What is the evolutionary purpose of sleep?
Let's say the body does X while asleep.
Why doesn't the body just do this while being awake? It would be an evolutionary advantage because your chances of being killed by a predator are higher while you are sleeping.
Why does the body need sleep? Why doesn't the body just do whatever is being done while being awake?
The body can more readily divert resources to healing than it can while awake and active.
>Why doesn't the body just do this while being awake? It would be an evolutionary advantage because your chances of being killed by a predator are higher while you are sleeping.
the trait youre looking for isnt sleeping, but having the sense to dig in somewhere safe to sleep. Creatures that lack the ability to develop that idea would die out pretty quickly.
also id imagine never sleeping and being in a constant state of metabolic overdrive to repair oneself is far too taxing on the body to be a viable evolutionary trait.
I wish I could sleep forever, but people tell me that's called "suicide" and it's supposed to be something bad I guess?
sounds bretty good to me
>The body can more readily divert resources to healing than it can while awake and active.
Well, why? Is it because while awake it needs more resources/energy for body/muscle movements?
Then why don't we just get more hungry the more active we are?
Why does lack of sleep instead result in the effects shown in the OP image?
>It would be an evolutionary advantage because your chances of being killed by a predator are higher while you are sleeping.
That's not how Evolution works.
Have you considered that one of the major functions of sleep cannot be done while you are conscious? Perhaps like temporarily shrinking the neurons of the brain while the spinal fluids removes debris from the brain?
>Perhaps like temporarily shrinking the neurons of the brain while the spinal fluids removes debris from the brain?
Does this actually happen? If yes, why hasn't the brain evolved in such a way that you don't need to lose consciousness for the debris to be removed?
protein folding. too lazy to explain:
blog.elitemeetings.com
Dr. Allan Pack, a sleep biologist at the University of Pennsylvania, says sleep, like orgami, is all about the folds – only in sleep’s case, what we’re folding on the cellular level is protein, the stuff that makes us run.
“You’re made of protein; proteins are the essence of you. Inside certain cells, when you don’t get sleep, you don’t get protein. It’s called the unfolded protein response,” he explained to NPR’s RadioLab. “So if your proteins are not folded properly, they start accumulating inside the cell and form clumps. It’s really quite toxic to cells.”
Dr. Giulio Tononi, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says without sleep to clean out the clumps, our alert mind becomes like a cluttered hotel room in desperate need of maid service. And who hasn’t been there, right?
“Sleep is the annihilation of consciousness,” he told RadioLab. “If people didn’t sleep and didn’t have the unconsciousness of sleep, they possibly wouldn’t even realize that consciousness is a gift.”
Protein folding can't be done while awake?
>why hasn't the brain evolved
Because evolution isn't a conscious process.
If the mutations don't happen, then the mutations simply don't happen.
Not as good
Its all a lie user
Why has sleep occurred at all? Those forms of life who have to sleep are at a disadvantage.
It should just be about absorbing energy and matter via food. Even if sleeping saves energy, not sleeping should just make you more hungry. It shouldn't have any other negative effect on your body.
>Those forms of life who have to sleep are at a disadvantage.
and most of the ones who don't have the disadvantage of being dumb as dirt
So my brain is in a state of limited consciousness and that's why my cells can fold proteins better?
But why? Why is sleep needed to not be dumb?
You're awake, which historically meant you had be diverting energy to other responses, like fight or flight.
>not as good
Wasn't the best response, essentially you're body has a bunch of free time since it knows it probably won't be attacked if you're asleep, and the hormones that are released from that knowledge focus on repair and such that if done during the day, would likely over-tax the body
Imagine you, a prehistoric human and you're caveman bro, running along with basic metabolic processes, chasing a Willy mammoth, then catching it and being chased by a sabertooth. You're body was selected to spend its energy in Mich better ways when you are awake .
the brain utilizes sleep to flush out waste toxins
The toxins should just be flushed out while you're awake.
We evolved to sleep so that we can occasionally be in touch with the dreamworld because we are the chosen species.
Is being unconscious like from a knockout the same as being asleep?
You can't change the parts of your car engine while it's running, you know what I'm saying?
If plants were black, they could absorb more light than if they were green.
So why aren't they black?
Because evolution doesn't give the best solution. Just the easiest general solution.
Even if you ignore the fact that sleep is probably needed to keep the CNS in good working order, consider that for above-ground animals there is only certain times of day you really need to be active. Maybe you eat insects that come out at night, you're too vulnerable to predators during the day so you only go out at night to look for food, or maybe you rely heavily on vision which you can only do properly during the day.
Second, consider that if this is the case, the period of time you're not really able to do much being used in some productive way is superior to just chugging along burning energy doing nothing
Third, consider that during the active period of the day you might have subjected the muscles and other body systems to some wear and tear and they need repair.
Fourth, consider that the perfect time to do that repair would be in this block of time where you're not doing anything else; especially if the function of those body systems is impaired while repairing.
Sleep thus naturally is advantageous for above-ground animals.
>Does this actually happen? I
science.sciencemag.org
Sure, but you can put stuff in and out of your fridge while it's running.
You just came up with an analogy without explaining why it fits.
I want to know the reason why the body needs sleep.
Also you are not turned off completely when you sleep, otherwise you'd be dead.
Resting, thus allowing your muscles to repair, without sleeping would be more advantageous because you could react to approaching predators.
Sleep is mainly a state of the nervous system, it seems. So it seems it's the repairing state of the nervous system. But it isn't even turned off completely, otherwise you'd be dead. So why does it need this altered state to repair? Why can't it just stay fully conscious? Also, why does it have to repair at all?
not the engine but
youtube.com
Can you take apart the parts of the fridge that actively make the inside cooler and have it still run exactly the same?
>Have you considered that one of the major functions of sleep cannot be done while you are conscious? Perhaps like temporarily shrinking the neurons of the brain while the spinal fluids removes debris from the brain?
The fact that you can wake immediately from sleep seems to indicate that whatever is happening is nothing like what you said.
>It should
I don't think you know how evolution works m8.
It's not a conscious entity that picks what's best for every species. It's a very slow process where random dna mutations end up being or not being useful.
Like this user said:
>If the mutations don't happen, then the mutations simply don't happen.
Also, by the way you're violently asking and getting all eager to keep asking instead of carefully reading answers it makes me think you should watch this:
youtube.com
When I go to bed at 00 I wake up at 11am
On the other hand when I have to work I go bed at 23, although I fall asleep at 23:30
but i have to get up at 6:30
how much is that killing me on the inside?
>more protein == more life :DD
>am I smart yet?!
better question: why we evolved to have a monophasic sleep cycle?
why couldn't we have biphasic or even uberman sleep cycle which wastes far less time than our default monophasic sleep?
Besides the very poor wording of Dr. Allan which in itself makes me doubt his credibility are there any papers to support this?
Afaik we are just starting to understand organismal-level UPR regulation so jumping to this conclusion seems nonsense to me.
Also the hypothesis itself just does not make much sense. From a cellular POV maintaining a functional proteome is likely more important than most other energy-consuming processes. Even if we assume the fact that the body cannot sustain both protein folding control and other activities (and while it's true that the UPR does consume some energy it's likely negligible in the grand scheme) the cellular regulation of UPR is fast and modulable.
>evolution has a purpose
No fgt pls
Something something.... dolphins.... something something.... something.
Dreaming helps a lot in memorisation. Deep sleep is the body doing maintenance. You can't do maintenance if you're using the body.
I am told that up until electric light we were bi-phasic.
The brain is not a fridge.
Also the brain is still active while sleeping, the fridge you take apart is not.
The body actually takes damage if you don't sleep, so it seems sleep is actually necessary and evolution hasn't come up with it just randomly.
>it makes me think you should watch this
We could make an analogy to eating:
The food we eat contains fat, carbohydrates, and protein, which are the matter and the energy the body needs. The body needs matter to build the structures it is physically made of and it needs energy to keep up its internal processes and keep up the 37 degrees celsius it has.
Can sleeping be explained this way?