Brainstorm 12
On the Earth, at
least, humans are exceptional life-forms when it is judged by their ability to understand and control the environment in which they live. It
seems obvious to us that we are more intelligent than other animals –
but in saying this we are the ones who are defining what
“intelligence” is – and if we are true scientists, we should
start by asking how objective we are.
The purpose of the brainstorms
on this blog is to look at the foundations of our so-called
intelligence and to ask whether, at the biological level, our basic
brain mechanisms really are significantly different to other animals.
The approach I am taking is to assume that the thought processing
mechanism in the human brain is virtually identical to our nearest
animal relatives, and that our intelligence is due almost entirely to a larger brain
capacity and culture, driven by language. ...
Trying to get over an unorthodox view
of the brain is hard work, as you can easily find yourself working
outside the “what is acceptable research” box. It is very difficult to be an truly independent observer
as everyone (including me) comes with cultural baggage which takes it
for granted that there is a significant difference between humans and
animals. To explain the nature of the obstacle it is useful to look at changing
attitudes to the concept of evolution.
Considered in terms of everyday living
the underlying concept of “the survival of the fittest” is
possibly as old as the human species. In the days of the hunter
gatherers it would have become apparent that family groups which
included the best hunters were likely to do best in the welfare
stakes. Once agriculture started it would have been rapidly realised
that the best long term results were obtained by retaining the best
animals for breeding. As we became more civilised it would have been
even more obvious that those with the best personal skills, most
wealth, or best weapons, had clear advantages in the competition
game. For this reason – if people were purely objective assessors
of the facts - there would be nothing surprising in Darwin
generalising the idea of the “survival of the fittest” by applying the concept to the problem of how the many different species came about. His work of breeding pigeons would have been
completely understandable by anyone involved in selective breeding of
domestic animals while the subtle differences between the Galapagos
Finches would have been lost on the vast majority of people. So why
should he have been reluctant to rush into print – and why were his
worries of significant opposition justified.
The problem Darwin faced was purely cultural.
By suggesting that species changed with time and, even worse, humans
were descended from the apes, he was questioning widely held taboos
associated with ancient held creation myths and the belief that
humans were spiritually different to animals as the result some of
supernatural agency. There was much passionate debate at the time
and this continues to the present day (particularly in the
USA). Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary there are
still a lot of people who refuse to accept that the world is very
old. There are many more who acknowledge evolution when applied to
animals and would agree that “survival of the fittest” applies to
teams in a football league. However they consider that humans have
some kind of additional supernatural spiritual feature that
distinguishes them from other animals, even if they don't actively
worhip a god, and cannot define "the soul" in scientific terms. Even among scientists who reject all supernatural
features I suspect that the majority take it as self-evident that
there must be some
fundamental differences in the way the human brain work - “After
all, we are so clever that we must be different.” But if
we are really being objective we should not automatically put our
brains at the centre of the intelligence universe, or we may be repeating the mistake our
ancestors made when they put our planet at the centre of the physical universe.
This means that in trying to
develop a model of the evolution of human intelligence based on the
idea that there is no significance between humans and animals in the
way that the brain works I am asking many people, including many scientists, to think outside
their mental “comfort” boxes.
Let me make it clear that the big question that is needs to be
answered is “What is left?” once we eliminate the effect of
culture and make allowance for brain size? Do human brains have some
unique information processing facility? Or is “that
special something” many scientists are looking for the intelligence
equivalence of the Philosopher's Stone. It is clear that many very
detailed studies have been carried out in many different specialist
areas and as discussed earlier in The
Black Hole in Brain Research it appears that there is
currently no adequate model of the link between very different
disciplines.
Perhaps the “Philosopher's Stone of Intelligence” does not exist.
If this is an idea worth exploring the obvious starting point is to start with a model which assumes that there is no
significant unique feature in the human brain. If the model proves
satisfactory we have found a way to link disparate approaches to the
problem. If it can be shown that there are
serious flaws in the model the nature of those flaws should indicate where the significant feature lies. This is what I would call a proper research project
– as it is based on a win-win approach - in that you have useful
results whatever the outcome, even if you disprove the original assumption.
Earlier
Brain Storms
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