IUBio

A Theory of Neuropeptides?

k p Collins kpaulc at [----------]earthlink.net
Fri Jan 9 08:14:49 EST 2004


"Dag Stenberg" <dag.stenberg at nospam.helsinki.fi.invalid> wrote in message
news:btlreh$q1q$1 at oravannahka.helsinki.fi...
> k p  Collins <kpaulc@[----------]earthlink.net> wrote:
> >> The computer 'consolidation' ["reorganization"] process occurs in a
> >> non-information-content-relevant way that's analogous to the informa-
> >> tion-content relevant way that whole-experiential-total 'consolidation'
> >> occurs within nervous systems during sleep.
>
> and then he commented on his own text:
> > One does a crude version of this stuff whenever one "defragments" the
> > hard disk on one's computer. [I always do defrags in a stand-alone way
> > [while not, otherwise, using my computer], because I like to think about
> > what my computer is doing in this 'sleep state' :-]
>
> Ken, I kind of like this analogy. It is not an exact approximation of
> memory reorganization during sleep, but it is good enough to be used in
> teaching ...

Yes, it's 'crude'. [I discussed the information-
content differences between this sort of computer
stuff and nervous system analogues in my prior post.]

But, as we say over here, it's "in the ballpark".

>
> > BTW, any 'AI' system =must= have an analogue of "sleep" - for the
> > reasons discussed above. Doing it 'in the background' unacceptably
> > degrades 'foreground' processing in a real-AI thing.
>
> So you mean that the brain can never express its full computing
> capability during waking, if it had to do its housekeeping in the
> background at the same time, so we have to have a sleep state for that?

Yes, for reasons I stated - there's =Huge= information-
content in every experiential 'moment'. Given two systems
with equivalent raw information-processing power, the
performance of a system that would do housekeeping,
simultaneously, would be easily out-performed by a
system that devoted its full resources to the 'moment'.

The 2nd would survive more easily.

It's easy to see why in the evolutionary milliux
in which Humans contended amongst themselves
and savage predators.

It wouldn't do to devote less than everything to
the man coming with a club or the sabre-toothed
tiger that's about to pounce.

So our nervous systems do their housekeeping
during sleep, when the absence of light offsets
the danger of being in the houskeeping 'state'
of consciousness [in which 'attention' does
occur in the background, BTW].

> If you were able to write more clearly, people might like that
> hypothesis of sleep function. After all, we had to put language in one
> hemisphere and spatial imaginery in the other to get both properly done.

There's a song that goes, "Dance as though no
one is watching".

I write as if no one is reading - give myself over,
completely, to going for the depths of the information-
content.

>
> Not that I believe that sleep is for only one purpose.

Yeah, there's a =lot= going on within the whole
body - in a way that's analogous to a distributed
warehouse being restocked [only, it's mostly
being restocked through the recycling of stuff
that's been used during waking-consciousness].

As I see it, though, the only thing that =needs=
the nervous system's 'devoted' processing is
the cross-correlation of recent memory with
all previously existing memory. This one task
is =huge=, extremely-demanding, and survival-
crucial.

My view is that the other stuff is grouped together
during sleep because the memory work =requires=
that the brain exist in a 'state' that is radically
reconfigured, relative to 'states' of waking
consciousness.

This radical reconfiguration is necessary because
memory is literally being 'addressed' in an entirely-
different way than it is during waking-consciousness -
at all scales, global to molecular. [This is why, BTW,
dreams are most-often not remembered, unless
one wakes during in the midst of them, and acts
upon one's 'momentary' awareness [write it down,
etc.] And, in such, one can, literally, see the scope
of the radical waking/sleeping "supersystem configur-
ation" [AoK, Ap5] differences.]

Both ways cannot occur simultaneously, else
'addressing' would become 'mixed-up [which,
again, I think is some of what happens in
'schizophrenia'].

The memory processing is so massive that it literally
requires that the nervous system not be environmentally-
involved. [There is an 'attentional' mechanism that 'runs
in the background' during sleep, but it is minimal -
"wake me if I'm in danger of being attacked" [if any
'unfamiliar' sounds or touches occur, or if my Child
cries, etc..]

So, since this behaviorally-'quiet' 'time' is necessary,
other bodily-'rejuvination' has become grouped
during sleep.

This optimizes the body's use of energy during
waking consciousness.

Cheers, Dag,

ken [k. p. collins]






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