h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

According to the stuff I've learned, the reason we human are smarter than animals is because we have comparatively larger brains. That makes sense, elephants have bigger brains but they also got more body to control. And children seem to go smarter as they go older, which also seem right as they get a larger and larger brain. You'd expect they'd be getting more and more computing power.
The strange part comes with people who hardly have any brain. There are people who has hardly any brain, their head is just filled with some liquid instead. Yet these people seem perfectly normal, some of them even very intelligent. Or what about dwarfs/little people, why do they not have the intelligence of a child as their brain is the same size. Or people who for medical reason get half their brain removed, if it's done as children they end up normal.
I've heard it said that it's because the brain is able to compensate, the remaining half then just does twice the work. Now if the brain was cabaple of doing twice as much, why don't we all do that? You'd think evolution would have favoured a person who's brain ran 200%.
Since the "We only use 10% of our brain capacity" is just a myth, that can't be the explanation. So can anyone on here tell me what the explanation is?

i don't think the brain does grow larger as the child ages.

That's a huge mix of different things.

The first thing you brought up was the size of the brain in relation to intelligence and evolution. You have think of the proportion of brain size to body. Humans have extremely freakish outsized brains in proprtion to our bodies - it is something like 6:1 whereas something like a mouse is normally 2:1. Also, if you look at a brain, there are several basic parts that for example monkeys also have. But the human brain looks like it has been privy to a superduper extension - ie : evolution.

The whole children thing is a little slack. Obviously children get more intelligent as they get older - they are born knowing nothing but instinct and learn as they grow. I mean, that is obvious, no? Human brains grow fastest within the first 2 years of their lives more than any other time. However, they usually stay in proportion to our skeletal system - unless physical development is hindered.

Little people do not have small heads...it is just the rest of their body that is small.

Who the heck >has hardly any brain< ??? Could you provide an example please?

The thing about the human brain, is that it is a very efficient system. All parts are used, and if some parts break down. other sections *CAN* take over if necessary. It's not that we don't use it to it's fullest potential (although with some people I do doubt that); it's just we are also fully prepared for a break down. However, I think you will find more often than not, when one part is damaged, it is irreplacable. Hence why lobotomies exist.

There's an excellent Edited Guide entry A659874 with some helpful links.

I don't think the brain really gets "bigger" as one gets older, at least not in the way people think. The number of cells in the brain doesn't increase from childhood to adulthood; I'm told those cells do not divide. Rather, they form more links to each other as time goes on, so that the brain becomes more complicated as it fills with information.

Children have big heads in proportion to their little bodies. Their skull bones grow thicker as they age. The brain increases very little.I believe it has been scientifically decided that the size is not as significant a measure as once thought ( probably because few beings do use it all)- I will look around for that info. As an example;Women are better at re-wiring their brains for communication ,(after injury affects centers)Females use both sides of the brain for communication on a daily basis, so men using primarily one side, have more of a communication challenge if injured.

I'm wondering.... does that apply to all women, like a biological trait or just to women in cultures that women tend to be more communicative? I'm assuming that communication isn't an across-the-board female skill (though of course I might be wrong).

It goes with the females ability to multi-task. Men are better at focusing! Hence they can keep their eye on the ball , fight to the death without intrusive thoughts. Both are needed and useful. These are generalizations, all of us are some balance of male/female traits. It is both nuture and nature stuff.

i think it depends on what you mean by intelligence. human babies have very big heads in proportion to their bodies - meaning we come in with a lot of brain power. the price we pay for this is that our young are dependant for a very long time relative to other animals. i think children are innately intelligent and what hapens to them as they grow determines what they are able to do with that intelligence.

i’m guessing that if we don’t use all of our brain, its because if we have a head injury we still have substantial grey matter with which to develop and compensate, albeit within limits. (is this what you were meaning saturnine ?)

but we know so little from a science perspective. the standard wisdom for years was that damaged brain cells wouldn’t replace themsevles, but recent research says that this is not true (i’m enourmously relieved )

i also reckon that intelligence is a bodywide thing, not just in the brain. eg the interface between the nervous system and the hormonal system shows an incredible amount of sophistication, not all of it mediated by the brain.

this may also account for gender differences in intelligence, use of, and perception of.


(emotion smiley with a body)

Children have far more complex brains than adults: something like 50% more neurons. They need all this extra brain power for the extra tasks of learning how to do things, such as walking and talking. Particularly talking. Once they have learned how to do these, they don't need the extra brain cells anymore so they start to lose them. Chilren are far more intelligent than adults. How many adults do you know who could become fluent in a foreign language in only three years without being taught it? In fact, once you reach about 6, you no longer have the brain power to pick up a new language. Unless you are really gifted, you'll never speak it as well as a child who learned it from birth.

Not going to say much now. Too tired. I'm also going to go and get my psych. textbook later and refresh myself on all this. Intelligence is one of the most complex topics in psychology.

Obviously children get more intelligent as they get older - they are born knowing nothing but instinct and learn as they grow.

Just to throw one more thing into the pot that this made me think of-
IQ testing. I've done a fair amount of research into giftedness (a personal interest as I'm interested in the (mis)labeling of my own kind), and there's some debate as to whether IQ is static or dynamic. That is, some kids who test gifted or in need of remedial help at age 5 sometimes level out to "normal" by the time they hit puberty.

Curious as to what other's thoughts are on that.

sorry gnomon, you are wrong. the ability to learn a new language simply stops around the age of four, when the process of myelinisation occurs. because it puts a thicker insulating sheath around the neuronal circuitry, it gives you many fewer places where new dendritic connections can attach.

however, it is still possible to learn to understand a new language using the process of immersion. (if you don't believe me, try watching too many foriegn language films in too short a time). however this is different from gaining fluency.

as to iq, this is like the clock speed on a computer. while it determines the fundamental limit on how fast you can process information, it is not the main limiting factor.

the limits are more due to not having bothered to link things together properly before needing to use the information.

it's like the way it can be hard to find stuff on the internet, because people don't bother to link to other peoples websites.

the more links between stuff, the better you are at retrieving the info when you need it.

Hmm, I though baby brains grew. I know they are proportionally quite big when they are born, but still they seem unable to hold an adult brain.

I can't give any examples right now of people with no brains. There's some books on the subject. The stuff with the water I think is called hydroencephalus.

It is true that you can't teach an old dog new tricks. When people reach a certain age their brain just looses it's plasticity. That's why they say never trust a scientist over 40, they just aren't very likely to get an original idea again. And why it's so hard to teach 40+ people about computers. I guess it's because earlier we just didn't live to those ages. But I've learned English pretty fluently after the age of 12. Admittedly I've had a lot of lessons, but I've never lived in the country.

I remember reading an article that they should have found some nerve bundles in the stomach, which actually outnumbered the ones in the spine. But I haven't seen it again since.

I have a great mistrust of IQ tests. I've always been considered to have a high IQ (ie : I have never been in a average level class when it comes to learning) - but my talents do not lie in Maths and Science, which is what IQ tests seem focus on. I have a great retention for language and history and the arts side of things, as opposed to numbers and logic (although I'm not exactly thick as a plank in that)...so knowing that I am lateral, and not logical, I have never taken an IQ test.

I do wonder why intelligence is attributed to logic as opposed to anything else. In my mind, there are just as many great thinkers that are creative (as opposed to scientific).

it's done by logic rather than creativity cos that's easy to measure and they can put a nice number on it and draw graphs and such

Yup.

I once took an IQ test and came out with a "super genius" score. But I figure it was because much of the test was arithmetic problems, and the test timed how fast you could get them done. I'm faster than the average person at simple arithmetic, so that part skewed the test way over.

Unless I really am a super genius. Hmm...

although it can be argued that a lot of creativity is just a sort of quick, intuitive logic. where connections are made but the creative thinker is unaware of the logical steps.

just a theory of mine i just made up.

Well, there are two sides of thinking : logical and lateral. Maths and science are logical thinking, and artsy things like writing and history are lateral thinking.

Um. I think. My little brother is a logical thinker, and I am a lateral thinking. Nice splicing of genetics methinks.