So, basically we're more intelligent because we're better at pumping ion.
How can I improve my ion pumping?
Study finds a difference between neurons of humans and other mammals
51–60 of 82 posts
Re: Study finds a difference between neurons of humans and other mammals
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think you understand how science works. The aim isn't to be correct, the aim is to find potential areas of progress. Is my hypothesis here most likely incorrect? Yes, of course it is, but that doesn't matter since if it is correct it would be huge and therefore it is worth exploring. But thanks for your comment, now I understand better how luddites thinks. So in the future when I make comments like above I'll…
> how science works... hypothesis This is precisely what I would criticise: It's not actually a hypothesis in terms of being a testable statement: How would you even operationalize "rationality"?
Of course it is testable, psychology tests way more vague concepts all the time. It isn't as testable as concepts in physics or even biology, no, but it is still testable.
What would an experiment look like? Lets say we have a drug which gives you animal level of receptors. Inject that into babies and see if they stop developing human level thinking, and try to find out why. Of course we can't run such experiments with our current morals, but it isn't impossible to do.
Another thing you can do is look at the level of these in different humans and see if it correlates to achievements on school tests etc, see if some learning disabilities might be correlated to it etc.
Or an even cooler thing would be to see if reducing animal levels of receptors would make it easier to teach them stuff. That would probably even pass our moral test.
Re: Study finds a difference between neurons of humans and other mammals
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Human rationality is what makes us unique among animals Are you sure? It seems to us that reasoning, to some degree, is a distributed gift - in fact, all brains are there to take decisions . See for example https://www.uh.edu/news-events/stories/2017/november/1101201...
The levels to which humans can learn rationality is in a completely different league from animals, so yes I'll say I'm pretty sure about that. It is like the difference between merge sort and bogo sort, sure they solve the same problem but bogo sorting doesn't work for anything but datasets with a few elements. Animals reasoning chains breaks down extremely quickly, they can do a few steps, but humans can do hundreds…
Nothing of the sort of "rationality" exists in the history of early humans or their ancestors.
I'm not even sure what is this rationality that you're talking about. Because the main narrative of early humans evolves through giant leaps of irrationality.
Even today, most humans are irrational.
Re: Study finds a difference between neurons of humans and other mammals
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
And how is "weakening the electric signals between cells makes it easier for cells to alter the message and therefore might give rise to stronger forms of learning" not a plausible link? It costs more energy to ignore a stronger signal, making it harder for cells to learn to change input signals. Humans having weaker signals could therefore be related to our ability to learn, while animals could have stronger signals…
The learning part might be right. I'm put off by the "rationality" part.
At least to me rationality is the same thing as ability to learn complex things and have those new learnings override your intuitive responses. If you have some other definition of rationality then maybe that is why you thought my post was strange.
Re: Study finds a difference between neurons of humans and other mammals
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
The levels to which humans can learn rationality is in a completely different league from animals, so yes I'll say I'm pretty sure about that. It is like the difference between merge sort and bogo sort, sure they solve the same problem but bogo sorting doesn't work for anything but datasets with a few elements. Animals reasoning chains breaks down extremely quickly, they can do a few steps, but humans can do hundreds…
Nothing of the sort of "rationality" exists in the history of early humans or their ancestors. I'm not even sure what is this rationality that you're talking about. Because the main narrative of early humans evolves through giant leaps of irrationality. Even today, most humans are irrational.
> Even today, most humans are irrational.
Compared to what? Compared to animals basically every human has genius level rationality.
The ability to develop and spread farming methods, how to create advanced tools, language, writing etc, is what I mean when I talk about capability for rational thought. Every healthy human has that, no animal is even comparable.
Re: Study finds a difference between neurons of humans and other mammals
#56>They were able to obtain brain tissue from 10 mammalian species: Etruscan shrews (one of the smallest known mammals), gerbils, mice, rats, Guinea pigs, ferrets, rabbits, marmosets, and macaques, as well as human tissue removed from patients with epilepsy during brain surgery. Offbeat question: Could it be that epilepsy is a disorder caused by this missing ion channel, and this isn't true for all humans?
Maybe not missing ion channels, but it does seem to be caused by over sensitive ion channels, and several different ones. They used to think it was just sodium channels but now they find the calcium channels (which are also implicated in Bipolar Disorder) and the potassium channels can play a role.
https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/65083
They use sodium channel blocker's as both anti-epileptics and mood stabilizers.
I have Bipolar Disorders and have the CACNA1C, SCN2A, and KCNQ1 risk alleles for the disorder. Depakote used to work well for me, Lamictal worked even better, but Benzodiazepines as needed seem to help me the most. They are all used to treat epilepsy as well.
Re: Study finds a difference between neurons of humans and other mammals
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nothing of the sort of "rationality" exists in the history of early humans or their ancestors. I'm not even sure what is this rationality that you're talking about. Because the main narrative of early humans evolves through giant leaps of irrationality. Even today, most humans are irrational.
> Even today, most humans are irrational. Compared to what? Compared to animals basically every human has genius level rationality. The ability to develop and spread farming methods, how to create advanced tools, language, writing etc, is what I mean when I talk about capability for rational thought. Every healthy human has that, no animal is even comparable.
I will admit what I am about to say is more philosophical, and it might not be directly to your point, but hear me out.
There might be an innate rationality in other animals that you are dismissing or overlooking. We all know that when a bird eats a berry it sends the seeds out like a like Johnny Appleseed. Do they use their rational thought to do that? No. But they do not need to.
Or how about the birds who can navigate thousands of miles using the magnetic field of the earth? I do not know many humans who could do that.
Or what about a Killer Whale that can communicate to others 10 miles away without the use of any technology?
Compared to humans, every animal has genius level innate rationality that can compare to no humans.
As humans we are so obsessed with with out own type of greatness but we really need to step back and humble ourselves on the greatness of other (and I will not call them lesser) species.
IMHO, maybe humans have dumbed down and inhibited, and now we need all this technology to survive because we lack the innate ability to do it on our own.
Re: Study finds a difference between neurons of humans and other mammals
#58I highly doubt that reducing the number of channels is a simple efficiency hack, if it was simple to just reduce the density then animals would have had lower density just like humans. The question to ask is why humans would benefit from having fewer channels while animals doesn't. My naïve hunch tells me that this could be related to rationality in some way, that weakening the ion pump signals could make it easier f…
Many animals aren't under strong pressure to increase efficiency of their brains, because these brain are small and majority of metabolism is put into very basal structures like brainstem. Birds for example were under such evolutionary pressure and look where it got them - Corvidae have 15g brain and they are much smarter than 22g squirell or 30g cat. Moreover, such choices have tradeoffs, improving efficiency often…
I do not understand this obsession people have with ranking the "smartness" of animals. Each animals has the intelligence it needs to survive in the niche it lives in. Each is as smart as it needs to be.
You say a Corvidae is smarter than a squirrel, but why do you think that matters? Each species survives just fine. Would it benefit the squirrel species survival if they were "smarter"? Or would there just be more of them and then overpopulation and pollution and...oh, I see I am talking about humanity now. ;)
You know, the human experiment is far from over, but everyone seems to have our evolutionary survival mapped out like some sci-fi movie that ends up having us colonize the universe.
Re: Study finds a difference between neurons of humans and other mammals
#59I heard in a lecture that populations of human neurons are able to phase-lock or resonate to an oscillating stimulus that exceeds 1000s of Hz while mouse neurons top out around 200 Hz. I haven’t been able to find citations for this. Hypothetically, the increase in temporal sensitivity might be related to the lower density of ion channels. Would a lower density of ion channels increase the capacitance of neurons?
Re: Study finds a difference between neurons of humans and other mammals
#60>They were able to obtain brain tissue from 10 mammalian species: Etruscan shrews (one of the smallest known mammals), gerbils, mice, rats, Guinea pigs, ferrets, rabbits, marmosets, and macaques, as well as human tissue removed from patients with epilepsy during brain surgery. Offbeat question: Could it be that epilepsy is a disorder caused by this missing ion channel, and this isn't true for all humans?
If true, that would be an embarrassing oversight in the study as well as possibly #1 in one of those "Top 10 accidental scientific discoveries that changed everything" articles.
It is an oversight unless they identify it as a limitation in the study.