Are our brains as efficient as can be?

They say we only use about 10% of our brains now so there should be about 90% there ready for us to tap into as soon as we can figure out how.

@loser That’s a myth; we actually use 100% of our brains.

Is there some absolute standard of efficiency for thinking? If there is, then no, we aren’t thinking as efficiently as we could. If there is no absolute standard, then the question is meaningless. We think as efficiently as we think. We may think more efficiently—whatever that means—in the future. But unless you can provide some standard for “efficiency,” I think your question is meaningless.

@loser Around 75% of your brain is designed to work exclusively with sensory information, and I think about 50% is devoted to vision. When you actually look how much is used on cognitive funciton, it should be less than 10%. The 10% myth is most likely misguided and evidence that shows you use most if not all your brain comes from compiling evidence from numerous lesion studies and brain scanning.

And for the OP, no our brains aren’t as efficient as possible, but I argue that based on the fact that you cannot create something perfect that is biological and naturally/sexually selected.

/edit I also believe I read somewhere that it is harder to increase human brain size based on the fact that a babies head is already as large as it can be in order for a mother to give birth to it. I may be quoting this wrong, and theres probably more to explain but I don’t have the source to refer to.

Huh. Maybe it’s just me that’s only using 10%.

@Ame_Evil Oh maybe you read that from me on AIROW? I once posted writing what you cited, about how unfortunately humans are born with small brains because any bigger and they wouldn’t be able to pass through the birth canal, and that a solution to this would be to grow babies in an artificial womb. I read this in The Universe in a Nutshell, I think.

@loser Don’t worry about it, people are naturally susceptible to believing mythology. It doesn’t mean that you are stupid.

@daloon I’m not sure. Maybe there is a maximum amount of intelligence that can be obtained with a certain brain size. I’m wondering if our brains have the maximum possible intelligence for their size.

In a purely hypothetical sense, wouldn’t early exposure to a ton of different stimuli increase the neural pathways in the brain? The use it or lose it idea, I guess. From what little I understand, if you’re not exposed to language at an early enough age you may never be able to develop it at all. Wouldn’t the same be true for any number of things we don’t even consider?

Hmmm… I’m pretty sure mine isn’t as efficient as it could be, but I’m working without an instruction manual. :-)

Interesting question. Let’s start by addressing a couple assumptions:

1. You ask if our brains are as efficient as possible, then start talking about intelligence. Are these really the same thing?
2. You also ask about increasing intelligence without increasing size. There isn’t really an exact relationship between intelligence and brain size, but this is a separate issue.

So with that out of the way, let me tackle some of your other questions…

Can our intelligence be improved by physically modifying our brains without increasing their size?

Sure. Isn’t that exactly what learning is?

For example, can we enable our brains to grow more neurons that are smaller and closer together, making it more dense?

Brains are not big fans of growing new neurons, and for a long time scientists believed they were incapable of it. We now know that’s not true. But growing new cells seems not to be especially important. Growing new connections between cells is what’s crucial to learning.

In fact, it seems like biology has figured out that having more cells can actually be detrimental. Before you’re born, your brain makes billions of extra cells that die off as you approach adulthood, mostly in two big bursts around age 2 and age 12. I don’t think anyone knows exactly why this happens, but it seems like your brain is fine-tuning itself.

And I’ve read some stuff that suggests that some forms of autism may be related to increased cell density in some cortical layers. Maybe.

Can we grow brains out of some non-organic material (like what computers use) that could be better?

In theory, sure. But I can see a couple practical problems. First, are you talking about creating a whole new brain, or augmenting an existing brain? Creating a whole new brain…that’s basically what the whole field of AI is chasing, and so far it seems like the biological stuff works a whole lot better. That could change someday, though.

If you want to augment an existing brain, it seems prohibitively difficult to figure out how to weave a new circuit into the existing material. But maybe not impossible someday.

And finally (I bet you knew this was coming!) what exactly do you mean by “better”?

Can our brains be made faster by changing the chemistry of it?

This would be tricky. Complex biological systems like the brain are already in such a delicate balance that changing one part of the chemistry would run the risk of throwing off the rest of it. Consider that action potentials are only able to fire because the sodium/potassium pump keeps the inside of the cell at -70mV with respect to the cell, and the action potential itself is a carefully orchestrated cascade of voltage-dependent ion channels opening and slamming shut, and if you were to accidentally throw things off so that, say, sodium channels couldn’t open you’d probably die. And quickly.

So I wouldn’t go messing around with the chemistry too much. Keep in mind we already have myelin sheathing to conduct signals more rapidly (unless, of course, you don’t). Myelin increases electrical resistance and decreases capacitance of a membrane—if we could find something that did both of those things even better, maybe signals would conduct faster. But even then, who knows if that would result in higher intelligence or more efficiency. It might just give you seizures.

Whew. Did I get ‘em all?

Nice job, @nikipedia! I hear a lot about sodium channels. They seem to be very important in a number of mental illnesses. Anyway, thanks for all the info!

Where is that 90% when I want it?

I’ve read that brains can and should be exercised used regularly to be properly maintained. This article suggests that physical exercise can be good for training your brain as well.

Bows before Niki’s giant brain.

@nikipedia
1. Well, no, intelligence and brain efficiency aren’t the same thing, but I mean to ask, “can we make our brains more intelligent by for example increasing efficiency?”
2. Brain mass is important for intelligence, isn’t it?

Yup, learning does modify our brains, but by I associated physical modification with using technology like chemical substances or nanobots or something of that sort.

Re my question about growing brains out of non-organic substances, I was indeed asking about AI. By “better” I mean more likely to survive. For example an enhanced human species with technologies aiding their brain function would be more likely to survive than a neurologically unaided human species.

You did a great job of answering my questions, thanks!

There are some great articles here http://sparkmygenius.com and also at the Dana Foundation http://danafoundation.org. There are a lot of scientists looking at all these issues and yes neuroplasticity can be jumpstarted by learning new things well very much like in an AI setting. Everyrtime we think or reason our brains change, they are altered by what we feel, the environment we are in and the people we meet. Even music can change brain perception and aid memory http://empower2go.wordpress.com/2009/08/03/memory-and-music-connections

I think the smarter thing to do, rather than messing with the whole brain or it’s chemistry, is to give the brain something like a Wifi connection where we can subjectively access a computational space to do complex calculations, searches, and other formal reasoning tasks. The smaller it is, the less power it would require, and you might even be able to use gravity to do it, much the same way we use weights in self-winding watches (only sending a magnet through a coil).

Over time these would evolve in complexity allowing you to collect and code data in ways that would allow you to compute and perceive statistical relationships that are too weak for people to perceive with their “naked” intellects. This would be a huge advantage, since, from an AI perspective, most decisions are based on probabilities, which people do not currently handle very well.

They might also be adapted to a kind of universal translator allowing you to communicate in any language. Memory could be stored in sub-cutaneous chips and, of course, “online.” We might end up becoming like the Borg, but at least we won’t have to get out of bed to look at dirty pictures.

Absolutely, but…
...the owner is a nincumpoop!