Why are we able to stop using our arms and maje them go limp but we cant stop using our eardrums and stop listening?
In: Biology
That’s not necessarily true – certain senses do have a passive mode that turns on while asleep (this varies from person to person of course). If I didn’t have passive hearing while I slept I’d wake up at the sound of my own snoring.
Evolution.
Lifeforms that turned off their senses to conserve energy were significantly less likely to survive to pass on their genes than lifeforms which always kept them active, which is why most lifeforms alive today can’t consciously turn off their senses for no reason.
Lifeforms that turned off their muscles to conserve energy were significantly more likely to pass on their genes. Also, it’s sort of required to control your body to turn off at least half your muscles at any given time.
It’s an evolutionary thing. Hearing was sometimes the only way of foretelling danger so to switch off your hearing could leave you extremely vulnerable. Natural selection meant that eventually hearing just became effectively impossible to turn off. As for the arms thing, that’s more of a muscle contraction/relaxation so isn’t dependent on things like evolution.
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