Brain Size & Global Warming

An article on brain size in animals and the correlation to intelligence is good reading in the July 2011 issue of Scientific American. Douglas Fox describes a relationship between the number and size of neurons in a brain as well as the axions or connecting wires between neurons. There seems to be a maximum size of brains and intelligence efficiency. Making a brain bigger creates problems in scaling its size up-it won’t necessarily function as well.

The processing speed makes the difference. With more wiring less space exists for neurons-what a problem! It’s like the problem of increasing the size of axions and neurons with greater spacing slowing down processing time. Dr. Fox may be skeptical about the prospects for evolving a better human brain yet I am not. It won’t be necessary to burn heavy, heavy fuel to make the brain run cool either.

Human intelligence of course has to design something intelligently and evolve the brain along to increased efficiency someday if it wants to accomplish that. The human brain and body exist within a complete, complex of physical compresence with all kinds of extra things that work sometimes and others not. It has the potential for adaptation in 4 dimensions.\
One might discover a way to interface quantum computing within individual brains some day being careful to screen out data overload. Ten to the 77th power neuron connections could be filled up right quick with quantum calculations and suitable infinities.

Brain engineers might want to make model brains (they probably already are) and experiment with increasing the efficiency of existing brains-its not like a space shuttle that needs to be junked and cannot be improved or upgraded at all; the human brain won’t belong in a spaced museum anytime soon.

It may be possible to introduce faster infrabrain communications circuits in addition to adding different molecules at various locations to enhance processing speed. Obviously potential changes should not be made to an entire species, but compartmentalized because of the risk inherent within any unitary architecture.

If the human brain gets smart enough it may be able to slow down global warming. Another article in the same issue-one by Lee Kump-describes the last significant global warming era on earth (56 million years ago). Today’s global warming input is far worse, and has much greater potential for the end of human llife on earth. Well, that may not matter much to those with good SUV’s and beachfront property on the Arctic Oceaan, yet to those that don’t want warmer oceans to release the methane hydrates on the seafloor, or that don’t want carbonic acid flavoring of their fish the release of 25 petagrams of carbon each year now compared to the 1.7 petagrams per year that got the last global warming, mass extinction era rolling is discomfiting.

Large brains adapted to quantifying the stock market may help the invisible hand of random selective adaptation to solve the problem after all the permafrost has melted and burned or been eaten by carbon burping microbes.