PhiloSofa

[The old Swede]

In German HAMMER magazine, Oystein G. Brun did the PhiloSofa (english: "philo-couch") section: he gave his comments on some quotations.

One of them was:

Quotation: "I can sleep when I´m dead." (Warren Zevon)
Oystein: "Interesting thougt! Indeed, sleep is a need that we only got during evolution. There are no physical processes in the human body that really need sleep. So you should theoretically be able to stop sleeping. Our most valuable good is time. So why waste it with sleep?"

(Sorry for my bad translation.)

I don´t think this is right. I´ve heard that the brain needs sleep to process the impressions that you have taken in during the day (this is why learning vocabulary before going to bed is a lot more effective than learning it in the morning or afternoon).
But of course I´m not an expert in such things.

What do you think? Discuss!

(and please do not post things like "Most retarded thread ever"...)

 

[Asgeir Mickelson]

Not long ago I heard that science still don't know the reason to why we have to sleep.

Well, I sleep because I get tired... Doh...

- Asgeir

 

[FailingAcension]

I've just always thought it is time to rest the portions of the brain that you use while you're awake.

 

[Kanyon]

Not long ago I heard that science still don't know the reason to why we have to sleep.

I think I heard the same thing about ageing, science still doesnt know why or something.

 

[Vintersorg]

I think I heard the same thing about ageing, science still doesnt know why or something.

I think it's very complex. They(the scientist) have now found a substance that take alot of the need to sleep away..can't remeber the name...I remeber it starts with ORO...or maybe ONO....but when under testing it and observing the experiment, they came to one conclusion that Man- as we know so far- have some needs for REM sleep, the person in the experiment did'nt show any real sign on the outside that he/she was very tired, but while taking blood samples and stuff they saw that the defense system against diseases decresed with about 50% when the person got 50% less sleep. Another thing is the thinking, even if the person seemed calm and sane from outside he/she really lacked sigificant skills to observe and process facts and impression in what we see as "normal", the temper got really flared up...etc..and the other major thing was the tension through the whole body, the muscels seems to be at rest from time to time, the tissue neeed to rebuild and replace dead cells(this happens mostly when they are at rest)

And the brain got really messed up in some aspects, the info the person was given was not archived in a good manner, very blury and unorganized. Another thing is the energy consumtion, if you are awake 24-7 you need alot more meals to get the right energy, but the Human body can't digest massivly of food in a short period, without side effects.

And the evolutionary thing with our eyes not working in the dark, doesn't reallygive us the oportunity to be up and usefull during the night, lamps can't replace the sunlight, from the radiation of the sun we get vital and important fotons that turns into vitamins and that, artificial light can't replace fully.

A man called[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Michel de Montiagne said that "Dreams are the true interpreters of our inclinations, but art is required to sort them out." What we see and what we hear in our dreams are reflections of reality, or… are they?[/font]

And I guess all this is just a grain in the desert in these matters..nature is always the best to decide what we need and not, when Man have the control I feel it always end up in disaster.

 

[The Grand Design]

You raise some very interesting points. Where you mentioned that Michel de Montiagne quote, "Dreams are the true interpreters of our inclinations, but art is required to sort them out."
I find that quote pretty interesting, I mean maybe some of my music that I write is influenced by dreams and other stuff like that.