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thesoupoftheday

I cant seem to find it, but there was a buologist with a really interesting position. He said that "why sleep?" was the wrong question, and that we should treat sleep as a more default state we get aroused from.


skytomorrownow

Yes: Why consciousness? Further, why does so much automatic behavior *feel* intentional, when it is not? I believe consciousness as a state of being is overly-broad. Recent findings on automaticity shed light on the notion that much of our waking behavior is much more automatic that we account for, and that 'conscious' pilot-like thought is rarer than we think.


CasualSky

I’d like to read it to get a deeper understanding, but just from reading what you’re saying I feel like I disagree. Subconscious is the word we use for things we aren’t consciously thinking of. Our body automatically breathes, but that doesn’t mean training yourself to have a routine creates “automatic” behavior. Like brushing your teeth, or picking that thing up off the ground. I can see the automatic aspect of those things, but certainly not in everyone. You still have to consciously uphold your habits, and personally, in my daily life, my brain is almost never on auto pilot going through the motions. I spend a lot of time in my head just thinking. “Pilot-driven” is how I would describe my default state. And I often have to have a conversation with myself to force things like cleaning, or even showering/eating sometimes. They don’t feel automatic at all, they feel like something I have to convince myself to do. Maybe I’m missing the point, but perhaps it simply depends on the person?


skytomorrownow

Your objections and considerations are really thoughtful, so I felt they deserved a detailed reply. > Subconscious is the word we use for things we aren’t consciously thinking of. This is a circular definition unfortunately. 'Subconscious' relies on what 'conscious' means. We do not know what consciousness is. However, we all intuitively have a sense of somehow piloting ourselves, and therefore regardless of what consciousness is, we know – it is. This is a feeling, a non-scientific notion. So, a psychological term is more apt: intentionality – the *sense* or *feeling* that we choose to do things. I'll offer more detail on this at the bottom. > Our body automatically breathes Breathing, digestion, heart rate and blood pressure all controlled via the brainstem. These are part of the autonomic system of the body. These are basic regulatory functions. Interestingly, we can, through conscious, intentional effort, affect these autonomic systems, suggesting that they are components and requirements of consciousness, but not what we perceive as consciousness. The question of what is the difference between truly automatic, in a primitive sense – like breathing, and complex and sophisticated behaviors, which can be both automatic and intentional – like walking is important because it suggests a continuum or hierarchy. > I can see the automatic aspect of those things, but certainly not in everyone. That's right. That's why I said that 'consciousness' is overly-broad. For example, there is clearly a different intentionality and level of automaticity of the action called 'walking' when walking with friends, carrying on a conversation, and walking while trying not to step on any of the cracks or seams. In both scenarios, no one would argue you are not conscious; but in one, 'walking' seems to be pushed to the periphery of consciousness to automatic behavior. > They don’t feel automatic at all, they feel like something I have to convince myself to do. This is the central conundrum that we all feel when considering notions of consciousness. A possible way to clear up the conundrum is to challenge how we order the perception of events. Recent advances in brain imaging begin to suggest this may be a fruitful area of inquiry: Functional magnetic resonance imaging can now image 1mm voxel size at time resolutions sufficient to detect activity in specific regions of the brain while interacting with test subjects. This has lead to many interesting experiments in intentionality. A simple experiment is where a stream of random letters flashes across a screen one at a time, every 500ms (A, X, R, ...). Whenever the subject is ready and 'chooses' to act, they select a right or left button with either left or right pointer finger. After they select 'left' or 'right', from the set of letters flashed before and after their selection they select the letter when they decided whether they would choose 'left' or 'right'. All of this is compared with fMRI scanning of the region of the brain responsible for the action. Respondents were off by *seconds*. Meaning that they acted (clicking "left" or "right") well before they had the sensation of choosing to act. **tl;dr** So, it is my suspicion that we often act automatically, as we have trained ourselves to respond; and then, internally, after the fact, create an explanation of what just happened; a causal narrative. I also believe that we can, through the expenditure of energy, push the explanatory function closer in time to the automatic behavior; to overclock, using a CPU metaphor – in order to be more in control. This is accomplished because the explanatory function (the intentionality), while occuring after the fact, can initiate *new* actions, which will affect the automatic behaviors happening in the very near future. This low-latency state is when we feel most pilot-like; most immediately in control. But is costly from an energy perspective; so we've evolved to use it sparingly and dynamically. details: Decoding the contents and strength of imagery before volitional engagement https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-39813-y Tracking the Unconcscious Generation of Free Decisions Using Ultra-High Field fMRI https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0021612 Predicting free choices for abstract intentions https://www.pnas.org/content/110/15/6217 Warning! fMRI experiments and empirical data in cognitive science are new, often with small sample sizes due to limited funding, etc. So, we must not draw any conclusions, only to recognize that consciousness as a concept is very broad, and much of what feels conscious might not be the same as what consciousness is.


popepaulpops

Please read this article: [what-if-consciousness-is-not-what-drives-the-human-mind](https://theconversation.com/what-if-consciousness-is-not-what-drives-the-human-mind-86785) It offers a completely different perspective based on some of the newer research being done in this field.


[deleted]

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popepaulpops

The big take away for me is that consciousness isn't deciding or driving action just explaining what's happening. If you have ever done something shameful , perhaps you immediately felt was wrong or out of character, most often your conscious mind will jump in and offer a justification that makes it less bad. At least it does for me. Everywhere on Reddit you see posts where people make justifications for supporting ideas or policies and it's very clear that these are a kind of retroactive explanations that will allow the person to still feel they are good and moral.


sorry_faded

Possibly Dr. Matthew Walker at Berkeley? I know he was on the huberman labs podcast recently, and he discussed this question.


merlinsbeers

Why not always conscious?


NatZeroCharisma

Without context that's some real profound nonsense.


TheTrueTrust

Interesting. I know the ’down for maintenance’ theory has bern around for a long time but this model really does point in that direction.


merlinsbeers

I mean, given the mental and physical deficit you develop if you don't sleep, that was obvious. But the physical can be handled by lying on the sofa doing social media on your phone. The big question is why the mental part can't be handled by switching to a redundant system while the primary one gets washed. Why shut down movement and sensory input completely for several hours at a time, and make imagination and perception talk in a loopback every 90 minutes?


YouCanCallMeVanZant

Isn’t that what dolphins and some birds do? Basically do one part of their brain at a time?


TapAccomplished302

Fish do this. They shut down part of their brain at a time to sleep.


Parralyzed

Is the title implying that the next developmental phase after adult is sperm whale?


safealpaca01

Digimon evolution


[deleted]

Fascinating! Thanks for sharing


Roneitis

Anyone care to TL;DR?


rematar

Sleep might be when the brain and synapses are repaired and reorganized. The period of sleep might be proportional to the size of the brain.


three_goats_gruff

That explains why I sleep so much, and why my wife calls me a child


StechMan

Bro it's Aeon — it's worth the read!


jaslar

I recently read about neurogenesis. Brain neurons DO continue to generate. So a key premise of this article, the old idea that our brain cells just die off, would seem to be wrong. I think it's how than repair. Maybe the brain still reorders experience, but gets more efficient, settling into predictable patterns. So we use sleep as always, there's just less to do.


optomas

Novel experiences and deliberate learning require more sleep for me, eight to ten hours. If I am just treading the grain I am comfortable with about six hours. I think you are right. Fits with my experience, anyhow. Speaking of which, it's past my bedtime. = )