On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 5:26 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > > >>> Why do we need to sleep? >>> >> >> >> Probably because we're primarily visual animals and Evolution weeded >> out individuals who didn't get sleepy because they wasted energy wandering >> around at night and got themselves into serious trouble when they ran into >> an animal that was better adapted to the night than they were. >> >
> > So....you're saying its about resting the sensitive visual machinery? > No, I'm saying you're wasting energy and are unlikely to accomplish anything important wandering about at night when your eyes aren't well adapted to it, and you might run into a Saber Toothed Tiger who's eyes word better than yours at night and that would be the end of genes that produce no sleep. > Why not do that with an extra pair of eyes and a shift rota? > It we really were intelligently designed we probably would have another set of eyes specialized for night vision, but we weren't, and Evolution has no foresight and never finds the perfect solution to any problem, it just finds something that works very slightly better than the competition. >>> Why is it, mental fatigue has certain properties that ties fatigue to >>> specific mental activities but not other, equally challenging ones? >>> >> >> >> Because we have determined that some mental tasks are boring. Boredom >> is a vitally important emotion, I don't believe any intelligence, >> electronic or biological, could exist without boredom because it prevents >> us from getting stuck in infinite loops. But it's critical the boredom >> point be set correctly, in fact this may be the most difficult part of >> making an AI. Set too low and we can't pay attention (I don't want to >> listen while you tell me how to properly pack my parachute, it's boring), >> set too high and we get stuck in infinite loops (weee.. I love the way that >> red rubber ball bounces up and down, I could watch it forever, one, two, >> three, four....) >> > > > It's a thought, but like the visual explanation for sleep, it seems a > little thin. Before I have a go at expressing why I think this, could I > just ask how seriously you personally take this explanation? > I'm dead serious! In one of the greatest mathematical discoveries of the 20th century Alan Turing found there is no sure fire algorithm to determine if you are in a infinite loop or not, and this has profound implications for AI and also for the way our brains must work. When we get board we stop working on a problem, but when should that point be? There is no perfect answer to that so AI makers and Evolution must come up with rules of thumb that work, not perfectly all the time, but pretty well most of the time. Sometimes we give up too soon and sometimes we become obsessed with completing a hopeless task but most of the time it's about right. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
