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The Forum > General Discussion > Enlarge you baby's brain

Enlarge you baby's brain

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I have heard the argument that a stochastic event, such as a war, raises the population IQ. Possibly. Not only because of new developments/theories in various sciences, which have a flow-on effect to the public, but also because the average person’s “survival” skills are roused. After WWII in Europe, it was recorded that quite young children had grouped into packs and were surviving based on their wits - their skills were quite “sophisticated”, and certainly not normally associated with children of this age. This could support rojo’s findings that the Europen population IQ peaked 10 years ago, as these children (indeed other survivors) would now be adults and have children of their own.

William H. Calvin proposes that evolution of intelligence is related to climate change.

rojo, you are unquestionaly right that a person’s IQ has to be constantly “upgraded” and challenged.

I hope no-one minds that I provide this site - it runs for a very short time (a longer play is available). This little creature seems extraordinary - is self-taught; and was given up because being “adolescent”; the bird was impossible to handle ... The interesting fact here, is that the actions are not related to “survival”, but a completely different aspect of IQ. In a longer version of this site, screeches are made at significant beats in the music. Snowball has “choreographed” two other dance routines to different music, the routines being quite distinct from this one.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=1j_fxs8mUcQ&feature=related Snowball -back street
Posted by Danielle, Friday, 4 January 2008 3:20:39 PM
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Stevenlmeyer,
Another stimulating topic.
Has anyone tried the nerve growth experiment on animals?

Danielle,
Re: “I noticed a small piece in the press which stated that crows have been found to have an IQ similar to primates”

My thinking is this would not mean that crows intelligence equals that of most higher primates .Rather that, they can perform certain tasks ( though, a lesser number of such tasks) normally associated with primates (?)

Re: “computers have to be programmed by people ... and can’t this, in itself, lead to anomolies in computer intelligence”

We are seeing AI systems which can rewrite/upgrade their own software. This will increasingly become the norm.

Easytimes,
Re: i) “We should aim to not necessarily increase our intelligence but we should instead aim to increase our ability to be satisfied with life and find more pleasure in the overall experience that we call living.”
ii) : “Singularity is approaching any usefulness found in the advancing of human intelligence will be quickly surpassed by the intelligence of computers”

I have visions of humans living like the Eloi of The Time Machine ( or perhaps, just like the stereotypical dole recipient !)

I’m not sure that singularity will mean that humans will be sidelined –perhaps we will be wired into AI. What if , we were connected wireless/telepathically to a greater brain.
Ok, we sort of experience that now with computers/The internet etc
But suppose it was direct, this other part of your brain or a universal brain actually fed into your brain, your mere thought commanded a response – and it could sense what you sensed and guide your every decision(?)

In such a scenario some may fear we’d become more like remotely controlled robot or a termite – but perhaps not(?)
Though I’d guess the HSC would become redundant
Posted by Horus, Saturday, 5 January 2008 7:08:00 AM
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Danielle,

I Love watching the crows and magpies in my street. Yes they are very bright. This should not surprise us. Imagine all the processing a "bird brain" has to perform in flight. Have you ever watched an albatross swoop down on a fish?

Note that this does not apply to flightless birds. Anyone who has ever dealt with ostriches can have little doubt they are classic "bird brains."

There is also evidence that the way birds process information is different to the mechanism in mammals. You are quite correct.

That s why I was careful to say that humans have bigger brains than MAMMALS of COMPARABLE SIZE. (Rojo please note)

Rojo,

We pay a high price for our large brain size. For one the large size of the human head is what makes human birth so painful and dangerous compared births in other mammals. For another our brains use a lot of energy which materially increases our food requirements.

In spite of these evolutionary disadvantages the fossil record shows that the sizes of our ancestors' heads have been going up. That implies that large brains confer an evolutionary advantage that overrides the disadvantages of large head sizes.

So, rojo, if size does not matter why have evolutionary pressures driven the sizes of our craniums up despite the manifold disadvantages?

If you can answer this question you will have done more than score debating points; you will have made a MAJOR contribution to science.

Your comments about an elephant's brain are not relevant. Elephants have 70 – 100 times the mass of humans. It's brain size RELATIVE to mammal size that seems to be important. The actual relationship seems to be a complicated "log – log" correlation.

Compared to differences in brain size BETWEEN species, variability of brain size WITHIN the human species is quite small.

Horus,

I think it's only a matter of time before we try the experiment on primates. I'll keep you posted.

Danielle.

Thanks for the links but I'm out of wordcount.
Posted by stevenlmeyer, Saturday, 5 January 2008 11:37:17 AM
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Steven,

I am sorry that you are out of wordcount.

“... the fossil record shows that the sizes of our ancestors' heads have been going up.”

But, Steven, we have become larger overall. The findings of the 18/19th century “blue book” stated that the average British male was “technically” too short/small to serve in the forces.

Could it be that the fossil record indicates = intelligence = better hunting skills = better diet ... thus better health and size overall, with comparable brain increase.

Also, what ratio of increase would suggest more IQ? Is it posited that the increase would provide the possiblility of more neural connections? Scientists have found a protein, Dasm1, that increases growth of connections, while stimulating silents ones.

Horus,

I think the physical limitation of birds, such as crows, being relative to primates would be a major factor in assessing IQ. However, crows have an amazing capacity to assess cause and effect - and exploit it.

Dr. Irene Pepperberg has published some very interesting papers on the intelligence of African Grey Parrots (Psittacus erithacus). Pepperberg’s papers "demonstrated numerical comprehension competence comparable to that of chimpanzees and very young children."
http://www.alexfoundation.org/papers/JCPAlexComp.pdf

Comparatively recently, new mapping of avian brains has been undertaken: “Avian brains and a new understanding of vertebrate brain evolution” published in “Nature Reviews: Neuroscience” (Vol 6, February 2005)

The Avian Brain Nomenclature Consortium:
http://avianbrain.org

This Consortium originated from a group of neurobiologists with expertise in vertebrate brain evolution, who met annually at the Society for Neuroscience. “Their goal was to change the inaccuracies in extant nomenclatures that had been used for almost 100 years to describe the brains of birds and other vertebrates, and which cause communication problems in the neuroscience community today.”

Erich D. Jarvis, a member of this Consortuium, also of the Department of Neurobiology,
Dale University Medical Center, published in the Annals New York Academy of Sciences “Learned Birdsong and the Neurobiology of Human Language”

Whilst intelligent computers undoubtedly serve an important purpose, I don’t see them replacing the human brain. There are always unexpected variables, particularly involving humans.

cont ...
Posted by Danielle, Saturday, 5 January 2008 5:41:56 PM
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History demonstrates accounts of battles won by smaller and less well-armed groups against much superior and better armed opponents. Could one really apply probability and statistics, such as of Poisson and Gaussian statistics in such cases. Could a computer predict “human will” and lateral intelligence?

I could not accept the “ultimate” findings of a computer - unless at a common-sense level; Or, if I were a scientist and knew exactly how the information was processed. I know that computers can work faster than the human brain; and that is certainly a big plus.

Interesting ... the ancient Japanese game of Go:

“Deceptively easy to learn, either for a computer or a human, it is a game of such depth and complexity that it can take years for a person to become a strong player. To date, no computer has been able to achieve a skill level beyond that of the casual player.”
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D01EEDC1F38F932A3575BC0A9649C8B63

Doesn’t string theory, of which there are some 10, challenge traditional mathematics; in fact, has created a new mathematics? Does this mean that a computer could be programmed to support the latter, which many scientists reject. Would it become a battle of computer IQ?

Computers can predict the possible outcome of a medical treatment/procedure, but not the actual outcome.

As for humanities, information has to be sourced from, and evaluated at a number of different levels.

This raises the question of whether, computers are capable of truly spontaneous original, creative thought, which is the provence of the human brain, both in the sciences and humanities ...

“But suppose it was direct, this other part of your brain or a universal brain actually fed into your brain, your mere thought commanded a response – and it could sense what you sensed and guide your every decision(?)”

Horus! This is the stuff of nightmares! Those who controlled computers would control the world ... except ... perhaps ... expert Go players.

I agree with rojo, that continually challenging the brain and creating more neural pathways - also diet - is perhaps more important than the size of the brain
Posted by Danielle, Saturday, 5 January 2008 5:45:52 PM
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Folks, I don't know why we're making such heavy weather of this. I'm talking pretty well established science.

Of course sometimes well-established science is overturned. But not often. And, in this case, I'm not aware of any serious challenge to what I've written.

Relative to body size – please note Danielle – RELATIVE TO BODY SIZE – human brains are on average six times the size of other MAMMALS (not birds but MAMMALS) of COMPARABLE SIZE.

That one of the distinguishing features of the human species is our large brains relative to other MAMMALS of comparable SIZE is not even regarded as controversial among biologists. Nor is the fact that the extra brain capacity gives us capabilities that smaller-brained MAMMALS do not have.

Why are you struggling with this Danielle?

Why do you find it so hard to accept?

Whether we can improve our intelligence by artificially expanding our brains with nerve growth factor as Julian Savulescu claims I don't know. I suspect there may be more to it than that.

Is extra brain size the ONLY factor in our intelligence?

Probably not.

But is it an important factor?

Given the high price we pay for our big craniums it's hard to see how it could not be.

WHY are you struggling with this Danielle
Posted by stevenlmeyer, Saturday, 5 January 2008 7:13:05 PM
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