Psychology: I'm not an expert on the subject, but something's wrong

[Kai]

Saying that the potentiation of each neurotransmitter in the brain is the software is a big mistake.  It's an abuse of a metaphor that was shaky to begin with.  Brains are un-computerlike.  They do not work on algorithms in the same sense.  It is true that there are algorithms for neuronal behavior but they are approximations of biological behavior.  They are not the rules that create brains, but a description.

Computers are mechanistic, so are brains.  Computers take data from hardware into "working memory" and perform operations on it.  That is what software is.   Brains are the working memory.  They do not have hard drives or working memory.  Brains are therefore more circuit-like than computer like.  Circuits don't have programs, they embody them.

Not to mention, it's not the neurotransmitter alone that matter. it's a whole slew of variables. Neurotransmitters come in many flavors. When they open protein gated channels on the dendrites across the synapse, it could be one of four ions that rushes in. These ions are of different strenghts in terms of generating an action potential, either excitatory or inhibatory. The axon may be sending either inhibitory or excitatory signals. It may be interacting with one other neuron, or more likely, dozens. It could be receiving excitatory ions from one part of the dendrite and inhibitory from another, all from different other neurons. When the charge reaches the hillock, if it tips the balance the neuron fires. We're talking ionic eletrotransport of signal that can be altered in a massive amount of ways within a multi-billion cell network. It's all "hardware", that is, it's all physical connections, but the connections and the /temperment/ of the connections are malleable.

There isn't really a good computer "hardware versus software metaphor" for neurology, because our computer systems have components that are either physical circuits or magnetic (yet easily erasable) storage. You could said that neuropathy is hardware with software like malleability, but that doesn't make any sense.

[Eater of Clowns]

If my brian were simple enough to understand, I wouldn't be smart enough to do it.

No physical phenomenon is beyond comprehension.  We simply lack the accumulated knowledge.

Thing is, people in the middle ages were smarter than you or I.  They had to be.  Yet they'd be utterly incapable of understanding how computer works, for example, because they lack the accumulated knowledge that you and I have access to.

They were more practically adapted to survival, yeah, but smarter, I don't think so.  As we accumulate knowledge we have to become smarter in order to apply that knowledge.  Intelligence keeps increasing as time goes on.  Whether or not we actually use it is a different matter.

That line was a bastardized take on Kant, I think, and the general argument is that we are too complex to understand given the tools currently available.  I agree with this.  We'll probably get it down at some point, but that point is so far off it's incredible, and that ceiling will likely continue to rise as we adapt to understand even more knowledge.

[Kai]

If my brian were simple enough to understand, I wouldn't be smart enough to do it.

No physical phenomenon is beyond comprehension.  We simply lack the accumulated knowledge.

Thing is, people in the middle ages were smarter than you or I.  They had to be.  Yet they'd be utterly incapable of understanding how computer works, for example, because they lack the accumulated knowledge that you and I have access to.

They were more practically adapted to survival, yeah, but smarter, I don't think so.  As we accumulate knowledge we have to become smarter in order to apply that knowledge.  Intelligence keeps increasing as time goes on.  Whether or not we actually use it is a different matter.

That line was a bastardized take on Kant, I think, and the general argument is that we are too complex to understand given the tools currently available.  I agree with this.  We'll probably get it down at some point, but that point is so far off it's incredible, and that ceiling will likely continue to rise as we adapt to understand even more knowledge.

I disagree. At this point and time in history, intelligence is not increasing. There is no selective survival or reproduction pressure for intelligence to increase beyond it's current average. If anything, intelligence is stabilizing. I do not have to be any smarter to understand the scientific problems of today than they did 100 years ago. I just have to know more. Memorization and recall is not exactly high intelligence.

In other words, Leonardo Da Vinci was not an order of magnitude less intelligent than Newton. The latter just had more accumulated knowledge.

[Eater of Clowns]

Yeah I've only really ever heard of an upward trend in overall intelligence as time goes on.  Memorization and recall aren't exactly high intelligence, but in order to apply accumulated knowledge, and given the wealth of knowledge that is being accumulated, higher intelligence is required.

You also can't argue trends based solely on outliers, as Da Vinci or Newton would be.

[Kai]

Yeah I've only really ever heard of an upward trend in overall intelligence as time goes on.  Memorization and recall aren't exactly high intelligence, but in order to apply accumulated knowledge, and given the wealth of knowledge that is being accumulated, higher intelligence is required.

You also can't argue trends based solely on outliers, as Da Vinci or Newton would be.

Okay.

If you're posing that there is an increasing trend in intelligence (which, btw, we haven't yet defined for the purposes of this conversation), then I'd like to see evidence of such. Despite its faults, IQ is one of the few widely used quantitative measures of intelligence, and it seems to be stabilizing around 100-110 average.

[Jasper]

Argh.  I'm at work and can't keep up.  I'll try to respond more fully to everything later.

[Eater of Clowns]

The average IQ is 100, it's designed that way.  When it's no longer 100, the test is changed to bring the norm back to 100.  And that's done because the score has gone up in most parts of the world since the test came about.

[Kai]

The average IQ is 100, it's designed that way.  When it's no longer 100, the test is changed to bring the norm back to 100.  And that's done because the score has gone up in most parts of the world since the test came about.

I need a cite on that.

I also need a cite on the claim that intelligence is increasing, since that is a really strong claim and I cannot think of any selective mechanism strong enough with this size of a population to increase in such short a time as a couple centuries.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The average IQ is 100, it's designed that way.  When it's no longer 100, the test is changed to bring the norm back to 100.  And that's done because the score has gone up in most parts of the world since the test came about.

But IQ doesn't measure intelligence.  It measures perception and education.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

They were more practically adapted to survival, yeah, but smarter, I don't think so. 

What do you define intelligence as?

[Eater of Clowns]

The average IQ is 100, it's designed that way.  When it's no longer 100, the test is changed to bring the norm back to 100.  And that's done because the score has gone up in most parts of the world since the test came about.

But IQ doesn't measure intelligence.  It measures perception and education.

Agreed.  I'm also not the one that brought it into the conversation as an argument for actual intelligence.  Given the newness of the test, it's less than useless in talking about intelligence since the middle ages.

The average IQ is 100, it's designed that way.  When it's no longer 100, the test is changed to bring the norm back to 100.  And that's done because the score has gone up in most parts of the world since the test came about.

I need a cite on that.

I also need a cite on the claim that intelligence is increasing, since that is a really strong claim and I cannot think of any selective mechanism strong enough with this size of a population to increase in such short a time as a couple centuries.

Google Flynn Effect for IQ.  I really don't have any citations on the interbutts for the overall intelligence trend, I'm sorry.  They would be in one of my psych books buried away in my basement if anywhere.  It's just one of the things I picked up and, hey, I'd be more than willing to admit I'm mistaken if there's anything out there pointing otherwise.

[Eater of Clowns]

They were more practically adapted to survival, yeah, but smarter, I don't think so. 

What do you define intelligence as?

Oof.  Big question.  I'm behind the idea that it's an amalgamation of critical thinking, analytical thinking, memory, reasoning, knowledge, application of knowledge, etc.  I generally support multiple intelligences, in which case I could see us being dumber in many practical ways as time goes on but smarter in other ways.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Agreed.  I'm also not the one that brought it into the conversation as an argument for actual intelligence.  Given the newness of the test, it's less than useless in talking about intelligence since the middle ages.

Less useful, I'd say.

I am using for my definition the entry in the M/W dictionary:

1.ability to think and learn: the ability to learn facts and skills and apply them, especially when this ability is highly developed

In the middle ages, you had less time to think and learn than you have now.  A reaction to a crop blight, for example, or "what to do when the next rampaging army's foraging teams show up" had a hell of a lot less available lead time than we enjoy today.  Simply put, if you took a modern Western human being and plunked him down in the middle ages, he wouldn't make it to the weekend, and not because of societal issues.

Intelligence acts almost like a muscle.  If you use it, you get better at it.  If you live by "cookbook chemistry", where the solutions are all available and only need to be implimented, you will get dumber.  So I don't think that the species has changed, I think changing conditions have taken the same genetic stock and garnered a different, dumber result.

[navkat]

They were more practically adapted to survival, yeah, but smarter, I don't think so. 

What do you define intelligence as?

Oof.  Big question.  I'm behind the idea that it's an amalgamation of critical thinking, analytical thinking, memory, reasoning, knowledge, application of knowledge, etc.  I generally support multiple intelligences, in which case I could see us being dumber in many practical ways as time goes on but smarter in other ways.

Pattern recognition.

[Eater of Clowns]

Agreed.  I'm also not the one that brought it into the conversation as an argument for actual intelligence.  Given the newness of the test, it's less than useless in talking about intelligence since the middle ages.

Less useful, I'd say.

I am using for my definition the entry in the M/W dictionary:

1.ability to think and learn: the ability to learn facts and skills and apply them, especially when this ability is highly developed

In the middle ages, you had less time to think and learn than you have now.  A reaction to a crop blight, for example, or "what to do when the next rampaging army's foraging teams show up" had a hell of a lot less available lead time than we enjoy today.  Simply put, if you took a modern Western human being and plunked him down in the middle ages, he wouldn't make it to the weekend, and not because of societal issues.

Intelligence acts almost like a muscle.  If you use it, you get better at it.  If you live by "cookbook chemistry", where the solutions are all available and only need to be implimented, you will get dumber.  So I don't think that the species has changed, I think changing conditions have taken the same genetic stock and garnered a different, dumber result.

That's a neat definition.  We make immediate reactive deicisions on a daily basis, which are based on previous learned experiences in something even as simple as driving.  What do you do when the semi driver doesn't see you in the lane when he changes into it?  How do you act when that SUV didn't check its massive blind spot and is about to take out your front end?  That can be a life or death situation as much as a pillaging army or blight, and one that we practice on a very regular basis.  But I don't think that's a definitive answer to intelligence.

I'm arguing that because we have such a wealth of accumulated knowledge that we need to apply on a regular basis, we have become more intelligent in order to adapt to that.  Whether or not our hardware has changed, the average person needs to draw upon a greater amount of information and for that we've become more intelligent.

As for dropping a westerner in the middle ages, do the same for someone in the middle ages.  They'd probably get hit by a car.

However, I definitely agree that it's easier to get by these days than it was back then.  Lack of intelligence is protected to a greater degree than ever.