Why are we smart, i mean smarter then other animals or living creatures?
In: Biology
People like to think of a brain as though it were a general purpose computer that can just do anything and making a brain bigger makes it “smarter” – but that’s not true.
Brains are actually made up of a number of different components, similar to a desktop computer. But unlike a desktop computer, your brain doesn’t have CPU that can just do anything. Instead, your brain has a number of discrete, specialized components.
In that same way that a video card can only process video, the visual cortex in your brain can only process visual information. Likewise, in the same way that a soundcard can only process sound, the audio cortex in your brain can only process audio information. Most of your brain is concerned with interpreting sensory data and moving your body around and those functions are all controlled by special purpose parts of your brain that can do only the one thing that they’re responsible for and nothing else.
Human brains are different from all other animal brains on Earth because human brains have two distinct areas that no other animal has. These are called Wernicke’s Area and Broca’s Area. These two parts of your brain are essentially special purpose computers that deal with using language and making logical associations between things. And its ultimately the abilities to use language and make logical associations that separates humans from all other animals.
There are animals that do have equivalents of either Wernicke’s or Broca’s Area, but the animal equivalents are usually very rudimentary and are slaved to some other function that the animal’s brain is performing. Some birds, for example, have a rudimentary Broca’s Area equivalent. But the bird Broca’s Area appears to be functioning more as a music processor than a true language and/or logic processor.
Birds, such as parrots, that can mimic human speech and have a very rudimentary understanding of logical associations are those that have a better developed Broca’s Area equivalent.
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