Brian D Williams <talon57@well.com> writes:
> According to the legend R.Buckminster Fuller once undertook to re-
> engineer sleep, it is claimed he slept whenever he was tired which
> worked out to a half hour nap every six hours, giving him a 22 hour
> day, legend has it he did this for many years.....
Polyphasic sleep seems like a fun idea (it is often ascribed to Leonardo da Vinci), although in practice I think the overhead due to the ~10 minute after-nap sleepiness might decrease efficiency a bit.
> I once read mammals with small frontal lobes (us) process day
> gathered information at night during sleep the exception was the
> large front lobed ecidna,(sp?) the spiny anteater, a monotreme or
> egg laying mammal (duck billed platypus being the other). In other
> words we need our ZZZZZZZ's
Yes, sleep is necessary. I don't know about the frontal lobes (we have quite big frontal lobes), but memory consolidation and sleep definitely go hand in hand. My current view of things is that we do memory consolidation of explicit memories during the deep sleep, and training of our implicit memories during REM sleep. If you don't get enough sleep, your memory will work less well. There is more to sleep than this, but it is a good reason.
As I see it, a transhuman life is a balance act between the energy of enthusiasm and the pleasures of sleeping. What a wonderful strain...
Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y