Brain debate
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I believe different brains have different capacities. That's why people have different IQs, though some of the IQ tests are dumb - like asking who the 5th US President was to an Indian guy, who might barely know the names of the last 3 Presidents. Nish
My take on gmail - Is gmail just a fashion statement? My blog on C++/CLI, MFC/Win32, .NET - void Nish(char* szBlog); My MVP tips, tricks and essays web site - www.voidnish.com
IQ tests are pretty meaningless. They only show that a person can do that particular test. Also they are a learnt ability, i.e. the more of them you do the better you will get. Ant. I'm hard, yet soft.
I'm coloured, yet clear.
I'm fuity and sweet.
I'm jelly, what am I? Muse on it further, I shall return! - David Williams (Little Britain) -
The grey cell count matters a lot. Brain tissue is normally pink, and only turns grey after death. My blog.
ProffK wrote: only turns grey after death. Is this natural or what? I seem to remember reading somewhere that it turned grey as a result of storing it in formaldehyde. pseudonym67 My Articles[^] "They say there are strangers who threaten us, In our immigrants and infidels. They say there is strangeness too dangerous In our theaters and bookstore shelves. That those who know what's best for us Must rise and save us from ourselves." Rush
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ProffK wrote: only turns grey after death. Is this natural or what? I seem to remember reading somewhere that it turned grey as a result of storing it in formaldehyde. pseudonym67 My Articles[^] "They say there are strangers who threaten us, In our immigrants and infidels. They say there is strangeness too dangerous In our theaters and bookstore shelves. That those who know what's best for us Must rise and save us from ourselves." Rush
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I would say the second is more correct. Sure, effort makes a difference, but it's fairly obvious that some people are highly intelligent without trying very hard, and others try as hard as they can but just can't keep up. Then you look at people like musicians (I'm one, so I know this example). Some people are very musical, other's just can't do anything musical no matter how hard they try. Even being in the same family doesn't really mean a lot. I've been judged to be in the top 2% of musicians in Australia, but my younger sister is about as unmusical as you can get. I know I've put in a lot more effort than her (she has tried to learn piano and flute for a few years though), but neither of us sing much, yet I can sing in tune easily and she can't. Everybody's brain is different. Similar in some ways, but substantially different in others. If everyone was too similar, the world would be a very boring place ;)
Ryan
"Punctuality is only a virtue for those who aren't smart enough to think of good excuses for being late" John Nichol "Point Of Impact"
Ryan Binns wrote: Some people are very musical, other's just can't do anything musical no matter how hard they try. I heard differently: It was about sixty years ago that Dr. Shinichi Suzuki, a Japanese violin teacher, started the Talent Education Movement, with a revolutionary idea that all children can learn to play the violin if they are taught by the same method that they learn to speak their own language.[^] From what I understand of this method - Very few of these children are born with any in build musical ability. Another thing I read was about what languages babies talk. All babies babble in the same language regarless of the language of the parents. Language is taught, it isn't something someone is born with.
"You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want." --Zig Ziglar The Second EuroCPian Event will be in Brussels on the 4th of September Can't manage to P/Invoke that Win32 API in .NET? Why not do interop the wiki way! My Blog
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Me and my friends were discussing on a topic: My point was every brain is similar as far as it is functioning well and it is the personal effort that differentiates a scientist to an ordinary man. My other friend believes that it is brain that differentiates an extra talented brain. Any opinion?
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Me and my friends were discussing on a topic: My point was every brain is similar as far as it is functioning well and it is the personal effort that differentiates a scientist to an ordinary man. My other friend believes that it is brain that differentiates an extra talented brain. Any opinion?
...should prove interesting... http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/ein.html[^] John Theal Physicist at Large Got CAD? http://www.presenter3d.com[^]
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Me and my friends were discussing on a topic: My point was every brain is similar as far as it is functioning well and it is the personal effort that differentiates a scientist to an ordinary man. My other friend believes that it is brain that differentiates an extra talented brain. Any opinion?
Nature vs. nurture. There is a lecture that is played on UCSD TV every now and then by Prof. Ramashandran (sp?). The talk is about brain function in the context of art appreciation - rather interesting. One example case he talks about is synesthesia : A condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces the visualization of a color. The patients he examined tended to see "5"'s as being tinged red. He proposes that as the numeric and color processing areas are next to each other it is likely that there is some cross wiring. He then talks about metaphor (relating normally unrelated objects) and gives Shakespeare as an example "Juliet is like the sun". He suggests that some of the great artists likely had this kind of cross wiring between various areas of their brain, which allowed them to automatically see metaphors that we would have to labour at to think of. If all this is true (and i think it makes sense) then i would say that some brains are created more 'gifted' than others in certain areas. But, this is hardly the defining factor in intelligence or wisdom. They still need to be able to use the rest of their brain to utilize any advantage they may have. ...cmk Save the whales - collect the whole set
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Me and my friends were discussing on a topic: My point was every brain is similar as far as it is functioning well and it is the personal effort that differentiates a scientist to an ordinary man. My other friend believes that it is brain that differentiates an extra talented brain. Any opinion?
Yes effort and usage are part of the things to consider but only part. The brain is an organ that uses chemicals to function. A break down of processing occurs when the process gets to far out of bounds (called dementia folks and it occurs to 50% of the elderly population.) So diet and other enviroments especially in childhood, will effect capability. I do not mind getting old. It beats all the other options that can think of.
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I believe different brains have different capacities. That's why people have different IQs, though some of the IQ tests are dumb - like asking who the 5th US President was to an Indian guy, who might barely know the names of the last 3 Presidents. Nish
My take on gmail - Is gmail just a fashion statement? My blog on C++/CLI, MFC/Win32, .NET - void Nish(char* szBlog); My MVP tips, tricks and essays web site - www.voidnish.com
I agree that few brain fails to develope, but if we talk of fully matured human, is'nt it true that given a condition two person will deliver best (provided the provided conditions are same to both) results provided they give their 100%. I know I am contradicting myself as no two results by different humans will ever match, but is'nt that because of the lack of effort or concentration.
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I would say the second is more correct. Sure, effort makes a difference, but it's fairly obvious that some people are highly intelligent without trying very hard, and others try as hard as they can but just can't keep up. Then you look at people like musicians (I'm one, so I know this example). Some people are very musical, other's just can't do anything musical no matter how hard they try. Even being in the same family doesn't really mean a lot. I've been judged to be in the top 2% of musicians in Australia, but my younger sister is about as unmusical as you can get. I know I've put in a lot more effort than her (she has tried to learn piano and flute for a few years though), but neither of us sing much, yet I can sing in tune easily and she can't. Everybody's brain is different. Similar in some ways, but substantially different in others. If everyone was too similar, the world would be a very boring place ;)
Ryan
"Punctuality is only a virtue for those who aren't smart enough to think of good excuses for being late" John Nichol "Point Of Impact"
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Recognising patterns is the basis of all learning, based on the more primitive recognition of difference. My blog.
Yes, and certainly everyone here at CP is skilled at it - we wouldn't be in the professions we are without that ability. What still amazes me is how the rest of the population can have so much difficulty with it. :( Some people think of it as a six-pack; I consider it more of a support group.
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I agree with you 100%. I think what separates a scientist from a guitar player is interests that were fostered at an early age and the brain adapted to meet those interests because we all know how adaptable the brain is. I just saw something about a study that showed that when a group of people were asked to learn to juggle and practiced daily they not only got better at juggling as expected, there was also a detectible physical change in the brain. When they stopped, 6 months later the physical change was gone. Anyone who says that scientists and great composers are born that way is just fooling themselves, it flies in the face of scientific fact. Some might say the argument that a person is "born that way" is a way to explain away a lack of effort, but I don't believe that, I think the brain adapts to handle what you are interested in and practice at. No amount of effort will make you a great mathematician if you have no interest in it. The interest is the key. People have been known to accomplish truly amazing feats when they were extraordinarly involved and interested and motivated to do so. It all comes down to how much you are interested in doing something. No amount of motivational tapes or positive thinking is going to make a kid a great musician when their parents are forcing them to become one against their will. The kid themselves might even believe they are trying hard and want to do it, but subconsciously I bet you there is zero interest and no good results will come of it. The argument you outline is age old and is often referred to as the "nature versus nurture" argument. I'm firmly on the side of nurture.
An election is nothing more than the advanced auction of stolen goods. - Ambrose BierceI believe strongly in nuture and think that some people given the correct exposure can become especially strong in an area relative to their peers. In other words, if a kid is read to and incouraged to speak then their speaking ability will be on par if not better than their peers. However, I do think some people have natural aptitudes for subject areas. When I was about 5 I started staying at my grandmothers and while attending preschool was identified as a student who had difficulty learning, tredemoninately in the area of basic reading and letter recognition I presume. What else would they teach preschoolers. ;-) Unfortunately, I had a speech impediment. While staying with them I started taking an interest in counting change and telling people the purchase price for a order from our produce stand. Within a month I not only learned to add but had began a self instilled understanding of multiplication by memorizing the 5 items costing 1.25 would always sum to 6.25 By the time I began kindergarden I knew my multiplication table to 12. This area came natural too me even though speech and reading aloud didn't despite an immense desire to be successful in this area. I wanted it a lot more than I wanted to be good at math and I focused on getting better considerably to no avail. Math was and has always been easy for me. On a side note. Oddly enough after about a year of loving math and slowly focusing more and more of my energies in this area I "lost" my speech impediment and somehow became a very strong student of both math and the liberal arts. I have also seen my brother take immense interest in something and not picking up on it as quick as I do but I guess one could chalk that up to prior experience in learning new things since I more readily take active interests in different areas...
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Me and my friends were discussing on a topic: My point was every brain is similar as far as it is functioning well and it is the personal effort that differentiates a scientist to an ordinary man. My other friend believes that it is brain that differentiates an extra talented brain. Any opinion?
What is talented ? Who is to say that a scientist has better skills than this 'ordinary man' surely a large part of the difference is what we know not , not some mythical ability to learn or apply learning in faster more apt ways ?
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Me and my friends were discussing on a topic: My point was every brain is similar as far as it is functioning well and it is the personal effort that differentiates a scientist to an ordinary man. My other friend believes that it is brain that differentiates an extra talented brain. Any opinion?
It's definitely a complicated situation. There are definite phases to human learning and development like language and motor skills that govern learning. If you miss those critical periods of development then the learning process is much more difficult. Each person advances through those steps at a different pace. That's why I think approaches to learning like the Montessori method are better then the rigid assembly line methods taken by institutions such as the American public school system. In Montessori, you allow students to advance at their own pace rather then lock everybody into learning at the slowest rate. As far as rating people with a single ability. We can't even rate processors with a single test anymore and they only have millions of transistors vs. 500 billion cells in the brain. A single human brain has 100-1000 cells for every person on the planet. The complexity of the human brain dwarfs just about any other non-biological system that we can compare it to.
I can imagine the sinking feeling one would have after ordering my book, only to find a laughably ridiculous theory with demented logic once the book arrives - Mark McCutcheon
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Me and my friends were discussing on a topic: My point was every brain is similar as far as it is functioning well and it is the personal effort that differentiates a scientist to an ordinary man. My other friend believes that it is brain that differentiates an extra talented brain. Any opinion?
Then why can't I teach my dog to talk? Should all hadicapped people be able to learn like everyone else? Are they just uninterested in everything? I think the brain is similar to the rest of the human body. Everyone has a different genetic makeup which determines their own unique abilities. Todd Smith
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Me and my friends were discussing on a topic: My point was every brain is similar as far as it is functioning well and it is the personal effort that differentiates a scientist to an ordinary man. My other friend believes that it is brain that differentiates an extra talented brain. Any opinion?
I have 2 sons, they are as different as night and day. Same parents, same home, neighborhood, etc. The oldest is very intelligent, athletic and articulate. Has always been that way. The youngest one, doesn't play by the rules, is very creative, imaginative and musical. I'll go with hormones, brain chemistry, etc as having an impact on how your intelligence plays out. Josef Wainz Software Developer
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Then why can't I teach my dog to talk? Should all hadicapped people be able to learn like everyone else? Are they just uninterested in everything? I think the brain is similar to the rest of the human body. Everyone has a different genetic makeup which determines their own unique abilities. Todd Smith
You can teach your dog to talk provided you has enough patients to teach and your dog has enough courage to hear you ;). (like some parrots speaks a few words) However there is one small problem with dog talking, Nature has gifted humans with throat that has ability to speak. Out throat is designed such that we can deliver speech. Dogs even if can synthesize speech within their minds cannot deliver to us. That is the reason I said fully grown human mind.
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You can teach your dog to talk provided you has enough patients to teach and your dog has enough courage to hear you ;). (like some parrots speaks a few words) However there is one small problem with dog talking, Nature has gifted humans with throat that has ability to speak. Out throat is designed such that we can deliver speech. Dogs even if can synthesize speech within their minds cannot deliver to us. That is the reason I said fully grown human mind.
The could bark in morse code. Todd Smith