Creatures as wide ranging as octopuses, insects, mammals and more show signs of sleep phases.
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Creatures as wide ranging as octopuses, insects, mammals and more show signs of sleep phases. For some parts of sleep the brain is less active, during others REM, RAM (Rapid Antennae Movement) or other body movements and changes indicate a more active brain.
This suggests that either dreaming evolved multiple times in parallel... or it is something a very very basic common ancestor of all animals experienced.
It also suggests that something about brains means sleep is needed. (IMO)
My armchair guess is that if a creature uses it's neurons to have memories then they MUST dream. Maybe if you can't dream you can't make memories?
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Creatures as wide ranging as octopuses, insects, mammals and more show signs of sleep phases. For some parts of sleep the brain is less active, during others REM, RAM (Rapid Antennae Movement) or other body movements and changes indicate a more active brain.
This suggests that either dreaming evolved multiple times in parallel... or it is something a very very basic common ancestor of all animals experienced.
It also suggests that something about brains means sleep is needed. (IMO)
@futurebird It seems like the fact that much simpler organisms also need sleep suggests it might be plausible to develop a rigorous understanding of the reason for that need..
Like there are probably organisms simple enough that at some point in the near future we'll be able to computationally model their complete neurological function, and *prove theorems* about this.
This doesn't necessarily imply the cause for the need is the same in more complex organisms, but it could suggest that it might be.
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F myrmepropagandist shared this topic
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Creatures as wide ranging as octopuses, insects, mammals and more show signs of sleep phases. For some parts of sleep the brain is less active, during others REM, RAM (Rapid Antennae Movement) or other body movements and changes indicate a more active brain.
This suggests that either dreaming evolved multiple times in parallel... or it is something a very very basic common ancestor of all animals experienced.
It also suggests that something about brains means sleep is needed. (IMO)
@futurebird something I remain curious about is whether, if and when we develop an *actual* synthetic intelligence, it will turn out to need sleep.
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Creatures as wide ranging as octopuses, insects, mammals and more show signs of sleep phases. For some parts of sleep the brain is less active, during others REM, RAM (Rapid Antennae Movement) or other body movements and changes indicate a more active brain.
This suggests that either dreaming evolved multiple times in parallel... or it is something a very very basic common ancestor of all animals experienced.
It also suggests that something about brains means sleep is needed. (IMO)
@futurebird "You can think of [the brain as] like having a house party. You can either entertain the guests or clean up the house, but you can't really do both at the same time."
That's a quote from Prof Maiken Nedergaard at the University of Rochester Medical Centre in New York, whose team believe that sleep is about flushing away "waste", the chemical byproducts of cognition.
I like this theory because it means when you're feeling groggy from lack sleep, it's because your brain is dirty!
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My armchair guess is that if a creature uses it's neurons to have memories then they MUST dream. Maybe if you can't dream you can't make memories?
@futurebird do armchairs dream of upholstered sheep?
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Creatures as wide ranging as octopuses, insects, mammals and more show signs of sleep phases. For some parts of sleep the brain is less active, during others REM, RAM (Rapid Antennae Movement) or other body movements and changes indicate a more active brain.
This suggests that either dreaming evolved multiple times in parallel... or it is something a very very basic common ancestor of all animals experienced.
It also suggests that something about brains means sleep is needed. (IMO)
@futurebird some scientists argue that jellyfish sleep too!
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@futurebird some scientists argue that jellyfish sleep too!
If they sleep then I think we need to check on the plants too. Damn.
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If they sleep then I think we need to check on the plants too. Damn.
@futurebird @temptoetiam Oop:
Do Plants Sleep? Yes, And One Scientist Is Trying To Anesthetise Them
"You can anaesthetise all plants by using the same anaesthetics that work in humans."
IFLScience (www.iflscience.com)
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Creatures as wide ranging as octopuses, insects, mammals and more show signs of sleep phases. For some parts of sleep the brain is less active, during others REM, RAM (Rapid Antennae Movement) or other body movements and changes indicate a more active brain.
This suggests that either dreaming evolved multiple times in parallel... or it is something a very very basic common ancestor of all animals experienced.
It also suggests that something about brains means sleep is needed. (IMO)
A group of scientists made plausible claim that a simple jellyfish has a sleep state.
The Surprising, Ancient Behavior of Jellyfish
The discovery that primitive jellyfish sleep suggests that sleep is an ancient, evolutionarily conserved behavior.
California Institute of Technology (www.caltech.edu)
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A group of scientists made plausible claim that a simple jellyfish has a sleep state.
The Surprising, Ancient Behavior of Jellyfish
The discovery that primitive jellyfish sleep suggests that sleep is an ancient, evolutionarily conserved behavior.
California Institute of Technology (www.caltech.edu)
Ravi Nath, the paper's co-first author and a graduate student in the Sternberg laboratory. "But jellyfish are the most evolutionarily ancient animals known to sleep. This finding opens up many more questions: Is sleep the property of neurons? And perhaps a more far-fetched question: Do plants sleep?"
This makes me feel less silly about wondering about plants. Plants don't have neurons. So, my guess is that they probably do not "dream" ... but rest and active phases may exist?
