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Newly Released Einstein Brain Photos Hint At the Anatomy of Genius
scibri writes "Photographs of Einstein's brain taken shortly after his death, but never before analysed in detail, have now revealed that it had several unusual features, providing tantalizing clues about the neural basis of his extraordinary mental abilities. The most striking observation was 'the complexity and pattern of convolutions on certain parts of Einstein's cerebral cortex,' especially in the prefrontal cortex, and also parietal lobes and visual cortex. The prefrontal cortex is important for the kind of abstract thinking that Einstein would have needed for his famous thought experiments on the nature of space and time, such as imagining riding alongside a beam of light. The unusually complex pattern of convolutions there probably gave the region a larger-than-normal surface area, which may have contributed to his remarkable abilities."
Seriously.
He was just a scientist among many others.
Yeah, some kind of quantification is definitely missing. How unusual? How unusual among people of the same profession? How common are major physics discoveries among people who don't share such features (i.e., is it a necessary feature?). Attempting to draw conclusions about complex cognitive functions from small-n measurements of a handful of macroscopic features feels a little bit like phrenology.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
we are quick to attribute a causal relationship: a certain anatomy causes genius; but this is, strictly speaking, an interpretation. we can not dismiss out of hand that a sense of genius works into a given environment, and moulds and forms the brain from habits that result from genius, rather than genius resulting from habits — the brain the enscribed result of the history of your thinking — the history of your perception of thoughts and mental effort (or lack thereof).
2cents from sunny and cold toronto island
jp
It's natural for homo sapiens with average intelligence to fear the gifted. After all, if you admit they exist, then you may have to accept that their insights into things you don't understand may be true, and the fallacies you believe for the sake of convenience may be false. Einsten owns you, loufoque. Even dead. Cults of personality are often dangerous, yes. This is not such a case.
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
Some wise people say the brain is more like a radio antenna, picking up frequencies that comes from more subtle layers. Until we've RUN the tests, we will never truly know. I agree, we've yet to see evidence neural nets are enough for creating our minds. I do agree it _seems_ pretty darn close, given the unimaginable power of the brain though, but still, cannot really see how "me" can be created by that alone. There's basically two options: a subtle link or ghost in the machine. Given the seemingly endless complexity of the universe, I would never ever discount "subtle link". You could even call it "God", I would be fine by that too, whatever expands the mind.