Evolution of the human brain: when bigger is better

[extherian]

It's not so much distance that's the issue, it's how many other neurons any one specific neuron can talk to at any given time.

With the current Highbrow design, even with a high-speed connection running down the spinal cord, the brain tissue in the main body cavity isn't directly connected to the brain tissue in, say, the front of the skull. That's not to say that such a brain couldn't work, but this connectivity issue would limit the benefits of all that extra brain tissue.

For example, if your cerebellum extension decided to slow down signals in the main part of the brain so that the brain tissue in the torso can catch up, that means that the main brain is being bottlenecked by the connectivity of the torso brain. Hence, the extra tissue in the torso would offer only a minor improvement in cognitive ability due to its inefficient location.

Don't get me wrong, ai_vin, I love your Highbrow article. The reason I'm taking such a critical stance on it is because I want to update it once I'm finished working on the Tweak and Superior articles.

With that in mind, I'm also thinking about how big a brain you'd need to facilitate Transavant thought. I think that it's not so much size that's the issue, but that you'd need Transapient-style mental processes like autosentience and the ability to edit your own mind as you think. A brain that was doubled or quadrupled in size could use its extra brain tissue as an additional layer on top of the left and right hemispheres, monitoring their activity and allowing for the kind of enhanced consciousness and internal feedback needed to understand Translogic.

Your existing article already includes this concept of an extra layer to the neocortex. Personally, I think this extra layer by itself could facilitate Transapient thought by allowing for this Hyperturing-style brain architecture, and that the extra tissue in the torso would offer minimal additional benefit. And I'm not an expert on the brain either by any means, but since Orion's Arm is intended to be hard sci-fi, I'd like to take as realistic an approach as I can with any potential rewrite of the Highbrows.

One compromise would be to give the Highbrows a compubone skull like the Athenaeids have. With all that computing power in a central location, latency would be far less of an issue, and dedicating the additional brain tissue/computronium to intensive mental abilities like autosentience would enable efficient use of the computing power.

[ai_vin]

OK then, let's throw out some ideas. Howabout having different parts of the brain specialize? The tissue in the skull & neck could do most of the processing while the part lower down could be mostly used as a data store - a library? Or, some kind a 'outsourcing' could take place - the upper part of the brain could give the lower part problems to solve that were not time sensitive.

[Rynn]

Rising coordination overhead naturally encourages a combination of increased specialisation, polysophonce and reduced clock rates. The exact ratio of strategy can not only vary based on clade but even over time, e.g: a polysopont being that regularly throttles their clock rate to synchronise their various specialist modules, akin to sleeping for cognitive maintenance.

[ai_vin]

Another thing to consider: Although this is a hard science site and we're a bunch of geeks who love this stuff we still have watch out for the reader - too many details could be boring.

[ai_vin]

e.g: a polysopont being that regularly throttles their clock rate to synchronise their various specialist modules, akin to sleeping for cognitive maintenance.

You mean like the fugue state the Highbrows enter into when they go transavant?

[Rynn]

You mean like the fugue state the Highbrows enter into when they go transavant?

From an external perspective it could appear that way, depends on how big the overhead is. Seems more likely that it wouldn't have to throttle down that much to ensure synchronicity so more like a lethargic state where movements and responses are slow for a time. It's basically a dynamic merging of the various modules into synchronicity. Going too long without this sort of slow-sync could lead to reduced cognitive faculties as separate modules become increasingly reliant on localised "knowledge", erratic thoughts and at the extreme end multiple personality disorder (the "disorder" part being literal that the various alternate personalities are antagonistic to one another).

[extherian]

Well, here's an idea for you. Consider that the subcortical areas of the brain (hippocampus, amygdala, cerebellum, etc) decrease in size as a percentage of the brain as it increases in mass. So, for example, a brain sized at 9 kilograms, assuming it retained the same proportions, would have a subcortical area of zero percent!

This is obviously not desirable, you can't have a brain composed of 100% white and grey matter. Or can you?

Supposing we were to make the spinal cord itself the cerebellum, hippocampus, amygdala and so on. That would allow for a truely massive brain, around 8750 cubic centimetres in mass, devoted to nothing but cerebral cortex tissue for thinking with. Meanwhile, the 'non-thinking' areas of the brain could be located along the spine in the torso. They still play important functions, but the latency issue is less critical since they're not directly involved in human cognition.

This would allow these peripheral areas to be located further away from the rest of the brain, without compromising the main thinking process. A compubone skull could store short-term memories that the main brain might require in a hurry, while long-term storage could take place in the spine.

Meanwhile, the left and right hemispheres of the main brain are shrouded in the extra neocortex layer, which monitors their thought processes and allows for new types of cognition and thinking that wouldn't normally be possible for a biont. As a side effect, limited Transavant thinking processes become available. Unlike a normal Transavant, these aren't limited to one specific area, but cover a broad range of basic Transapient thought.

I was thinking that rather than being the result of a prank, the design of this brain would be carried out by First Federation Transapients in order to research spikes in toposophy. We know from the Encyclopedia Galactica that in 1116 AT (click here), a Transapient managed to achieve a spike in intelligence to the S2 level. Perhaps they created the Highbrows to investigate the nature of Transavants, and to understand how to move past these isolated places on the toposophic landscape to the next true singularity level.

[ai_vin]

About the compubone skull idea: I would prefer to hold that back as a late stage development. The kind of thing a Highbrow might turn to when they want to take the next step. A personal option not a clade requirement.

[Rynn]

Well, here's an idea for you. Consider that the subcortical areas of the brain (hippocampus, amygdala, cerebellum, etc) decrease in size as a percentage of the brain as it increases in mass. So, for example, a brain sized at 9 kilograms, assuming it retained the same proportions, would have a subcortical area of zero percent!

This is a trend that has been true for human evolution, it is not a universal trend even in mammals. Sperm whales have 9kg brains with one of the largest cerebella of all animals.

This is obviously not desirable, you can't have a brain composed of 100% white and grey matter. Or can you?

It's pretty clear that cranking up a natural human brain in size isn't going to lead to continuous gains in capacity. That hasn't been a disputed idea in biology for a long time. Nor in science fiction (including OA) where different cognitive architectures are a frequent strategy.

Supposing we were to make the spinal cord itself the cerebellum, hippocampus, amygdala and so on. That would allow for a truely massive brain, around 8750 cubic centimetres in mass, devoted to nothing but cerebral cortex tissue for thinking with. Meanwhile, the 'non-thinking' areas of the brain could be located along the spine in the torso. They still play important functions, but the latency issue is less critical since they're not directly involved in human cognition.

Whilst coordination overhead cannot be completely solved with increased speeds faster action potential propagation can (and has in evolutionary history) significantly reduced latency in nervous systems.

This would allow these peripheral areas to be located further away from the rest of the brain, without compromising the main thinking process. A compubone skull could store short-term memories that the main brain might require in a hurry, while long-term storage could take place in the spine.

Meanwhile, the left and right hemispheres of the main brain are shrouded in the extra neocortex layer, which monitors their thought processes and allows for new types of cognition and thinking that wouldn't normally be possible for a biont. As a side effect, limited Transavant thinking processes become available. Unlike a normal Transavant, these aren't limited to one specific area, but cover a broad range of basic Transapient thought.

I was thinking that rather than being the result of a prank, the design of this brain would be carried out by First Federation Transapients in order to research spikes in toposophy. We know from the Encyclopedia Galactica that in 1116 AT (click here), a Transapient managed to achieve a spike in intelligence to the S2 level. Perhaps they created the Highbrows to investigate the nature of Transavants, and to understand how to move past these isolated places on the toposophic landscape to the next true singularity level.

I don't really see the need to rewrite the highbrows along these lines. They already have superior level augmentations to the coordinating parts of their brains. It's up to ai_vin if he'd like to go into more detail with them. As it stands there's nothing wrong with the article. Any questions of "how is the coordination handled in such a brain" is explained by "they have much better neural circuitry for coordination".

[ai_vin]

Well I rather like the idea of it being the result of a prank. However I did give the proto-Highbrows 69 years to finalize their design so we could use that time to have the First Federation Transapients throw in their input.