[jjclarkson]

I found this interesting: "Our study revealed a universal law: Conservation of Brain Connectivity," Prof. Assaf concludes. "This law denotes that the efficiency of information transfer in the brain's neural network is equal in all mammals, including humans. We also discovered a compensation mechanism which balances the connectivity in every mammalian brain. This mechanism ensures that high connectivity in a specific area of the brain, possibly manifested through some special talent (e.g. sports or music) is always countered by relatively low connectivity in another part of the brain. In future projects we will investigate how the brain compensates for the enhanced connectivity associated with specific capabilities and learning processes."

[plants]

Small sample size, but this is consistent with what I've observed in some specialized people... For example, I have an uncle that is absolutely brilliant. He's an excellent lawyer and can remember any fact that even slightly interests him. He's simultaneously the most absentminded person I've ever met - he forgets meetings, is always mindlessly snacking (despite being on a diet for pre-diabetes) and generally forgetting things that he doesn't deem to be important. It always feels like he traded something that "normal" humans have for his smarts. It might just be mild autism, but it seems to me like savant autism is an extreme example of this effect.

[iguy]

> Small sample size, but this is consistent with what I've observed in some specialized people

The data from large samples points the other way here. Every measurable trait that you might describe as smart (like ability in math, or music, or languages, or remembering cards) correlates positively with the others.

[eganist]

> Small sample size, but this is consistent with what I've observed in some specialized people... For example, I have an uncle that is absolutely brilliant. He's an excellent lawyer and can remember any fact that even slightly interests him. He's simultaneously the most absentminded person I've ever met - he forgets meetings, is always mindlessly snacking (despite being on a diet for pre-diabetes) and generally forgetting things that he doesn't deem to be important. It always feels like he traded something that "normal" humans have for his smarts. It might just be mild autism, but it seems to me like savant autism is an extreme example of this effect.

This seems consistent with how my mind works. It takes an extra tax of effort for me to remember things with "emotional" or sentimental components to them, but I'll be a walking encyclopedia of knowledge with the necessary critical thinking capabilities to apply what I know.

Would be interesting if brain scans yielded similar patterns between the two of us. Wouldn't be a surprise either.

[Tade0]

It would be great/dystopian to, in the future, figure out what particular people are good at by analysing their brains.

[msp_yc]

Mr. Burns : Absolutely! Who could forget such a monstrous visage? She has the sloping brow and cranial bumpage of the career criminal.

Waylon Smithers : Uh, Sir? Phrenology was dismissed as quackery 160 years ago.

Mr. Burns : Of course you'd say that... you have the brainpan of a stagecoach tilter!

[arethuza]

There is also the, rather terrifying, concept of focus from Vernon Vinge's Deepness in the Sky where brains are modified to turn people into intelligent single-purpose appliances/microservices:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Deepness_in_the_Sky

[bitL]

You can view angels as intelligent (micro)services, so that concept is much older.

[coderdd]

Asimov's short novel "Profession" might be an interesting read.

[user982]

A more accurate ASVAB?

[toomuchtodo]

I smell a DoD grant in the making!

[Tade0]

Probably less, but with better UX.

[colanderman]

I wonder whether said balancing mechanism can be bypassed to achieve broader connectivity, and if so, what the consequences of that are. Sounds like they do not know the specific mechanism yet.

[derefr]

I would guess one change would be a higher metabolic demand on glucose + oxygen, beyond that which the body can supply. Like a CPU that requires more peak power than its motherboard VRMs + PSU are capable of drawing.

The brain already has a large metabolic cost, even dominating the total metabolic needs of the body during early development (https://www.pnas.org/content/111/36/13010).

I've long held a suspicion that the main reason IQ has a normal distribution is not anything to do with brain architecture per se (i.e. it's not a polygenetic trait that builds some brains out of better or worse genes than others) but rather that the brain is limited in its ability to become more complex by a proportional need for metabolic energy; and that the metabolic efficiency of human bodies is a polygenetic trait, such that the body systems required for metabolism are built from better or worse genes, that will thus get energy to the brain more or less efficiently. (This would explain why the brains of higher-IQ people don't look any different under histological analysis—there's nothing genetically or epigenetically different in them, in terms of what proteins are being expressed. Brains are brains. The differences that determine brain complexity would be elsewhere, in their bodies!)

This also, in my thinking, explains the Flynn effect: anything that we as a civilization do to get rid of an obstacle in the way of our metabolism—e.g. decreasing parasite load, stopping exposure to environmental toxins like lead or pollution, fortifying foods with vitamins, etc.—should bring the average human living within civilization ever closer to "peak performance" of the human body's metabolic system, and thus give the brain more "headroom" [hah!] to become more complex.

Of course, the Flynn effect says that this only happens to new generations (who grow up with such advances in place); not to older people (who don't grow up with such advances, but are exposed to them later in life.) I would suppose we just have some epigenetic triggers that "give up" on brain complexification after a certain point in life, probably assuming that whatever equilibrium the brain has reached between growth and apoptosis-through-energy-starvation by that point, is the final limit.

Alternately, as proposed here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaptic_pruning#Energy_saving...), the body might do well-enough to feed the brain when that's the body's only job; but not well-enough to feed the brain when both the brain and the sexual organs (and all descendent demands, e.g. pregnancy) are fighting over metabolic energy. So the "throttle" on the brain's complexification becomes "choked off" during puberty, such that the resultant metabolic energy can be reserved for reproduction. (Under that hypothesis, preventing puberty might result in higher-IQ people. It apparently worked in rats!)

[user982]

My kneejerk concern is that this result will be used to attack or dismiss the idea/existence/manifestation of genius.

[kipchak]

It's a bit of a tortured metaphor, but I think RPG stats are a fairly good analogy. Most people or characters get their stats distributed fairly evenly, and get about the same amount of points to distribute, whereas some people get their stats distributed unevenly or have more or less points to distribute. Someone with a high number of points also distributed unevenly enough to excel in one area would be a genius.