3 ms·
No mention of surface area or number of folds. It is believed that the vast majority of our intellectual ability resides in our cerebral cortex. I know that ant
by bradleyland 16y ago
No mention of surface area or number of folds. It is believed that the vast majority of our intellectual ability resides in our cerebral cortex. I know that anthropologists estimate brain size based on the size of the skull and the brain cavity, but I don't know if they can tell us much about the actual make-up of cro-magnon brains? The question mark is there because I don't know. Can anyone offer any insight there?
It would stand to reason that since the cerebral cortex is the home of our higher-thinking abilities, an overall reduction in brain size might not equate to a reduction in intelligence, were there an increase in the number and depth of the "folds" on the surface of the brain.
- joeyo 16y ago> It would stand to reason that since the cerebral cortex > is the home of our higher-thinking abilities ... Not only that, but the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is one particular cortical region that has become enlarged in humans with respect to other great apes. PFC is generally implicated in "higher" reasoning, metacognition, and other executive functions. It's possible that cro-magnon brains were larger but that additional volume was allocated to other functions (balance or smell, for example) and that they still had smaller frontal lobes.
- jerf 16y agoAlso, it is possible that superior cooperation ends up moving non-trivial chunks of intelligence into a group mind, which need only "exist" to the extent that a group of hominids cooperating can outcompete a non-cooperating group (so as to avoid the ultimately-not-even-wrong question of "where it is" or "what it looks like"). See also in AI how frequently and how robustly it turns out that a hordes of less intelligent agents + cooperation can outperform a theoretically smarter single agent on its own.