Eli5: How are humans so intelligent?
In: Biology
Think about a sheet of paper, you can draw 2 lines and connect the 4 corners of that paper. Fold the paper in two, now you need 8 lines to connect all corners.
Most organisms act on that 2 dimensional scale, if it is sweet eat it, if it is sour do not.
Go one dimension up, if it is bright edible, sweet edible, dull inedible, sour inedible. Bright and sour edible but doesn’t taste good, sweet but dull edible but not much nutrition.
Now fold that paper about 1000 times, and try to calculate how many combinations that gives you.
Our intelligence doesn’t come from the size of our brains, it comes from how many synapses have connections to other synapses.
Evolution.
Intelligence isn’t the goal of evolution, but it does give species the tools it needs to thrive in its environment. For some species that means being strong, or fast, or sneaky, or it can fly.
Humans have never been the strongest or fastest creatures in our environment. But we have thrived because we have been the smartest creatures.
Mutations and evolution. Clearly the most dominant trait in the world is intelligence. As our ancestors were luckily getting smarter and smarter, our survivability and dominance as a species goes up. And here we are
Religious view: we are made in God’s imagine, and God created everything, hence why we smart.
Non-Religious: access to cooked food allowed humans to develop better brains, resulting in the highest intelligence on the planet so far.
Neoteny. Very good book ‘The Eternal Child’ by Clive Bromhall, a zoologist, really explains well how this evolutionary trick enables some species to use the physical traits of its immature form to adapt and thrive. It not only explains our intelligence but also why we walk upright, why we have thin skin, small teeth, weak nails and little hair, and why we believe in gods and karma. Also homosexuality, art, armies and boobs.
Really good book.
Latest Answers