IUBio

Why Be Awake? (Re: A Theory of Sleep)

yan king yin (no spam please) y.k.y at lycos.com
Sat Oct 6 14:20:12 EST 2001


"Filip van den Bergh":
> Usually, I refrain from posting into a thread I have not read entirely. But
> the sun is shining and I live in the Netherlands, so it's not a usual day.
>
> You are wondering as I understand about the function of sleep. I do not know
> from what perspective you appreciate sleep, but an evolutionairy perspective
> seems useful when sleep and the mind are seen as biological. The following
> is not my intellectual property, it can be read in Kalat (1998). I'm unsure
> where he got it, and I don't have a copy here.
>
> Why sleep? I ask you a different question: why be awake?

I have read the relevant chapter in Kalat's book "Biological Psychology".
I can only get the 1988 edition, the 2001 one being borrowed. I guess
i understand the basic argument for the evolutionary perspective. It
makes a lot of sense, especially when comparing total sleep time among
species, but i have some objection.

As a human being i sometimes feel that i sleep way too much and i
think it should be much more advantageous for me if i can sleep less.
Is this unique to human beings? Are we the only species that occupy
ourselves with so many activities?

But it seems likely that the need for more wakeful time is also true for
other species -- better chance to escape from predators, more time for
reproduction, etc. Thus, if sleep does NOT serve any special function,
then sleepless animals would have evolved and replaced the sleeping
population.

The conclusion seems to be that sleep has some special function. It
could be recuperative, such as replenishing neurotransmitter stores.

So i think the waking state, rather than sleep, should be regarded as
the "default" state.

y.k.y





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