Book: 20260120 to 20260516, "An Immense World" by Ed Yong

20260121 - Introduction: The Only True Voyage 3

They are like discerning personal assistants who come to the brain with only the most important information. p9

That's how people get addicted to screen.

The Umwelt concept can feel constrictive because it implies that every creature is trapped within the house of its senses. p14

What's Umwelt? Subjective environment.

This is one of the reasons that Robots/AI can easily beat human in everything.

20260124 - 1 Leaking Sacks of Chemicals: Smells and Tastes 17

Horowitz found that dogs became more optimistic after just two weeks of nosework. p22

Our habit changes our attitude.

Taste is reflexive and innate, while smell is not. p47

We are trained to learn how to handle an odor. In different environment, the same odor may have different meaning, so we learned to love or hate or ignore it.

But taste is different. Sweet is always good, and bitter is always bad.

In a way, we see by smelling light. p52

Amazing!

20260206 - 2 Endless Ways of Seeing: Light 53

They(lions and hyenas), and many other animals, have prioritized sensitivity over acuity. p64

Is this the reason that mobile phone camera slowed down improving in recent years?

We need different categories of camera for different purpose. For example, jets may need to prioritize sensitivity.

But Megalopta somehow finds its home "in the dimmest imaginable light," Warrant syas. p77

So camera can do this. The acuity must be poor, but way better than human's vision.

20260209 - 3 Rurple, Grurple, Yurple: Color 84

But sometime between 29 and 43 million years ago, ......is also the difference between seeing ony in blues and yellows and adding reds and greens to the mix. p89

Both reds and greens mean potential food. How can they survive without those two colors?! They are most active at dawn and dusk?!

Without a riot of colors to confuse or distract them, they're better at detecting borders and shapes, and seeing through camouflage. p91

That's why there are still a lot of color-blind people. Color blindness has its own unique advantages.

Which came first, the eye or the signal?
Tom Cronin thinks it was the eye. p114

Doubt it. There must be some other alternative, indirective signal which triggered the evolvement of the eye.

20260304 - 4 The Unwanted Sense: Pain 117

Do animals, especially insects feel pain?

Our body is the vehicle which carry our gene. Which way helps gene to survive?

Pain is necessary to all animals. It doesn't need to be accurate or sensitive.

What is the adaptive value of suffering? Why should nociception suck? p129

Animal gets almost infinite information every second. Which one is important, and which one is not?
Pain tells us about that at very low level.

20260306 - 5 So Cool: Heat 135

A camel likely isn't distressed by the baking sun, and penguins probably don't mind huddling through an Antarctic storm. p140

High productive people's life maybe is not that painful. They work 80 hours per week, go to gym everyday and take icy water bath. How do we know that they don't enjoy those activities?

Fire-chasing is a trick so useful that it has evolved at least four times over. p145

Wait until the market crashes? Most of the fire-chasing Melanophila beetles died while waiting. It's something acceptable to the gene of those beetles, but not acceptable to any individual.

There are so many puzzles. AI surely can help a lot.

20260323 - 6 A Rough Sense: Contact and Flow 156

The (star-nosed) mole can identify its prey, swallow it, and begin searching for the next mouthful in an average of 230 milliseconds and as little as 120 milliseconds. p164

No doubt that AI robots can do better. Human has no chance to compete with them.

I wonder if whisking for them is like vision for us - an experience that feels uninterrupted even though our eyes are constantly darting and blinking. p170

Rodent and many other animals must have an internal world built in their mind, just like human!

Dehnhardt estimated that a swimming herring should leave a trail that a harbor seal could follow from up to almost 200 yards away. p175

This reminds me of the jets in air. Sometimes we can see clear trail of them. Maybe it's not just vibration, but something else.

20260327 - 7 The Rippling Ground: Surface Vibrations 188

For that reason, the orb web isn't just another substrate, like soil, sand, or plant stems. It is built by the spider and it is part of the spider. It is as much a part of the creature's sensory system as the slits on its body. p206

Is smart phone part of our body? How about Internet and AI chatbot?

What's the difference between our hair, nails and ears?

The web, then, is not just an extension of a spider's senses but an extension of its cognition. In a very real way, the spider thinks with its web. Tuning the silk is like tuning its own mind. p208

This is same problem if we don't realize that our body is not us, but a tool.

Our money, job title, reputation, house, etc., is not us.

20260415 - 8 All Ears: Sound 210

An animal's Umwelt cannot be static, because an animal's world isn't static. p230
Living creatures really try their best to utilize everything in the environment to thrive.

If the hummingbirds' tunes lie beyond their own Umwelten, who's the audience? 241
Normally it's for one of the three things: predators, food, sex. Hard to says which one is goal.

20260419 - 9 A Silent World Shouts Back: Echoes 243

A dolphin is an echolocator that clicks with its nose and listens with its jaw. p265
There is no hard limit of usage of specific organ.

A bat must always react. A whale can plan. p268
Among mammals, terrestrial animals generally possess higher intelligence than marine animals.
Among marine animals, whales generally possess higher intelligence than other creatures.
Why?
According to the explanations in A Brief History of Intelligence and An Immense World, the more abundant the response time, the greater the potential for the development of intelligence.
Terrestrial animals rely primarily on vision, enabling them to observe targets from a great distance.
Whales (including dolphins) rely primarily on echolocation, which similarly grants them more ample time to think before acting.

Agentic AI combines GPUs with massive amounts of CPUs; it is no longer just instinctive response (LLM) and simple inference, but can formulate grand plans to conduct thinking and research!
The intellectual breakthrough of AI will rely on this technology.
And the continuous improvement of AI speed also makes the time cost of thinking acceptable.

Kish walks briskly and confidently, using a long cane to sense obstacles at ground level and echolocation to sense everything else. p269
We can use some device to make ultrasound and turn the echo into audible sound. After some practice, we surely can get echolocation capability!
With the help of AI, things will be much simpler and easier.

20260507 - 10 Living Batteries: Electric Fields 276

Even on calm, sunny days, the air carries a voltage of around 100 volts for every meter off the ground. p295

Wow!

20260512 - 11 They Know the Way: Magnetic Fields 300

It's necessary to invent some device first, so we know how it is possible to figure out the rough location through magnetic fields of earth.

This doesn't make much sense, actually.

20260513 - 12 Every Window at Once: Uniting the Senses 320

Whenever an animal moves, it unconsciously creates a mirror version of its own will, which it uses to predict the sensory consequences of its actions. p327
All animals are same. What does this mean to humanoid robots? It's perfect validation of their understanding of the world.

They're why your view is stable even though your eyes are constantly darting around. p328
These scientists are really smart and sensitive!

And this means that an animal's Umwelt is the product not just of its sense organs but of its entire nervous system acting in concert. p328
This reminds me of Zen and Meditation.

20260516 - 13 Save the Quiet, Preserve the Dark: Threatened Sensescapes 335

But adaptation is not always possible. Species with slow lives and long generations can't evolve quickly enough to keep pace with levels of light and noise pollution that double every few decades. p347
Human is same. Facing the rapid evolvement of technology, it's hard to adapt.
Animals is not that weak. Extinction is part of natural selection.
We will eventually figure out more ways to understand reality world.

It needs high technology to reduce pollution. For example, use EVs to replace ICE vehicles, use solar panel and lithium battery to replace fossil energy, use tunnels to replace highway. But we can do it.