7 ms·
What if growing bigger, more connected brains is the next evolutionary step? Doesn't seem entirely unreasonable to me.
by codr7 2y ago
What if growing bigger, more connected brains is the next evolutionary step?
Doesn't seem entirely unreasonable to me.
- airstrike 2y agoIs there a survival and reproduction advantage from that?
- esseph 2y ago[dead]
- indogwetrust 2y agoYes
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> Is there a survival and reproduction advantage from that? Low-grade autism is overrepresented in Silicon Valley. That wealth absolutely confers a reproductive advantage.
- sanitycheck 2y agoAny evidence the reproduction rate is higher among tech workers, or even among the wealthy in general? From what I've gathered in the past autistic people are more likely than average to not reproduce.
- 0u89e 2y agoThat is not how things work. Females are the main drive to reproduction and decide demographic trends in societies where they are not oppressed(also, diagnosed autism levels in minority grpups is higher compared to classical white populations - make from it what you want, but I will avoid comments for this here). And female autism works differently than male autism and a lot of that does not show up, because less females would be diagnosed for the very simple reason that diagnosis is not a disease but how well a person can function in society and females differ from males in that as they are doing better than males. We do not exaclty know variable for amount of females, that have "autistic" genes, but they seems to be main drive to spread autism and very successful at that, regardless how diagnosed male autists are multiplying less. Also, people seem to have wrong idea about how genes spread - it takes SINGLE successful case to spread dominant and successful genes over the next generations. The main issue that people are thinking of autists, that they are somewhat different from other people - even on biological level and it does not help, that among autistic people there arte those that think in the levels of "autistic nation", because genetically we are even less different to other humans than a lab rat to other rats. And like I mentioned before, spread of succesful autistic genes is irrevelant of the number of direct descendants that person produces, and with genes you can't assume, that they are only present to those that have diagnosis.
- sampton 2y agoNo. Too many fully connected layers.
- readthenotes1 2y agoThe trouble seems to be the lack of tidal pools to isolate stimulation. Maybe that will happen, but ASD people need to have a lot more babies
- lazide 2y agoGood luck with that social awkwardness thing going on.
- thinkingkong 2y agoThe fitness function that would govern that evolution would be new though. We’d be intentionally optimizing for brains that work that way with some new social or technical construct. Like if we said “autism is the new exposed ankles” and suddenly had many more babies who also demonstrated that trait. Or if we had access to technology that would select for that outcome, gattaca style.
- aqueueaqueue 2y agoFitness function? What if end up walking down the eugenics path or genetic engineering.
- iinnPP 2y agoSociety took the biggest of bats and beat the ever loving love out of the fitness function in many parts of the world.
- TheOtherHobbes 2y agoFitness functions are retrospective, so there is no "We should have done this differently." The definition of fitness is literally whatever persists by reproduction. Features and species that persist for a while and then collapse/disappear are a normal part of the process.
- SubiculumCode 2y agoOver-excitation tends to create more redundant, less synergistic information in networks. The balance between excitation and inhibition is thought by some to be requisite for efficient and flexible cognition.
- RockRobotRock 2y agoAhh yes in other words adderall/caffeine and weed.
- codr7 2y agoAka hippie speedball :)
- qwertox 2y agoThis is like assuming that cancer is good? More cells, better body? This is just a hypothetical counter-argument. More connectivity could be better, "more intelligent", and autism seems to be "cool" among nerds for this reason. But maybe it's just a fallacy, just a way to pretend to be something better. Again, all hypothetical. Yesterday I listened to a podcast episode about bird brains [0]. That some birds have a way more efficient brain than ours, even if they are not as intelligent as we are. They are smarter than other primates, but their brain just weighs around 10g, while the one of chimps, which are about as intelligent as some birds, weighs 400g and consumes a lot more energy. They have an underdeveloped cortex, so apparently it isn't as important as one might think. That it could be that the cortex is more dedicated to sensing, than to thinking. Birds, for example, don't have such complex sensory inputs like our hands or our entire skin surface, that "memory mapping" all those inputs requires such a big cortex. [0] https://www-spektrum-de.translate.goog/podcast/spektrum-podcast-gehirn-die-evolution-der-kognition/2252594?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://www-spektrum-de.translate.goog/podcast/spektrum-podc...
- inurqubits 2y ago[dead]
- bobim 2y agoThis is an interesting take, along the line of elephants who need a huge brain mainly to actuate their trunk.
- calmbonsai 2y agoAkin to bottle-nose dolphins and orcas with sound. They have, easily, the most signal-processing neurons of ANY species on the planet. And, fwiw, their encephalization quotient is just behind one species--us. Since they're aquatic mammals (given the requisite mass for thermoregulation), that severely under-represents their effective brain/body-mass ratio too.
- aqueueaqueue 2y agoAutism plus "AI for social" coprocessor could be a wicked combo ;)
- BarryMilo 2y agoWhat do you mean by "next"? Evolution doesn't have a plan. It'd be more adapted for some things and less for others.
- indogwetrust 2y ago[flagged]
- mihaaly 2y agoFor evolution it means next known retrospectively. Naturally. Those with hyperconnectivity not evoking social dysfunction (some dots in the charts) may become a potential step in evolution in a society not supressing evolution. And in a post Trump world of course where intelligence and the ability of collaboration for common good (needs social skills) is beneficial again.
- codr7 2y agoIt's not a plan at this point, it already happened.
- robwwilliams 2y agoExcept than in brain development the general trend is to lose a large fraction of many neuron types, synapses, and excess axonal connections.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- calmbonsai 2y agoWell, there are plusses and minuses. At a certain level of size, connectedness, and semi-specialization, you get (what we label) consciousness. It's not just size, but there is some bare minimum of nodes. It's not just pure contentedness. That's just noise. It's not just specialization. It helps with speed, but you lose plasticity and adaptability. Also, there's a physical limit with respect to growth speed 'cuz cancer and sustainable metabolic rates wrt food intake, digestive efficiency, and thermoregulation. It seems the shrews and moles have "hacked" that in very different ways. There's also a physical limit with brain size for live births--which we're already really, really pushing. Honestly, I would've thought the most intelligent species would use eggs to minimize the trauma/risk of live-births to both child and mother, but I guess mother's milk is so beneficial it makes up for all of that.
- thoo4j334324 2y ago> What if growing bigger, more connected brains is the next evolutionary step? I don't mean to be mean - but unlike what "nerds" think "intelligence" isn't some superior trait that automatically means the gulag/eugenics for the socially popular kids who they despise. All this situation indicates is that the societies are broken/mean (on every side). Traits need to be "rewarded" for them to be evolutionarily meaningful in the individual's environment. More connections etc. also means a lot more energy consumption. Not many societies can support such phenotypes.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- someothherguyy 2y agoWhat is the selective pressure? How is this becoming more widely expressed (if it actually is)?
- ok_dad 2y agoRapid data ingestion?
- someothherguyy 2y agoIs causing what to happen? Killing people? Making them sterile? Making them grow huge dicks? Giving them 40 wives? As far as I can tell, autism isn't really a trait one wants in order to be successful sexually.
- amanaplanacanal 2y agoI dunno, look at Elon with his X children.
- AngryData 2y agoElon isn't autistic, he is just an asshole who wanted an excuse to deflect blame for his actions.
- tgv 2y agoAs someone else pointed out: more isn't better. There's an optimum, and it depends on the task. There are some "in vivo" studies about connections in the young cat's visual cortex. It starts out very connected, and most of the connectivity is lost, while structures form.
- someothherguyy 2y ago> Doesn't seem entirely unreasonable to me. It does to me, sounds like Lamarckian confusion, not evolution.