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Scott Alexander has a good post on bird intelligence here: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/03/25/neurons-and-intelligence-a-birdbrained-perspective/ https://sla
by ZhuanXia 8y ago
Scott Alexander has a good post on bird intelligence here: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/03/25/neurons-and-intelligence-a-birdbrained-perspective/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/03/25/neurons-and-intelligen...
Though they have much smaller brains, there is evidence to suggest that their brains are 10x more computationally dense.
- djmips 8y agoBirds are on a better process.
- anoncake 8y agoMaybe cooling is also a factor, so we are constrained by our brain's surface area.
- hopler 8y agoTo some extent brain "power" goes with surface area, right? Granted the surface is highly folded in 3 dimensions. But I think larger brains have a lot more "non thinking" matter to support the complexity of maintaining a larger neural network. On the other hand, effective thinking-power may be superlinear in neuron count. Or perhaps sublinear.
- dcassett 8y agoRecently finished an interesting survey of bird intelligence (speech, navigation, social order, etc.): https://www.jenniferackermanauthor.com/genius-ofbirds https://www.jenniferackermanauthor.com/genius-ofbirds
- taneq 8y agoWhen talking about brain power like this, I don't often see people mention the costs of simply driving a more complicated body. Birds are physically simpler than humans (no hands, fairly simple feet/legs) so maybe they just spend less overhead on motor skills and associated control?