Homo bigheadus

Factual Questions
1

So in my epistemology class our professor is suggesting that we will soon be able to test a certain type of skepticism (that says it may simply be beyond us as a species to grasp the fundamental truths of the Universe) by genetically engineering humans to have bigger brains than is normal.

He suggests that if we double a person’s brain size to 2600-2800 ccs then the resulting person would be much smarter than we are.

From what I remember from Gould and Sagan the correlation between brain size (that is, a brain size : body weight ratio) and intelligence is tenuous at best.

So, what’s the straight dope on this? Is it likely that our modifications would result in a super-human genius?

Edit: (His paper is here for anyone so inclined)

2

I’m not sure (and more than somewhat doubtful).

For one thing, aren’t we – physically speaking – about at the limit of noggin size as it is? Unless the braincase can deform much more than it already does, all of these super-geniuses would have to be born by C-section, I’d imagine. Or break mommy’s pelvis on the way out…

3

Within living populations of humans, there has not been found to be a correlation between brain size and intelligence. Except, of course, in cases of clear pathology or genetic aberrations (eg, microcephaly) Also note that smaller people (like women) have relatively smaller brains. It is also thought that it is the way the brain is wired (including the number and quality of the synapses) that has led to our species’ level of intelligence-- not just the increase in size over our early ancestors.

Just making the brain bigger might or might not create a more intelligent person, and it’s possible it could create more problems than it solves in the process. There are physiological problems that would also have to be solved to ensure that an increased brain size could be sustained and/or utilized. Things like temperature regulation, blood flow, and oxygen use would need to be taken into account.

4

BTW, I like how this guy starts out the paper, as it is something I have brought up several times in discussion on this MB:

I doubt that we are capable of understanding the whole of the universe. We certainly didn’t evolve in an environment (ie, the whole of the universe) that would make that ability of selective advantage.

5

I did a couple searches and found this page:

http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/brainIQ.html

6

For what it’s worth, I have a huge head and I’m an idiot.

7

[QUOTE=Omoikane]
So in my epistemology class our professor is suggesting that we will soon be able to test a certain type of skepticism (that says it may simply be beyond us as a species to grasp the fundamental truths of the Universe) by genetically engineering humans to have bigger brains than is normal.

He suggests that if we double a person’s brain size to 2600-2800 ccs then the resulting person would be much smarter than we are.

From what I remember from Gould and Sagan the correlation between brain size (that is, a brain size : body weight ratio) and intelligence is tenuous at best.

So, what’s the straight dope on this? Is it likely that our modifications would result in a super-human genius?
[/QUOTE]

I would imagine that bigger brain size at key region may, to a certain extent, increase intelligence but even that’s doubtful. Novel wiring of neurons in the brain may increase a “part” of intelligence like creativity and logic, but even that may not equate to higher intelligence; for example, a child that is blind and suffers from severe autism may develop a mastery of music or art but couldn’t hold a conversation. Depending on your personal philosophy, that child either is an idiot savant or possesses an intelligence beyond the average person.

From what I gather, to increase intelligence, you’d need to change the fundamental circuitry, not wiring, of the brain. Nerves would have to trigger action potentials faster and more efficiently, neurogenesis in the hippocampus would need to occur much faster than it does now (I believe it takes hippocampal neurons about 28 days to go form an undifferentiated form to a full-fledged neuron); you’d also need to sharply increase organelle performance, especially the endoplasmic reticulum, where it has a nearly 80% failure rate in folding proteins into their correct shape. Scientists would need to find every flaw in a neuron and “fix it” and even then you’d still have a problem: where does all of the heat that is being generated come from? In the human body, about 20% of your caloric intake goes to your brain. In human infants, about its about 60% and the heat generated is buffered by fontanels (soft spots) that allows heat to be dissipated easily. If you make super neurons, how much energy will it require and how much heat would it generate? You’d need to make a neuron and all of its proteins heat resistant, otherwise it would just start baking.

This is all (my) speculation. It may be that even with improvements to the actual neurons “human intelligence” would remain fundamentally the same.

This is why its very difficult for me to believe that bigger is better. Sure, you might be able to get an savant but, interestingly enough, many geniuses in history have suffered from mild to severe mental health problems. I don’t have a cite on that but I’m sure I could dig one up.

  • Honesty
8

I don’t personally think we are going to engineer ourselves genetically much in the intellectual department (though plenty of stuff will probably get altered in the brain itself), but I do think we will gradually develop a symbiotic relationship with computers. Obviously we have to work around the recently discovered hurdle that microchip implants seems to cause cancer, but once we get around that, why make the brain bigger when a handful of artfully placed chips can double, triple or quadruple our existing brain’s ability? Once we either discover a way for the human body to produce electricity, or discover a way to power computers using glucose or fat of some sort, it will take off.

9

[QUOTE=Loach]
For what it’s worth, I have a huge head and I’m an idiot.
[/QUOTE]
They don’t call you “Pumpkin” do they?

10

[QUOTE=John Mace]
I doubt that we are capable of understanding the whole of the universe. We certainly didn’t evolve in an environment (ie, the whole of the universe) that would make that ability of selective advantage.
[/QUOTE]
John, a lot of what I understand about evolution I owe to your input on these boards; for that I thank you. Please don’t think of these questions as argumentative.

Isn’t “we” in your statement problematical? 1000 years from now, or 100,000 years from now, or 1,000,000 years from now, will our descendants be “human?” Is there any reason to assume that whatever constraints we have on our ability to understand will still exist? Couldn’t the brain “rewire” without having to get larger?

11

[QUOTE=Epimetheus]
Once we either discover a way for the human body to produce electricity, or discover a way to power computers using glucose or fat of some sort, it will take off.
[/QUOTE]

It does produce electricity.
Now the addition of computers add another (and interesting) layer of complexity to the story. We know that the brain is similar to a computer - it has the biological equilavent of RAM, a hard drive, a CPU, and an operating system that creates a functional unit. The problem is while we know every detail of how computers work, we don’t even know much about the brain. This may surprise you, but scientists don’t even understand how the five senses are integrated into consciousness. Then are the “little” things that scientists haven’t really found a cogent explanation for - ambition, attention, addiction. There is still growing evidence that clinical depression is more complicated than a lack of serotonin. The brain is a very complex animal and scientists are still teasing apart its intricracies.

To make a computer-brain interface, we’d need to first understand exactly how the brain works. Every detail. Once we achieve that, we could potentially design computers are programmed to augment the brain’s capacity. Barring a nuclear holocaust or civilization thrown back into the Middle Ages by a natural disaster, I estimate we’re about several hundred years from making a computer-brain unit that works as one, cohesive unit.

  • Honesty
12

I agree. But it will start soon, just oddball pieces that don’t contribute much but make life a bit easier. Implants as simple as cochlear implants, visual implants will likely get the most funding, but soon there will be non-essential ones like calculators, “mental watches,” cell phone implants, and more advanced visual ones. Then will come memory dumps, places we can access files and store them. And much, much later ones that tie everything together and allow us to expand our awareness in a larger way.

It will not happen overnight, but I would place a lot of money that should our civilization stay stable, our culture is moving into that direction. (IMO of course).

(and I meant electricity to power a computer chip, which would require invariant electricity, our body’s electricity is more chemical and pulse based, right?)

13

[QUOTE=Loach]
For what it’s worth, I have a huge head and I’m an idiot.
[/QUOTE]

So have I and so am I. Plural Of anecdote in this case = data. PS where do you buy your hats?

14

[QUOTE=Contrapuntal]
John, a lot of what I understand about evolution I owe to your input on these boards; for that I thank you. Please don’t think of these questions as argumentative.

Isn’t “we” in your statement problematical? 1000 years from now, or 100,000 years from now, or 1,000,000 years from now, will our descendants be “human?” Is there any reason to assume that whatever constraints we have on our ability to understand will still exist? Couldn’t the brain “rewire” without having to get larger?
[/QUOTE]

By “we”, I meant those of us living today. Still, it’s unclear that our descendants will ever face selective pressure wrt understanding the whole of the universe, so that goal might forever allude us (and what we eventually become in the future).

And maybe I wasn’t clear in my post, but I thought I did say that the way the brain is wired appears to be at least as important to intelligence as overall brain size. So, yes, we could very well evolve into something else with a differently wired brain or even a bigger brain or both. But there would have to be some selective pressure for that to happen, unless we can genetically engineer ourselves in that direction. Which, btw, I fully expect us to be able to do in the not to distant future. Not forgetting, of course, that we almost certainly would have to do something else besides just making the brain bigger or increasing the number of synapses since our current physiology might not be adequate to support the changes.

15

[QUOTE=John Mace]
By “we”, I meant those of us living today. Still, it’s unclear that our descendants will ever face selective pressure wrt understanding the whole of the universe, so that goal might forever allude us (and what we eventually become in the future).
[/QUOTE]
Have we face selective pressure with regard to quantum mechanics? Electrical engineering? The matchup zone?

Don’t we understand these things as we do as a byproduct of evolution, rather than a direct result? Don’t we have abilities that have nothing to do with selective pressure?

16

[QUOTE=Contrapuntal]
Have we face selective pressure with regard to quantum mechanics? Electrical engineering? The matchup zone?

Don’t we understand these things as we do as a byproduct of evolution, rather than a direct result?
[/QUOTE]

Good point. We evolved a certain level of intelligence that was directly related to using tools, communicating with language, having complex social relationship, etc. As a byproduct of that evolution we also are able to send a man to the moon. However, there is no reason to extrapolate that and assume that we can understand the whole of the universe. Maybe we can, maybe we can’t. I just don’t see any reason to think that we can.

And keep in mind that things like quantum mechanics don’t necessarily represent the true and fundamental nature of that part of universe that we think we do understand. There could well be a better way to understand it. (By “better” I mean able to make more accurate predictions about the way the universe works.)

Not really. As you said, some abilities seem to surpass what the original “need” was, but there still was some selective pressure that created that ability in the first place. We were under selective pressure to become smarter, but I see no reason to think that we became as smart as it is possible to become-- ie, smart enough to understand the entirety of the universe.

There is a bit of a paradox here: Is it possible to imagine something that you aren’t capable of understanding?

17

I can imagine things that I don’t understand, is this not normal? Maybe this comes from reading too many books and daydreaming a lot.

18

[QUOTE=Loach]
For what it’s worth, I have a huge head and I’m an idiot.
[/QUOTE]

As it happens, I have a teeny-tiny head and am far and away the smartest person in the world!

19

My head is JUST RIGHT.

Though my mental state isn’t.

20

[QUOTE=Epimetheus]
I can imagine things that I don’t understand, is this not normal? Maybe this comes from reading too many books and daydreaming a lot.
[/QUOTE]

Maybe I worded that poorly.

It’s easy for us to think that we are as smart as is possible because one cannot fully conceptualize something that is beyond one’s ability to understand. “Imagine” was probably not the right word to use. I can imagine understanding the entire universe, but I can’t fully conceptualize what that would entail, or even be like.