The Physics of Intelligence

The Physics of Intelligence 

Can We Get Any Smarter? 

Title,caption, and ideas come from the July 2011 edition of Scientific American

I wasn't sure that there was anything new and bloggable that happened this past week in class (we mostly just wrapped up the chapter, but nothing that exciting was going on at the end of little old chapter 2), and whatever could have been blogged about was already blogged about. So here I am at 11 something wondering to myself, "What to blog?.." Lucky for me, on Yom Kippur I happened to read (okay, skim) a very interesting article in the Scientific American that has to do with the brain (which happens to be chapter 3! How very timely, Rachel!). Since I had already read the first few units of Chapter 3 I was actually able to understand what was going on- it was really quite exciting. Let me share with you all some insights I learned.

According to this article, humans may be reaching the peak of their evolutionary limit of smartness. As I will go into more detail shortly, there is much evidence that suggests that any tweaks that could be made to potentially make us smarter would hit limits set by the laws of physics (and, therefore, we wouldn't actually be getting smarter because other factors would be slowing down the process). 
It is possible that humans may achieve higher intelligence collectively. That is to say, even if our brains are finished growing evolutionary, our minds can still be expanded outside the confounds of our bodies as we continue to know more and learn more.  
Now... Why We Probably Cannot Get Much Smarter:
Right now our current brain is in great condition...maybe it's even in the best condition it can be. What would happen if we made some tweaks? 
Tweak: Increase Brain size: enlarging size by adding more neurons (remember what these guys are?) increases processing capacity. Trade-offs: Neurons consume a lot of energy. As the brain gets bigger, the axons (another vocab word!) that connect neurons have to become longer.. which will SLOW PROCESSING DOWN. So- is increasing brain size worth it? It slows down processing and costs too much energy.
Tweak: Increase Interconnectedness: Adding more links between distant neurons enables brain parts to communicate faster. Trade offs: The added wiring EATS UP ENERGY (it also takes up space.. just sayin). 
Tweak: Increase Signaling Speed: Could be achieved by making axons thicker. Trade-offs: thicker axons consume more ENERGY and take up more SPACE. 
Tweak: Pack more neurons into the existing space: Shrink neurons, axons, or both. Trade off: If axons or neurons get too small, they tend to fire randomly and SIGNALING GETS TOO NOISY. 

I can't wait to learn more about the brain in class coming up soon. But in the meantime, what do you guys think? 
Thought questions:

• Do you think that we've reached our evolutionary limit, or that our brains can still develop?
• Which of the above tweaks sounds best to you?
• Did you remember any of this stuff from the review?

Don't forget: Neurons are nerve cells and are the basic building blocks of the nervous system.Signals are sent through axons and received through dendrites.