explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1345: Answers

2014-03-21T18:23:38Z

Buck Godot: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1345
| date = March 21, 2014
| title = Answers
| image = answers.png
| titletext = Stanford sleep researcher William Dement said that after 50 years of studying sleep, the only really solid explanation he knows for why we do it is 'because we get sleepy'.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] claims that humans are driven by their curiosity, which is never-ending. This appears to be a riff on the recurring philosophical question of what separates humanity from the rest of the animals. [[Megan]] answers this blanket statement by observing an apparent paradox: Everyone spends approximately eight hours per day in an unconscious state of sleep, but no one has yet discovered the biological purpose of sleep. This implies that every member of the human species is confronted daily with a mystery, yet no one "loses sleep over it"—that is, almost no one is distracted by this mystery. This implies that Cueball's observed curiosity has a perceptible and proximate limit.

It should be noted that many scientists are in fact busily investigating the reasons that humans sleep, although that inquiry has not resulted in satisfying answers. Some offered explanations are to avoid nocturnal predators, to give the body a chance to repair itself, and to allow the brain a period to sort out long-term from short-term memories.

The title text makes a semi-tautological statement that people sleep only "because we get sleepy." This is an example of question-begging, because getting sleepy only means that someone is feeling the urge to sleep. This may be an oblique reference to the French playwright Moliere [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dormitive_principle], who created a satirical character who claimed to have discovered the answer to a popular question: The reason opium makes someone sleepy, said the character (a doctor), was that it contained a "dormitive principle" (i.e., something that makes someone sleepy).

In his comic [[203|Hallucinations]], Randall expressed similar surprise at the lack of interest in the nature of sleep.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan are talking.]
:Cueball: Humans are defined by our curiosity, our hunger for answers.
:Megan: We all spend a third of our lives lying down with our eyes closed and '''''NOBODY KNOWS WHY.'''''
:Cueball: Touché.

{{comic discussion}}

1345: Answers

2014-03-21T18:22:31Z

Buck Godot: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1345
| date = March 21, 2014
| title = Answers
| image = answers.png
| titletext = Stanford sleep researcher William Dement said that after 50 years of studying sleep, the only really solid explanation he knows for why we do it is 'because we get sleepy'.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] claims that humans are driven by their curiosity, which is never-ending. This appears to be a riff on the recurring philosophical question of what separates humanity from the rest of the animals. [[Megan]] answers this blanket statement by observing an apparent paradox: Everyone spends approximately eight hours per day in an unconscious state of sleep, but no one has yet discovered the biological purpose of sleep. This implies that every member of the human species is confronted daily with a mystery, yet no one "loses sleep over it"—that is, almost no one is distracted by this mystery. This implies that Cueball's observed curiosity has a perceptible and proximate limit.

It should be noted that many scientists are in fact busily investigating the reasons that humans sleep, although that inquiry has not resulted in satisfying answers. Some offered explanations are to avoid nocturnal predators, to give the body a chance to repair itself, and to allow the brain a period to sort out long-term from short-term memories.

The title text makes a semi-tautological statement that people sleep only "because we get sleepy." This is an example of question-begging, because getting sleepy only means that someone is feeling the urge to sleep. This may be an oblique reference to the French playwright Moliere [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dormitive_principle], who created a satirical character who claimed to have discovered the answer to a popular question: The reason opium makes someone sleepy, said the character (a doctor), was that it contained a "dormitive principle" (i.e., something that makes someone sleepy).

In his comic Hallucinations [[203]], Randall expressed similar surprise at the lack of interest in the nature of sleep.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan are talking.]
:Cueball: Humans are defined by our curiosity, our hunger for answers.
:Megan: We all spend a third of our lives lying down with our eyes closed and '''''NOBODY KNOWS WHY.'''''
:Cueball: Touché.

{{comic discussion}}