cyberheater
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Makes me wonder if the brain is merely a receptor of the mind.
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Man born with "virtually no brain" has advanced math degree (Boing Boing)
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No, this can only happen, and it's not a guarantee at all, if it happens at a very young age so the brain can adapt over time. If you'd remove like half the brain, you'd die xD
Because there are several reports of this kind of thing so it's not really that surprising. The brain has crazy plasticity.
CornBurrito
Member
It isn't. This is an example of neural plasticity, not an example of the mind existing outside the body.
Tertullian
Member
I thought for sure the "/scientist" would be sufficient...
John Kowalski
Banned
We found the soul.
Trojita
Rapid Response Threadmaker
Okay Jaden.
A professor of mine had a ridiculously elaborate theory (As in personal belief, not evidence-substantiated on any point) on this:
- We live in a simulated universe
- The universe simulating us has lower granularity (Planck of time\space is smaller), and thereby can simulate an entire universe of higher granularity in reasonable spacetimes
- Since it would be ultimately unethical not to have as many people as possible living happily, most of that world's resources are dedicated to simulating lower-ordered universes and having their people live in them, matrix-like.
- Thereby, brains and certain other quantum unstable phenomena are actually determinated by simulating entity, and are not actually random.
He was fond of talking about it whenever someone asked if he believed in anything he couldn't prove. Interesting guy. Nearly converted me.
hockeypuck
Member
Absolutely sloppy internet reporting. I actually looked up the original 1980 Lewin article. It's not even a scientific paper. It's a science news article written by a journalist. The boingboing forum post was incorrect however, in that in 1980 CT scans were indeed available as the old news article did show pictures of a CT slice of hydrocephalus as well.
This is nothing startling today, and it wasn't anything startling back in 1980, either.
Lewin. Science Magazine 1980 said:
And yea, anyone harboring fantasies of overclocking their brain with anything remotely similar to hydrocephalus is looking for the easiest way to become a brain-dead organ donor. Just ask the parents of hydrocephalus children whose VP shunts were kinked.
Dhruv_hanom
Member
if 1% of brain overclocked = math degree then what would a 100% brain overclock be?
Rest
All these years later I still chuckle at what a fucking moron that guy is.
Because it's completely in line with things we already know about the brain.
hawkshockey11
Banned
The same. His brain just made use of less space. More space would not equal more power
Ape Gone Insane
Member
Emotions are not useless. They are a huge part in governing your social interacting with people. Ever heard of emotional intelligence? Well a person with a high EI are generally more adept at conversations and socializing than people with low EI.
Not being able to show emotions or understand emotions will not get you pretty far in the world. You would probably be a human "robot" at that point.
you nailed the human robot part. that's exactly what I'd want done to me if this brain cutting was ever (more like never) feasible
John Kowalski
Banned
But you wouldn't remember love.
Hmm, despite my disbelief in the Original Poster's story, this is very interesting!
I learned quite a bit.
Schadenfreude
Member
GraveHorizon
poop meter feature creep
triplestation
Member
Well I'm only using like 2 percent of my brain so im training to get too 100 % by buying corsair vengeance 4x 8gb sticks and ssd drive and i7
How can your brain be real if you are not real
What is love? Baby don't hurt me..
hipbabboom
Huh? What did I say? Did I screw up again? :(
I can save this...
He got his degree from the school of hard-knoc-gins
Get it?! Knoc-gins sounds like noggins because the story has to with his brain which is in his head. LMFAO!
Interceptor
Banned
And that's why i have no math degree.
Too much brain.
Too much brain.
Arkos
Nose how to spell and rede to
Twilight Gap
Member
This is how humans get in trouble.
SapientWolf
Trucker Sexologist
It would be even worse than most people think, because when you have the right answer to a question the feeling that it's right is an emotion. A decision is an emotional response as well. A person with no emotions would have a lot difficulty even functioning.
Somehow still seems better than emotional but low EI
pseudocaesar
Member
Is this the same dude from the Wiki article?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrocephalus#Exceptional_case
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrocephalus#Exceptional_case
Nexus Zero
Member
Aspergers clearly
TheStruggler
Report me for trolling ND/TLoU2 threads
"you know how people always say we only use 10% of our brain, I think we only use 10% of our heart."
which movie?
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
It turns out we do only need 10% of our brain
HAH. LUCY ISN'T SO DUMB AFTERALL. Suck it haters
HAH. LUCY ISN'T SO DUMB AFTERALL. Suck it haters
1. Image shown doesn't correspond with person in story. Meaning that although the condition could be similar, the extent to which it occurred could have varied dramatically.
2. The nature of neural wiring is much more important for information processing than actual volume of neurons.
3. Most of the brain volume consists of glial cells (I believe) - important, but not actual information processing stuff (although it does affect the information processing abilities of the brain through maintenance and insulation).
4. We have significant redundancies in our brain, especially early on where modules aren't fully formed yet and connections are still maintained (the brain develops well honed modules by carving away at the connections - not unlike a sculptor carving away at stone).
The way information is processed and routed in the brains is significantly down to our cognitive functionalities that we have influence over.
Specifically, when we engage in open minded critical/skeptical thinking, we're perusing information processing strategies that allow us to find more relevant and useful connections relevant to the world than most other strategies.
Similarly, other techniques like study help assist significantly in developing the neural connections that are relevant towards processing information.
So even if you start with significant neurological handicaps - these can be overcome with the correct set of meta-cognitive strategies. Alternatively, if you pursue the wrong set, then it doesn't matter how good the basic properties of your neural network start with... it'll become a less effective network when it does things like recursions into information networks that fail to be grounded by the external representation (i.e. internal model doesn't map against the world - and instead of updating the internal model, the external representation is simply rejected).
Coupled with one of the core mechanisms of neural function - culling (the aforementioned carving away), and the lack of neural networks (within the brain) that can form new connections means that the rate of new/regenerated connections fall below the overall rate of culling, leading to brain degeneration.
This among other reasons are why older people face so many cognitive issues as they age - many engage in lifestyles that are familiar and routine, with cultural mores that reduce the degree to which their authority and thinking is challenged.
2. The nature of neural wiring is much more important for information processing than actual volume of neurons.
3. Most of the brain volume consists of glial cells (I believe) - important, but not actual information processing stuff (although it does affect the information processing abilities of the brain through maintenance and insulation).
4. We have significant redundancies in our brain, especially early on where modules aren't fully formed yet and connections are still maintained (the brain develops well honed modules by carving away at the connections - not unlike a sculptor carving away at stone).
The way information is processed and routed in the brains is significantly down to our cognitive functionalities that we have influence over.
Specifically, when we engage in open minded critical/skeptical thinking, we're perusing information processing strategies that allow us to find more relevant and useful connections relevant to the world than most other strategies.
Similarly, other techniques like study help assist significantly in developing the neural connections that are relevant towards processing information.
So even if you start with significant neurological handicaps - these can be overcome with the correct set of meta-cognitive strategies. Alternatively, if you pursue the wrong set, then it doesn't matter how good the basic properties of your neural network start with... it'll become a less effective network when it does things like recursions into information networks that fail to be grounded by the external representation (i.e. internal model doesn't map against the world - and instead of updating the internal model, the external representation is simply rejected).
Coupled with one of the core mechanisms of neural function - culling (the aforementioned carving away), and the lack of neural networks (within the brain) that can form new connections means that the rate of new/regenerated connections fall below the overall rate of culling, leading to brain degeneration.
This among other reasons are why older people face so many cognitive issues as they age - many engage in lifestyles that are familiar and routine, with cultural mores that reduce the degree to which their authority and thinking is challenged.
Shin Kojima
Banned
Does this mean I can stop worrying about all the braincells that smoking weed supposedly kills?
In fact, you can start rejoicing!
While the story in the OP may not be true, the neuroplasticity is a crazy interesting topic.
The brain can essentially rewire itself (though the older you get, the worse it gets at this).
An interesting example I came across while looking at neuroplasticity in college was a study from the 1970s, where (both blind and blindfolded) subjects were given a system to wear that comprised of a camera, and a mechanism of 400~ metal pins (not sharp ones) that they wore - the camera sent the recorded information to the pins, which would press against the subjects back, sort of simulating the way the way pixels/receptors work in the eye.
After some practice, the subjects were able to identify simple shapes by looking at them, and fascinatingly, the area of the brain that was in use during these tests was the visual cortex (from what I remember this applies to the blindfolded subjects, I'm not sure about the blind ones - basically, after a period of not using the visual cortex, the brain co-opted it for use in processing these tactile signals).
Really fascinating stuff, and a lot of the flexibility of the brain was only discovered in the 1970s.
The brain can essentially rewire itself (though the older you get, the worse it gets at this).
An interesting example I came across while looking at neuroplasticity in college was a study from the 1970s, where (both blind and blindfolded) subjects were given a system to wear that comprised of a camera, and a mechanism of 400~ metal pins (not sharp ones) that they wore - the camera sent the recorded information to the pins, which would press against the subjects back, sort of simulating the way the way pixels/receptors work in the eye.
After some practice, the subjects were able to identify simple shapes by looking at them, and fascinatingly, the area of the brain that was in use during these tests was the visual cortex (from what I remember this applies to the blindfolded subjects, I'm not sure about the blind ones - basically, after a period of not using the visual cortex, the brain co-opted it for use in processing these tactile signals).
Really fascinating stuff, and a lot of the flexibility of the brain was only discovered in the 1970s.
Just be aware that rewiring takes time and gets worse as you get older and you need stimulus.
So be careful still.
More Fun To Compute
Member
I've heard the comparison that large brains can be like an SUV while small brains can be like a Ferrari.
Langdon Alger
Banned
I don't believe a word of this.
nephilimdj
Member
Hes just one of the lucky childhood ABI victims in my view, of the 100,000 who will end up with negative effects, nothing really magic.
I imagine they 'coopted' the visual cortex because a lot of those information processing modules were already in the cortex.
Even if the information is delivered via the skin, ultimately, the deeper patterns across either sensory mechanism is similar.
i.e. contrast, edges, direction of movement, etc.
I mean by the time your visual cortex receives the information, the image perceived is literally no longer light - it is a series of electrical impulses that encode information that the body's sensory system detects.
If you send the same pattern of electrical impulses via the ear or the tongue or some other novel mechanism - then the circuits of the brain that are already honed to deal with that sort of information will be the lowest points of resistance for processing that information. In this case, circuits in the visual cortex.
Super cool stuff. What's even cooler is they've cut and reattached eye stalks of some animals before (frog I think it was in this experiment) - obviously they can't reconnect it on a cellularly accurate level... but that didn't matter - because after a while the neuroplasticity of the brain was able to reprocess the connections (initially haphazard and out of place after reconnecting) and make sense of them as before. In more salient terms, it's kinda like taking the pixels of a monitor, jumbling the shit out of them... and then after a while, having the proper images display again anyway.
Essentially showing that neuroplasticity is a critical low level mechanism of the function of neurons, as it can occur at all levels of cognitive and information processing.
Dhruv_hanom
Member
Heh just there response I was looking for :-D
PayOffWizard
Member
Octavianus
Banned
Can you imagine if he used 100% of his brain through? He'd be like a theoretical physicist something.
Langdon Alger
Banned
I read something a while back about a woman who could not experience fear because her amygdala was calcified or something. If the x-rays in the OP really were anywhere near accurate, that guy would have no amygdala. How could he be experiencing fear? He'd have no cerebellum so how could he maintain any sort of balance, or even move?
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