Posted: Oct 20, 2014 4:43 pm
Zadocfish2 wrote:2 things.
1)Any intelligent biological system will be based on a weighted network of some basic component (a neural network). A neural network is the maximum in efficiency for adaptive parallel processing. That is because the base structure is extremely simplified. There just isn't a simpler structure for data processing. Because of this, there is a lower limit to brain size vs intelligence.
Any basic component of life is going to be cell like. Without a cell structure, there is no division of function and without a division of function, there is no complexity. So it will be a weighted network of cell like components which you might as well call neurons.
Again you are asserting that things are the way they are here because that is the only way they could be. I am saying that that is not the case.
Sorry to be a pain, but he's actually explaining that these are hard limitations resulting from the physical properties of the universe, and you're ignoring them and just asserting that it could be different. How so? You need to explain why universal laws have to change to accommodate your argument!
Zadocfish2 wrote:
2)it isn't going to be anywhere near a human level intelligence in a rat sized brain.
Just throwing this out there, but a housekept rat can be a lot smarter than a housekept Great Dane.
Citation?
Your term 'smarter' suggests there's a scale we can measure this on.
Zadocfish2 wrote:They're actually extremely clever. As are octopi, and they have some of the smallest babies in the ocean.
Again, you're appealing to a nebulous definition of intelligence - how exactly do you know that octopuses are extremely clever? What tests have been performed to measure their intelligence? I'm well aware of observations made of octopuses, but positing degrees of comparative intelligence based on their behaviors is highly problematic in the field.
Generally speaking, an animal which specialises in intelligence as its method of survival doesn't produce vast quantities of offspring, but instead favours cultivating fewer - that leverages its own intelligence and also provides the potential for a learning period in the post-natal individual. Octopuses have batches of eggs consisting of around 150,000 individuals, most of which die because they are not offered parental protection after hatching. Perhaps octopuses' dexterity is being misread as intelligence?