not sure where to put this but o well.. If you had two humans. It could be two healthy males or 2 healthy femals or a male and a female. And for sake a arguement they both studied the same text the same way. What would make one of them learn more or become smarter. Every healthy brain is the same right? So what makes on person smarter then another. Not talking about like who tries harder and studies more but under a controlled experiment, what would make someone learn 'better', for a lack of a better word. What im asking is, what makes someone smarter then someone else?
Nick: Gender. Women are smarter than men 'cause of titties. Case closed. Seriously now- Insight. In a clever mix with curiousity- this is the making of a powerful mind, I think. I know some people who are incredibly smart (professors, mostly)- but all have this air about them of intellegence being a novelty they no longer find charming. Teaching has become a chore and they've never made it past the textbooks. A more powerful mind would be too....hungry for textbooks to even appeal to their mentality.
"Every healthy brain is the same right?" Absolutely not. Every brain is different just as every face is different. Einstein's parietal lobes were 15% larger than normal, and apparently lacked the Sylvian fissure.
Hypatia, I've never heard that. I've heard that Einstein's brain was unremarkable in its normalcy. It did have a larger than normal mass of glial cells which has been discounted as significant for years until recent findings begin to point towards glial cells doing more than maintenance duty. I find it hard to believe that he lacked the entire sylvian fissure. Something like that would get around. Sounds like an urban legend. Time to do some digging, I suppose. Speaking of Einstein's brain, did you know that it was kept in a closet in the home of the pathologist who performed his autopsy, Thomas Harvey? He kept it in his closet for forty years occasionally removing slices to give out to this or that scientist. Finally, when Harvey was 80 something he put the brain in the trunk of his Buick Skylark and drove across country with Einstein's brain to return it to his granddaughter. The story is detailed in the book Driving Mr. Albert. Nick, Interest. For one thing. If one of the people didn't give a shit about the subject at hand then all the reading in the world isn't going to do any good. And, one must also keep in mind that there are prerequisites to learning. The most important lesson one can learn is how to learn. And, also, in any field one builds towards knowledge. You don't get much benefit from reading a calculus text if you don't understand basic mathematics. But, I'd have to say the key element is interest. This is why every man is an expert on titties. And why every woman is an expert on wallet bulges. Gendanken, Insight is also important, but insight comes from interest, wouldn't you say?
Vert: My point was that intelligence lacking insight is no different than an imbecile. Insight would be the banality of simply knowing something made flexible or lively by the aid of curiousity. Or interest. Curiosity. Interest. Semantics. Cosmic: Sometimes I think this is true, considering that philosophers and the artists starve. But I don't care.
Invert_Nexus: "I've never heard that. I've heard that Einstein's brain was unremarkable in its normalcy." The original research article was published in the June 19, 1999 issue of the Lancet (Witelson, Kigar, and Harvey, page 2149), but you may not be able to get it if you don't have access to an academic library. Here are some relevant extracts, and links to more popularized secondary articles. "A unique morphological feature is visible in the lateral surface of each hemisphere which otherwise shows usual anatomy (figure 1B, 1C)-- namely, the posterior ascending branch of the Sylvian fissure is confluent with the postcentral sulcus. Consequently, there is no parietal operculum (the anterior part of the supramarginal gyrus)... This morphology found in each of Einstein's hemispheres was not seen in any hemisphere of the 35 control male brains or of the 56 female brains, nor in any specimen documented in the published collections of post-mortem brains.25,26... Brain length, height, size of the corpus callosum, and measures of the frontal and temporal lobes did not differ between Einstein and controls... By contrast, in the parietal lobes, there were striking quantitative differences. Each hemisphere of Einstein's brain was 1 cm wider (15%) than that of the control group (measure 5). Maximum width usually occurs across the end of the Sylvian fissure-the region of unique morphology in Einstein's brain... [In] Einstein's brain the parietal lobes were relatively wider and the brain more spherical (see figure 1A) than those in the control group. In Einstein's brain, the parietal operculum was missing in each hemisphere in contrast to control values of 6.1 cm^sup 2^ and 3.6 cm^sup 2^ in the left and right hemispheres, respectively (measure 24). Parietal regions typically show anatomical asymmetry (table, control group, measures 19-2428). Einstein's parietal lobes were symmetrical (compare with figure 2, no 6). This was due mainly to his left parietal lobe being larger than usual, resembling a right hemisphere in size and morphology. Discussion The gross anatomy of Einstein's brain was within normal limits with the exception of his parietal lobes. In each hemisphere, morphology of the Sylvian fissure was unique compared with 182 hemispheres from the 35 control male and 56 female brains: the posterior end of the Sylvian fissure had a relatively anterior position, associated with no parietal operculum. In this same region, Einstein's brain was 15% wider than controls. These two features suggest that, in Einstein's brain, extensive development of the posterior parietal lobes occurred early,24 in both longitudinal and breadth dimensions, thereby constraining the posterior expansion of the Sylvian fissure and the development of the parietal operculum, but resulting in a larger expanse of the inferior parietal lobule. A further consequence of this morphology is that the full supramarginal gyrus lies behind the Sylvian fissure, undivided by a major sulcus as is usually the case. Van Essen29 hypothesised that a gyrus develops within a region of functionally related cortex to allow for efficient axonal connectivity between opposite cortical walls of the gyrus; by contrast, sulci separate cortical regions having less functional relatedness. In this context, the compactness of Einstein's supramarginal gyms within the inferior parietal lobule may reflect an extraordinarily large expanse of highly integrated cortex within a functional network. And in fact there is evidence that cortical representation of different functions is often separated by sulci.30 This notion could be consistent with Cajal's31 speculation that variation in axonal connectivity may be a neuronal correlate of intelligence. A larger expanse of a functional cortical network may reflect more modules32 which could provide a functional advantage.." http://www.time.com/time/classroom/psych/unit3_article3.html http://www.iqtestnow.com/mag/einstein-brain.html http://www.edwardwillett.com/Columns/einsteinbrain.htm
gendanken: Yes. We keep our spare brain cells in there. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
