3 ms·
You're presuming that it takes more brain to monitor and control more body mass.
by dtgriscom 4y ago
You're presuming that it takes more brain to monitor and control more body mass.
- ithkuil 4y agoI think the assumption there was that brain size is proportional to the quantity of sensory inputs. sense of touch scales with the body surface which scales with the square of the animal size while body mass scales with the cube of the size. Other sensory input scales with the complexity of the organ; e.g. for the eye the number of photoreceptors
- TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y agoWalnut-brained Stegosaurus must have been practically numb.
- ithkuil 4y agoBrain structure does also depends on what kind of animal. Mammals have a more complex cortex and so perhaps it's harder to compare
- dtgriscom 4y agoAnimals don't have a constant number of nerves per area of skin. Even within a species, fingertips have far more resolution than their backs. It seems reasonable that whale skin evolution wouldn't spend energy differentiating between two touches six inches apart.