth of technology at an exponential rate. Quantum computers is just one example, but just because we don't know right now, doesn't mean we will never know. I'm willing to bet that in less than 5 years scientists will develop a feasible way to continue the exponential growth of computing power (and therefore technological progress)

Sorry for the late reply... I do work.

 

[videogames101]

Originally posted by: Arcadio

Originally posted by: Mr Pickles

Originally posted by: Arcadio

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: Arcadio
Never mind evolution. In a few decades, our technological advances will be so great, that we will be able to modify our own bodies to fit whatever needs are necessary. We will be in full control of our biological systems. If a person is about to die: no problem! just transfer the information in that person's brain to a blank template and continue living.

That may be possible some day, but it is going to take a lot longer than a few decades. You and I will not see it in our lifetimes. We will see improvements, but not as drastic as you are describing in that time period. Not only will it take a while for the science to be perfected, but then you also need to consider all of the moral conflicts and government legislation necessary.

You're forgetting about the exponential rise of technological advancements that is presently occurring. The mistake that most people make is that they think technological progress will always advance at the current rate, when in reality the rate of technological advancement is also increasing. In other words, the more progress we make, the faster we will be able to achieve new progress. So right now, with current technology, we are experiencing many tech advances. But those same tech advances will develop even more tech advances, faster than before. And those new tech advances will develop even more tech advances, even faster than before..

Really? Because many futurists believe we are heading for a technology progress plateau due to our reliance of the silicon chip and our inability to increase the amount of transistors it can hold. Some not only believe that we're heading for a plateau but actually a steady decline in progress within humanity as a whole because of this. I'll look for a relative link for citation.

This is the first time I've legitimately acknowledged your presence on this forum, Arcadio. Even though its a tangent off the main topic. Don't let me down, son.

Well, I'm sure that with current knowledge we should be able to develop alternative ways to keep the growth of technology at an exponential rate. Quantum computers is just one example, but just because we don't know right now, doesn't mean we will never know. I'm willing to bet that in less than 5 years scientists will develop a feasible way to continue the exponential growth of computing power (and therefore technological progress)

Sorry for the late reply... I do work.

haha....






















work...

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

Originally posted by: sdifox

Originally posted by: sao123

Originally posted by: sdifox

Originally posted by: Don Rodriguez
Think about it.

If we were able to eliminate sleep - wouldn't it have been facilitated via evolution?

As it appears as humans as a whole, (not talking about specific age groups), our sleep necessities appear to have remained the same - we have not even even lessened the volume necessary... (as a whole, not age groups). People claim to be able to function on less sleep, but as far as I can find there is no scientific proof of this....

edit: also - almost all animals need sleep - the better majority of them - wouldn't evolution have "taken care" of that also?


right?

Sleep = regeneration/recuperation period. Makes perfect sense in evolution. Try to explain rest/sleep with ID.

God rested on the 7th day. deal with it.

According to Christian beliefs, you are made in the IMAGE of God. Not made like god. Just because God can go at it for 6 day straight and then rest doesn't mean you can. You are most definitely not God.

Explain why humans slept before the advent of Christianity and still slept after Christianity.

Because they are lazy bastards?

 

[yh125d]

Reading this thread makes me want to take a nap

 

[Jeff7]

Incidentally, I'd love to see some kind of experiment on fruit flies:
Slowly lengthen the duration of daylight, maybe at a rate of 5 minutes per generation, or perhaps at an even slower rate. Eventually, it might result in flies which are active their entire lives, without any designated sleep time. It would be interesting to see if there are any ill effects, and also to see if their lifespans shorten by around 30%.