4 ms·
That effect almost certainly exists, but whether it amounts to anything much at the small relative differences you'd see between members of the same species is
by emn13 7y ago
That effect almost certainly exists, but whether it amounts to anything much at the small relative differences you'd see between members of the same species is much less apparent. And of course, you're sort of implying that this it is absurd to suggest that brain weight explains intelligence; but note that just because there's a correlation between brain mass and intelligence doesn't mean it's the only factor or even major factor. Not that it's trivial to even measure intelligence or that it's even a well-defined concept, but hey.
So before you jump to conclusions: there is obviously research on the matter; e.g. you might start here: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-brain-size-matter1/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-brain-size-m...
But while the effects in humans may be small, the difference between 35g and 7kg is... huge, so even if the effect might be imperceptible and in any case likely irrelevant between healthy humans, that's another story at that kind of ratio. Not to mention that I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and conjecture that metabolic differences may even increase that difference (i.e. the orca's brain may be running hotter, too).
- seppin 7y agoIntelligence is a completely made up construct, by us. So no I don't think there is an comparison to be made.
- yibg 7y agoMaybe human intelligence / IQ rest can be argued to be either incomplete or not a great measure of raw human intelligence, but you can’t seriously be saying all intelligence is made up and subjective. I think it’s pretty clear for example that humans are a bit more intelligent than a gold fish.
- Rapzid 7y agoIt's the new woke thing to downplay human intelligence in comparison to other species and AI. So you wouldn't say "Human intelligence is singularly spectacular and bridging the gulf between human and goldfish intelligence would be harder than traveling from one edge of the universe to another". You would say "Human and goldfish are smart at different things. Goldfish are smart at breathing in water and humans are smart at.. being smart".
- inciampati 7y agoI find this unnecessarily condescending. If you want to honestly characterize the argument, you could use realistic examples of intelligence. For instance: Goldfish brains are probably more adept at integrating their particular sensory environment than ours would be. Humans excel at navigating our symbolic and memetic social environment which lies completely outside the realm accessible to the goldfish. We are definitely the smartest things in our known universe. But we will, by definition, not know what we can't know. So our universe is limited, and we are the only ones keeping score. It's woke to respect other related biological systems. Respect doesn't imply a reduction to absurdity.
- seppin 7y ago> It's the new woke thing to downplay human intelligence in comparison to other species and AI. So you just argue against what you think someone else thinks, is that how this website works? Kinda the same as all the other ones, frankly.
- seppin 7y agoIQ tests are ridiculous and unscientific. Comparing cross-species capacity has no point or relevance or i'm not sure why you did it. Comparing humans to other humans, as I suggested, is flawed as well. If you go by "ability to do something well-paid" like coding, then you have the definition SV gives to intelligence. However made of these individuals are completely lacking in social/artistic/humor and other forms of intelligence. Like I said, intelligence is not a single thing, and if it was it would be impossible to accurately measure. I've killed enough SV sacred cows for one post, go ahead with your downvoting.
- ralfd 7y agoI am baffled by your statement. Can you explain your position more? Are you maybe spiritual and believe thought is independent from physical matter? A brain is metabolically a costly organ, it uses disproportionately much energy, so evolutionary brain matter or number of neurons would have been minimized if the extra capacity wouldn’t be useful and had advantages like better thinking/memory. There are some interesting outliers, for example parrots/crows are surprisingly intelligent for their brain size, but they make up for it with densely packed number of neurons: https://www.google.de/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/science/2016/jun/13/bird-brained-and-proud-densely-packed-neurons-give-birds-intellectual-edge https://www.google.de/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/science/2016...