On Wednesday, March 5, 2014 10:55:47 PM UTC, Liz R wrote: > > On 6 March 2014 11:57, Russell Standish <li...@hpcoders.com.au<javascript:> > > wrote: > >> On Wed, Mar 05, 2014 at 02:26:50PM -0800, ghi...@gmail.com >> <javascript:>wrote: >> > > >> > So....you're saying its about resting the sensitive visual machinery? >> Why >> > not do that with an extra pair of eyes and a shift rota? That seems >> like a >> > legitimate challenge John, since it seems very doable, and the >> > benefit would be 24 hour action. Maybe even a pair of day eyes, and >> another >> > pair of night eyes. >> > >> >> Dolphins do something like this - they sleep one brain hemisphere at a >> time, so they don't drown in their sleep. >> >> Birds do it too, possibly evolution has operated so as to stop them > falling of telephone wires :-) > > I think this is quite common amongst the animal kingdom, plus is makes > sense for anything that can't afford to sleep (and explains why two brain > hemispheres, perhaps). Of course this implies that sleep is necessary for > some reason. Presumably to get the hardware back into a working state > because it gradually degrades or accumulates wastes or something. > We could make play-time predictions based on what we suspect the explanation ultimately is. My prediction - stated without knowledge - is that no complex animal is fully functional all the time. Functioning during sleep, on the other hand, all life must accomplish. It reasonable that the precise details of sleep mode would be open to selection per niche. There'd presumably be a range of sophistication necessary for that. But full functioning would be desirable for pretty much any niche at any stage in history. So if its possible to do, it ought to be ubiquitous, hence I'm predicting against.
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