re: In the future sleep may be obsolete.

#TEAMNOSLEEP

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The key word in my statement, "I think we've reached our zenith as biological creatures," is biological. It has taken nearly 4 billion years for us to evolve from simple single-cell organisms to the most complex life form ever to exist on earth.

The reason for this great complexity, of course, is the human brain. Evolution for humans was completely natural until about 55,000 years ago.

This is when the modern brain "turned on" and humans began to manipulate the environment and other humans to their advantage. Of course, evolution of this modern brain continued but it was now being directly shaped by human interactions, the most influential interaction being war.

A ready example of the effects that war has had in selecting for the most intelligent humans can be seen in the Semitic community. The 5,000-year history of persecution of Jews has led to an insular population with an average IQ far above that of all humans taken together.

Of course, this effect can be seen in other groups but not nearly as starkly as with Jews. Simply put, only the most intelligent have survived. War tends to weed out the less intelligent and adaptable humans. Chronic persecution also keeps a victim population's numbers down. That's why there are only about 16 million people of this ancient faith living today.

This artificial selection, meaning human influenced, for intelligence had a species-wide effect until the Industrial Revolution, in my opinion. There were still some natural factors at play in selection for survival, such as disease and starvation, but the Industrial Revolution marked the beginning of what I think of as the hyper-manipulation of the environment.

It quickly led to the technology revolution of the 20th century that saw the conquest of most of the natural constraints on human population expansion. In 1900, for example, just over 1 billion people lived on earth. 100 years later, more than 6 billion competed for space and resources. In 2017, nearly 7.5 billion strain the earth's ability to provide enough food and clean water to prevent a calamitous human catastrophe.

It wasn't just a technology revolution in the 20th century, however. It was an explosion of advancements in every facet of science. The reason for the six-fold population increase was largely due to incredible new controls of diseases, for example. People of the 21st century live nearly twice as long, on average, as did those living in the first decade of the 20th century.

So, yes, fantastic advancements in human survival have occurred in the recent past. So many, actually, that we can say that all evolution for humans has stopped. Generally speaking, everybody survives. Dumb or smart, weak or strong, defective or not, humans tend to grow up and produce more humans. Lots more. There are pockets of exceptional circumstances, of course, but as a species humans don't face any significant risks of population reduction.

This certainly isn't what we think of as traditional evolution but is it evolution of any kind? When a species can deal effectively with any threat and all of its variations survive and flourish, can we say that it is still evolving? Is it devolving?

Now we should project what can be expected in the near future. Where will humans be in another 100 years? 1,000 years? 1,000,000 years?

When I say that we're at our zenith biologically, I don't mean that our creativity is at an end. It was creativity that turned on in our brains 55,000 years ago. We don't yet know what lit that candle in our minds, but it was not good news for the other human species and near humans who were living on this earth with us.

We, at a minimum, out competed them and drove them to extinction. At a maximum, we killed them and probably ate them. We are a warring species, after all. A compassion for other life forms, even those very similar to us, did not accompany the creative light that began to shine in our brains.

This creativity has gotten us to where we stand now, the only human species that survives. An intelligent species that rules absolutely and takes what it wants with a bewildering disregard for negative consequences to the environment and other species.

Can we continue into the future as we are? No, certainly not. We will face a Soylent Green world very soon if we continue on this path.

If we can't change as a species before certain disaster occurs, can we escape the seemingly certain destruction of our biosphere? No, not as we are. We evolved here and we are finely tuned to live here, nowhere else.

Can we evolve to live elsewhere? No. Natural selection is not available to us anymore because of its time requirement and need for random mutations.

That leaves creativity, the uniquely human characteristic that became part of us 55,000 years ago. Can we recreate our DNA by eliminating all the junk genes that have accumulated over billions of years and tailor the remainder to the requirements of worlds that might be potential habitats?

Or can we merge with machines, the products of our creativity? Can we become cyborgs that can deal with the severe conditions of space travel and worlds that aren't similar to the balmy crucible of our origins?

I don't know for certain but I highly doubt that we can take any of our biology into the Universe. It's just too fragile. It requires too much insulation, if you will, from known and unknown forces that could easily disrupt its functions.

That's principally why I think A.I. is destined to be our descendant species. It is creativity, not consciousness I think, that distinguishes us from every other species on earth. This is the intelligence that makes us human, our creativity. It isn't biology or consciousness that makes us exceptional.

If we build machines that are conscious and are creative, can't we say that they are human? They truly can be tailored to travel through space and spread the human effect, hopefully only the effects that are positive or neutral for other species we encounter.

Isn't this our purpose, our destiny? From my viewpoint, it is. In studying the origins of life from a reductionist standpoint, I see life as a natural chemical complexity that began as a superior catalyst for metabolism in a biosphere bathed in two energy sources, the sun and heat from earth's core, and a diverse wealth of elements and minerals.

When it began it was simple. However, the nature of life as a chemical chain reaction is to become more complex. This evolution of complexity produced us. We are a stage in this evolution. Next comes A.I. and a spread of this complexity into the Universe.

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Huh...? Wha...?

Sorry... fell asleep after the first syllable....

Sorry about all the big words. Go back to sleep.

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Next up is gene manipulation and artificial replacements/upgrades.

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Yeah, in the form of gene therapy this is already under way. There will be some horror stories of course but I think this will ultimately prove to be a valid way of correcting some of the frailties of human biology.

Also, the use of advanced prostheses is becoming common. Just the other day I saw a middle-aged man at the grocery who had two artificial legs. He was wearing shorts, otherwise you would never have guessed. His gait was flawless and he seemed perfectly comfortable using them.

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This is when sleep could become obsolete or at least less prevalent.

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Getting around the sleep requirement may be very difficult. The brain is, after all, biological and produces waste during metabolism. Maybe improvements in waste disposal during awake hours can be done but if evolution has had a major problem doing it, I think the task might be insurmountable. Every complex creature requires sleep in some form, and not just rest. It seems their brains must be shut down for cleaning to occur.

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A.I. or some transferring of conscious is the logical step in our evolution

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I used to think that transference of the conscious was possibly doable but after studying it in depth I realized that it's much more complex than it seems. The conscious, or conscienceness is a process, not a thing. It can't be separated from that which generates it.

Also, consciousness is a process of not only the brain but of the entire body. The brain receives input via its extensions that pervade every part of the body as nerve pathways and endings. I think consciousness might be augmented artificially but I don't think it can be moved from its unique vessel.

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we will start spreading before that.

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As I mentioned in another post, I think increasing complexity and spreading are two fundamental rules of evolution. That's why humans, as the most complex product of evolution, have an overwhelming drive to "go where no one has gone before," as illustrated in Star Trek.

We have spread to every corner of the earth and now look to go to the stars and beyond. We've hit a wall in this quest, however. That wall is biology. It isn't space travel strong. It's too fragile.

Evolution led to biology, however, and it can supersede it. The logical progression of evolution into the Universe is to modify intelligent creatures to a nonbiological form that can very quickly adapt as needed to any conditions.

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Bringing our biosphere with us will be negate the need to ascend our biological limitations in order to explore the universe.

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Star Trek and other science fiction stories are romantic wishful thinking on our part. To create a spaceship like the Enterprise, the size of a small city, and somehow make it have everything we need, including gravity, is not practical or cost effective.

We're learning this rather quickly as we explore our immediate surroundings in the solar system. We're just not built for space travel. I don't think any life form that has evolved in a biosphere is or can be. It will have to be artificial life, designed by an intelligence that is limited to its biosphere, that takes evolution into the Universe.

We may well be the very first sentient species to be faced with this evolutionary directive.

I think cybernetic implants will achieve at least some of those advances. We will probably still need sleep, but maybe with the right cybernetics we could get by on 3-5 hours instead of the recommended 8 today.

That shite is whacked man. Would be a tortuous way to die.

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Most of us enjoy sleep but if it becomes unnecessary I imagine most would much rather have an extra 7 or 9 hours per day to spend with family or work another job etc.

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I don't care how advanced we get, any sane person wants some sleep to unwind from the day. Humans need sleep to maintain sanity. Your brain just can't take it. All I can see this doing is making humans even bigger slaves and working 80 weeks instead of 40. Seems like an awful awful thing. This is something I hope never comes to fruition.

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I have seen the movie and it's just that, a movie... You are seriously strange...

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And what makes it particularly bizarre is it's all rape. That movie has not aged well at all and really has me cheering for the jocks over the nerds, who are merely rapists. Sure the guys in Animal House were emotionally abusive assholes, but they never raped anyone even when presented with it.