39 subscribers
Go offline with the Player FM app!
Podcasts Worth a Listen
SPONSORED


Why Should Intelligence Be Related To Neuron Count?
Manage episode 470742427 series 2949891
Intelligence seems to correlate with total number of neurons in the brain.
Different animals’ intelligence levels track the number of neurons in their cerebral cortices (cerebellum etc don’t count). Neuron number predicts animal intelligence better than most other variables like brain size, brain size divided by body size, “encephalization quotient”, etc. This is most obvious in certain bird species that have tiny brains full of tiny neurons and are very smart (eg crows, parrots).
Humans with bigger brains have on average higher IQ. AFAIK nobody has done the obvious next step and seen whether people with higher IQ have more neurons. This could be because the neuron-counting process involves dissolving the brain into a “soup”, and maybe this is too mad-science-y for the fun-hating spoilsports who run IRBs. But common sense suggests bigger brains increase IQ because they have more neurons in humans too.
Finally, AIs with more neurons (sometimes described as the related quantity “more parameters”) seem common-sensically smarter and perform better on benchmarks. This is part of what people mean by “scaling”, ie the reason GoogBookZon is spending $500 billion building a data center the size of the moon.
All of this suggests that intelligence heavily depends on number of neurons, and most scientists think something like this is true.
But how can this be?
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/why-should-intelligence-be-related
1054 episodes
Manage episode 470742427 series 2949891
Intelligence seems to correlate with total number of neurons in the brain.
Different animals’ intelligence levels track the number of neurons in their cerebral cortices (cerebellum etc don’t count). Neuron number predicts animal intelligence better than most other variables like brain size, brain size divided by body size, “encephalization quotient”, etc. This is most obvious in certain bird species that have tiny brains full of tiny neurons and are very smart (eg crows, parrots).
Humans with bigger brains have on average higher IQ. AFAIK nobody has done the obvious next step and seen whether people with higher IQ have more neurons. This could be because the neuron-counting process involves dissolving the brain into a “soup”, and maybe this is too mad-science-y for the fun-hating spoilsports who run IRBs. But common sense suggests bigger brains increase IQ because they have more neurons in humans too.
Finally, AIs with more neurons (sometimes described as the related quantity “more parameters”) seem common-sensically smarter and perform better on benchmarks. This is part of what people mean by “scaling”, ie the reason GoogBookZon is spending $500 billion building a data center the size of the moon.
All of this suggests that intelligence heavily depends on number of neurons, and most scientists think something like this is true.
But how can this be?
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/why-should-intelligence-be-related
1054 episodes
All episodes
×


1 The Evidence That A Million Americans Died Of COVID 12:14


1 Book Review: Selfish Reasons To Have More Kids 40:03


1 Highlights From The Comments On AI Geoguessr 16:07






1 Come On, Obviously The Purpose Of A System Is Not What It Does 8:30


1 Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Defeats Most Proofs Of God's Existence 8:20

1 Only About 40% Of The Cruz "Woke Science" Database Is Woke Science 18:34


1 1DaySooner's Trump II Health Policy Proposals 11:42

1 Money Saved By Canceling Programs Does Not Immediately Flow To The Best Possible Alternative 11:47




1 Everyone's A Based Post-Christian Vitalist Until The Grooming Gangs Show Up 9:59

1 Try The 2025 ACX/Metaculus Forecasting Contest 3:14


1 Highlights From The Comments On Lynn And IQ 22:41

1 How To Stop Worrying And Learn To Love Lynn's National IQ Estimates 9:36


1 AI 2027 (Full Recording with Footnotes and Text Boxes) 4:11:40





1 OpenAI Nonprofit Buyout: Much More Than You Wanted To Know 25:13



1 Why Should Intelligence Be Related To Neuron Count? 9:18




1 Highlights From The Comments On Tegmark's Mathematical Universe 36:11

Welcome to Player FM!
Player FM is scanning the web for high-quality podcasts for you to enjoy right now. It's the best podcast app and works on Android, iPhone, and the web. Signup to sync subscriptions across devices.