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Brain size isn't necessarily a very good correlate of intelligence. For example dolphins and elephants have bigger brains than humans, and sperm whales have muc

Brain size isn't necessarily a very good correlate of intelligence. For example dolphins and elephants have bigger brains than humans, and sperm whales have much bigger brains (5x by volume). Neanderthals also had bigger brains than modern humans, but are not thought to have been more intelligent. A crow has a small brain, but also has very small neurons, so ends up having 1.5B neurons, similar to a dog or some monkeys.

card_zero 2y ago
Not sure neuron number correlates to smarts, either. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gut-second-brain/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gut-second-brain/ There are 100 million in my gut, but it doesn't solve any problems that aren't about poop, as far as I know. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_neurons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_n... If the suspiciously round number is accurate, this puts the human gut somewhere between a golden hamster and ansell's mole-rat, and about level with a short-palated fruit bat.
- HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago
  Agreed. It's architecture that matters, although for a given brain architecture (e.g. species) there might be benefits to scale. mega-brain vs pea-brain. I was just pointing out that a crow's brain is built on a more advanced process node than our own. Smaller transistors.
  - Animats 2y ago
    That makes sense. Birds are very weight-limited, so there's evolutionary pressure to keep the mass of the control system down.
- readthenotes1 2y ago
  I suspect there is more going on with your gut neurons then you would expect. If nothing else, the vagus nerve I had to direct communication link. I like to think that it is my gut brain that is telling me that it's okay to have that ice cream...
kridsdale1 2y ago
Don’t assume whales are less intelligent than humans. They’re tuned for their environment. They won’t assemble machines with their flippers but let’s toss you naked in the pacific and see if you can communicate and collaborate with peers 200km away on complex hunting strategies.
- batch12 2y ago
  Let's toss a whale on land and see if it can communicate and collaborate with peers 10 ft away on anything. I don't think being tuned to communicate underwater makes them more intelligent than humans.
  - ninetyninenine 2y ago
    > I don't think being tuned to communicate underwater makes them more intelligent than humans. Your responding to a claim that was never made. The claim was don't assume humans are smarter than whales. Nobody said whales are more intelligent than humans. He just said don't assume.
    - BoingBoomTschak 2y ago
      Why would he not "assume" that when humans have shaped their world so far beyond what it was, creating intricate layers of art, culture and science; even going into space or in the air? Man collectively tamed nature and the rest of the animal kingdom in a way that no beast ever has. Anyway, this is just like solipsism, you won't find a sincere one outside the asylum. Every Reddit intellectual writing such tired drivel as "who's to say humans are more intelligent than beasts?" deep down knows the score.
      - ninetyninenine 2y ago
        > Why would he not "assume" that when humans have shaped their world so far beyond what it was, creating intricate layers of art, culture and science; even going into space or in the air? Man collectively tamed nature and the rest of the animal kingdom in a way that no beast ever has. Because whales or dolphins didn’t evolve hands. Hands are a foundational prerequisite for building technology. So if whales or dolphins had hands we don’t know if they would develop technology that can rival us. Because we don’t know, that’s why he says don’t assume. This isn’t a “deep down we know” thing like your more irrational form of reasoning. It is a logical conclusion: we don’t know. So don’t assume.
FL33TW00D 2y ago
It's probably more relevant to compare intraspecies rather than interspecies. And it turns out that human brain volume and intelligence are moderately-highly correlated [1][2]! [1]: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7440690/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7440690/ [2]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160289604001357?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01602...
yurimo 2y ago
Right, but what is also important to remember is while size is important what is also key here is the complexity of a neural circuits. Human brain has a lot more connections and is much more complex.
famouswaffles 2y ago
Dolphins, Orcas, whales and other intelligent cetaceans do not have Hands and live in an environment without access to a technological accelerator like fire. The absence of both of these things is an incredible crippler for technological development. It doesn't matter how intelligent you are, you're never going to achieve much technologically without these. I don't think brain size correlations is as straightforward as 'bigger = better' every time but we simply don't know how intelligent most of these species are. Land and Water are completely different beasts.
- HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago
  Intelligence isn't measured by ability to create technology or use tools. Intelligence is the ability to use experience to predict your environment and the outcomes of your own actions. It's a tool for survival.
  - famouswaffles 2y ago
    Okay and how have we determined we have more intelligence than those species with this measure ?
    - HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago
      Clearly we haven't, given that there is very little agreement as to what intelligence is. This is just my definition, although there's a lot behind why I define it this way. However, I do think that a meaningful intelligence comparison between humans and dolphins, etc, would conclude that we are more intelligent, especially based on our reasoning/planning (= multi-step prediction) abilities, which allows us not only to predict our environment but also to modify it to our desires in very complex ways.
      - famouswaffles 2y ago
        >However, I do think that a meaningful intelligence comparison between humans and dolphins, etc, would conclude that we are more intelligent, especially based on our reasoning/planning (= multi-step prediction) abilities I'm not sure how you would make meaningful comparisons here. We can't communicate to them as they communicate and we live in almost completely different environments. Any such comparison would be extremely biased to us. >which allows us not only to predict our environment but also to modify it to our desires in very complex ways. We modify our environment mostly through technology. Intelligence is a big part of technology sure but it's not the only part of it and without the other parts (hands with opposable thumbs, fire etc), technology as we know it wouldn't exist and our ability to modify the environment would seem crippled to any outside observer regardless of how intelligent we may be. It's not enough to think that the earth revolves around the sun, we need to build the telescopes (with hands and materials melted down and forged with fire) to confirm it. It's not enough to dream and devise of flight, we need the fire to create the materials that we dug with our hands and the hands to build them. It's not enough to think that Oral communication is insufficient for transmitting information through generations. What else will you do without opposable thumbs or an equivalent ? Fire is so important for so many reasons but one of the biggest is that it was an easy source of large amounts of energy that allowed us to bootstrap technology. Where's that easy source of energy underwater ? Without all the other aspects necessary for technology, we are relegated to hunter/gatherer levels of influencing the environment at best. Even then, we still crafted tools that creatures without opposable thumbs would never be able to craft.

card_zero 2y ago

Not sure neuron number correlates to smarts, either. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gut-second-brain/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gut-second-brain/ There are 100 million in my gut, but it doesn't solve any problems that aren't about poop, as far as I know. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_neurons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_n... If the suspiciously round number is accurate, this puts the human gut somewhere between a golden hamster and ansell's mole-rat, and about level with a short-palated fruit bat.

HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago
Agreed. It's architecture that matters, although for a given brain architecture (e.g. species) there might be benefits to scale. mega-brain vs pea-brain. I was just pointing out that a crow's brain is built on a more advanced process node than our own. Smaller transistors.
- Animats 2y ago
  That makes sense. Birds are very weight-limited, so there's evolutionary pressure to keep the mass of the control system down.
readthenotes1 2y ago
I suspect there is more going on with your gut neurons then you would expect. If nothing else, the vagus nerve I had to direct communication link. I like to think that it is my gut brain that is telling me that it's okay to have that ice cream...

kridsdale1 2y ago

Don’t assume whales are less intelligent than humans. They’re tuned for their environment. They won’t assemble machines with their flippers but let’s toss you naked in the pacific and see if you can communicate and collaborate with peers 200km away on complex hunting strategies.

batch12 2y ago
Let's toss a whale on land and see if it can communicate and collaborate with peers 10 ft away on anything. I don't think being tuned to communicate underwater makes them more intelligent than humans.
- ninetyninenine 2y ago
  > I don't think being tuned to communicate underwater makes them more intelligent than humans. Your responding to a claim that was never made. The claim was don't assume humans are smarter than whales. Nobody said whales are more intelligent than humans. He just said don't assume.
  - BoingBoomTschak 2y ago
    Why would he not "assume" that when humans have shaped their world so far beyond what it was, creating intricate layers of art, culture and science; even going into space or in the air? Man collectively tamed nature and the rest of the animal kingdom in a way that no beast ever has. Anyway, this is just like solipsism, you won't find a sincere one outside the asylum. Every Reddit intellectual writing such tired drivel as "who's to say humans are more intelligent than beasts?" deep down knows the score.
    - ninetyninenine 2y ago
      > Why would he not "assume" that when humans have shaped their world so far beyond what it was, creating intricate layers of art, culture and science; even going into space or in the air? Man collectively tamed nature and the rest of the animal kingdom in a way that no beast ever has. Because whales or dolphins didn’t evolve hands. Hands are a foundational prerequisite for building technology. So if whales or dolphins had hands we don’t know if they would develop technology that can rival us. Because we don’t know, that’s why he says don’t assume. This isn’t a “deep down we know” thing like your more irrational form of reasoning. It is a logical conclusion: we don’t know. So don’t assume.

FL33TW00D 2y ago

It's probably more relevant to compare intraspecies rather than interspecies. And it turns out that human brain volume and intelligence are moderately-highly correlated [1][2]! [1]: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7440690/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7440690/ [2]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160289604001357?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01602...

yurimo 2y ago

Right, but what is also important to remember is while size is important what is also key here is the complexity of a neural circuits. Human brain has a lot more connections and is much more complex.

famouswaffles 2y ago

Dolphins, Orcas, whales and other intelligent cetaceans do not have Hands and live in an environment without access to a technological accelerator like fire. The absence of both of these things is an incredible crippler for technological development. It doesn't matter how intelligent you are, you're never going to achieve much technologically without these. I don't think brain size correlations is as straightforward as 'bigger = better' every time but we simply don't know how intelligent most of these species are. Land and Water are completely different beasts.

HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago
Intelligence isn't measured by ability to create technology or use tools. Intelligence is the ability to use experience to predict your environment and the outcomes of your own actions. It's a tool for survival.
- famouswaffles 2y ago
  Okay and how have we determined we have more intelligence than those species with this measure ?
  - HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago
    Clearly we haven't, given that there is very little agreement as to what intelligence is. This is just my definition, although there's a lot behind why I define it this way. However, I do think that a meaningful intelligence comparison between humans and dolphins, etc, would conclude that we are more intelligent, especially based on our reasoning/planning (= multi-step prediction) abilities, which allows us not only to predict our environment but also to modify it to our desires in very complex ways.
    - famouswaffles 2y ago
      >However, I do think that a meaningful intelligence comparison between humans and dolphins, etc, would conclude that we are more intelligent, especially based on our reasoning/planning (= multi-step prediction) abilities I'm not sure how you would make meaningful comparisons here. We can't communicate to them as they communicate and we live in almost completely different environments. Any such comparison would be extremely biased to us. >which allows us not only to predict our environment but also to modify it to our desires in very complex ways. We modify our environment mostly through technology. Intelligence is a big part of technology sure but it's not the only part of it and without the other parts (hands with opposable thumbs, fire etc), technology as we know it wouldn't exist and our ability to modify the environment would seem crippled to any outside observer regardless of how intelligent we may be. It's not enough to think that the earth revolves around the sun, we need to build the telescopes (with hands and materials melted down and forged with fire) to confirm it. It's not enough to dream and devise of flight, we need the fire to create the materials that we dug with our hands and the hands to build them. It's not enough to think that Oral communication is insufficient for transmitting information through generations. What else will you do without opposable thumbs or an equivalent ? Fire is so important for so many reasons but one of the biggest is that it was an easy source of large amounts of energy that allowed us to bootstrap technology. Where's that easy source of energy underwater ? Without all the other aspects necessary for technology, we are relegated to hunter/gatherer levels of influencing the environment at best. Even then, we still crafted tools that creatures without opposable thumbs would never be able to craft.