4 ms·

Sleep is basic resource management: it takes too much resources to both run all macro systems, and also all microsystems (on cellular level). So they take turns

by slver 5y ago

Sleep is basic resource management: it takes too much resources to both run all macro systems, and also all microsystems (on cellular level). So they take turns and interleave through the sleep/wake cycle. As you say, microsystems take over during sleep. From a cell's perspective, they sleep while "we" are awake. This means sleep is advantageous to all multicellular organisms, unless there's great pressure for them to evolve hybrid alternatives (such as sleeping dolphins or migrating birds). It's a bit discouraging that in the mainstream we keep asking "but why sleep tho" or even worse, we keep propagating the wrong answers, when the principles lay before our eyes.

est31 5y ago
It's not just resource management. In humans, during sleep there is a cleanup program that gets rid of waste in your brain. My pet theory is that this is because running cleanup during the day would impair the function of the tissue too much, so it's ran during the sleep phase.
- slver 5y ago
  Yes. Basically we're 2-in-1, we have two modes (macro and micro, or from macro perspective: operation and maintenance), and they're largely incompatible together for many reasons, but both are needed in order for the organism to exist within parameters. This pattern emerges in complex artificial systems as well. "Stop the world" garbage collection in some programming languages. Or the fact most stores prefer to not be open 24/7 not simply to save on salaries and power bills, but also to restock, reorganize shelves etc. The workweek/weeekend cycle is another trivial example. And so on. It's a bit like an OS that distributes time-slices of a single CPU core between a set of "background services" and "the main application".
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
wfn 5y ago
Your reduction is, I think, too simplistic. Some bacteria appear to also have some basic passive/active cycle, for example. It's really fascinating and there's tons of functions interleaved. edit it's not just multi/unicellular modes - REM is very close to awake state, cell activity wise (looking from PoV of brain waves emerging), with source of sensory input being switched to internal; and in deep sleep NREM, large parts of the brain (depends on the animal, hemispheres take turns in some) are in a sort of slow-mo sine wave "sync" (kinda amazing!) Etc. etc.
- slver 5y ago
  My reduction strives to drive home the core of an idea that extends both at higher levels (i.e. we have passive/active cycles as a society as well, the most simple example being workweek/weekend), and lower levels, like your bacteria example. And yes, it's not about "one cell" vs. "all the cells", more generally it's about "higher-level systems" vs. "lower-level systems" where also some functionality serendipitously adapts/fits/evolves into one of those modes without specific regard about where it semantically sits in this hierarchy of complexity. Regarding REM sleep, I think our methodology and terminology is a bit too crude, electrical "activity" means very little about the state of the brain. For ex. you have no access to most of your memories while in REM sleep, you can't even determine you're sleeping most of the time, and when you do, you usually forget in a minute or two, your cognitive function is that low. Honestly the way you described REM sleep, it started sounding a bit like unit testing (inputs/outputs come from the repository, not from the user, and this process goes through the entire brain in order). :-) Which... actually might not be far from truth (in some aspects of it).
  - wfn 5y ago
    > where also some functionality serendipitously adapts/fits/evolves into one of those modes without specific regard about where it semantically sits in this hierarchy of complexity. That did make sense, I oversimplified your reduction on first pass :D yea, I agree, nice generalization. And I like this idea re: it not caring where it sits. edit how to even place it on a linear complexity scale anyway... > it started sounding a bit like unit testing In the book I mentioned elsewhere in the thread (Why we sleep), there are some interesting theories related to this... sifting through memories, colliding them together, decisions being made on what to keep, and so on. I sometimes wonder if REM sleep as we experience it is, in part, the phenomenological perception of a kind of encoding and compression process, looking from the inside, as it were. Well, in a way I didn't say much I guess, because you can model so many things as a type of compression :D but anyway. Yea, cool stuff...

by slver 5y ago

est31 5y ago

It's not just resource management. In humans, during sleep there is a cleanup program that gets rid of waste in your brain. My pet theory is that this is because running cleanup during the day would impair the function of the tissue too much, so it's ran during the sleep phase.

slver 5y ago
Yes. Basically we're 2-in-1, we have two modes (macro and micro, or from macro perspective: operation and maintenance), and they're largely incompatible together for many reasons, but both are needed in order for the organism to exist within parameters. This pattern emerges in complex artificial systems as well. "Stop the world" garbage collection in some programming languages. Or the fact most stores prefer to not be open 24/7 not simply to save on salaries and power bills, but also to restock, reorganize shelves etc. The workweek/weeekend cycle is another trivial example. And so on. It's a bit like an OS that distributes time-slices of a single CPU core between a set of "background services" and "the main application".
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

wfn 5y ago

Your reduction is, I think, too simplistic. Some bacteria appear to also have some basic passive/active cycle, for example. It's really fascinating and there's tons of functions interleaved. edit it's not just multi/unicellular modes - REM is very close to awake state, cell activity wise (looking from PoV of brain waves emerging), with source of sensory input being switched to internal; and in deep sleep NREM, large parts of the brain (depends on the animal, hemispheres take turns in some) are in a sort of slow-mo sine wave "sync" (kinda amazing!) Etc. etc.

slver 5y ago
My reduction strives to drive home the core of an idea that extends both at higher levels (i.e. we have passive/active cycles as a society as well, the most simple example being workweek/weekend), and lower levels, like your bacteria example. And yes, it's not about "one cell" vs. "all the cells", more generally it's about "higher-level systems" vs. "lower-level systems" where also some functionality serendipitously adapts/fits/evolves into one of those modes without specific regard about where it semantically sits in this hierarchy of complexity. Regarding REM sleep, I think our methodology and terminology is a bit too crude, electrical "activity" means very little about the state of the brain. For ex. you have no access to most of your memories while in REM sleep, you can't even determine you're sleeping most of the time, and when you do, you usually forget in a minute or two, your cognitive function is that low. Honestly the way you described REM sleep, it started sounding a bit like unit testing (inputs/outputs come from the repository, not from the user, and this process goes through the entire brain in order). :-) Which... actually might not be far from truth (in some aspects of it).
- wfn 5y ago
  > where also some functionality serendipitously adapts/fits/evolves into one of those modes without specific regard about where it semantically sits in this hierarchy of complexity. That did make sense, I oversimplified your reduction on first pass :D yea, I agree, nice generalization. And I like this idea re: it not caring where it sits. edit how to even place it on a linear complexity scale anyway... > it started sounding a bit like unit testing In the book I mentioned elsewhere in the thread (Why we sleep), there are some interesting theories related to this... sifting through memories, colliding them together, decisions being made on what to keep, and so on. I sometimes wonder if REM sleep as we experience it is, in part, the phenomenological perception of a kind of encoding and compression process, looking from the inside, as it were. Well, in a way I didn't say much I guess, because you can model so many things as a type of compression :D but anyway. Yea, cool stuff...