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[deleted] t1_iug26l5 wrote

[deleted]

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shficjshx OP t1_iug2hbz wrote

Thanks! That is what I suspected, I come from a comp sci background and it sounded like an information theory / informatics aspect. But I’m definitely not a biologist!

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bjanas t1_iug3v0k wrote

No, it's because it's all a part of the nervous system and all of the sensory organs at one point started in the same place. As species evolved, the sensory organs changed/moved as much as they needed to to cause the organism to survive and be able to reproduce.

At no point did evolution think gee, can't put the eyes too far away from the brain, that'll sure take too long to see things! Evolution doesn't think. It's blind luck.

And compared to the brain's processing speed, any latency from distance to the sensory organs is miniscule

"The researchers found that, after controlling for sex, age and temperature (it turns out your nerves are quicker when you’re warm), there was a 0.27 m/s decrease in the conduction speed of one of the leg nerves (the sural nerve) for each additional centimetre in height." https://mindhacks.com/2009/05/19/tall-people-have-slower-nerves-sensory-lag/

.27 ms per centimeter is basically negligible.

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Donebrach t1_iugdysq wrote

Think of it like plumbing in a house. Generally most faucets and fixtures are close to each other to save on resources. Sure sometimes things get branched out as necessary but why bother moving the eyes down to the butt unless the majority of some hypothetical sexual deviant species really got off on Butt-eyes.

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Dependent-Law7316 t1_iugepoo wrote

Plus, having sensory organs close to the brain reduces the distance those inputs have to travel. Nervous signals are fast but they do take measure able amounts of time based on how far they must travel. When fractions of a second can mean life and death, getting all the info to your brain quickly means you’re likely to live longer than your butt-eyed peers.

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Donebrach t1_iugfejj wrote

Unless, of course, the enemy has come for dat ass.

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bjanas t1_iui1y6d wrote

I mean, a study I posted in another comment found that the lag was something like .27 ms/cm of extra distance. So, in the grand scheme of things, it's basically negligible.

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zharknado t1_iugt8s3 wrote

Also an interesting tradeoff between efficient protection and redundancy. E.g. if we had eyes on all our fingers we’d probably be ok to lose a few, but also a lot more likely to lose a few.

Eyes, ears, noses, and tongues take a lot of energy to make and maintain, so having them all in one “take extra good care of this” spot is a pretty good strategy.

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frakc t1_iuh7imv wrote

Sensory systems transfer tons of information, which requires thick neural medium. That fragile, enrgy consuming and takes a lot of space ( which make it more fragile). Thick nerves also will expirience a lot of stress and noise from muscle systems, that will require more brain activity from brain to filter signals, that even more wasted energy

Worth to mention humans ( and many other animals) has several neural systems beyound brain. Eg intestine has very advanced neural system, which governs only that part of body

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