March 27, 2008

Does the Human Brain Possess Potential “Super Powers”?
posted by Hank Mabuse 16 years ago
  • Huh. *Drains college fund, buys baseball*
  • Not mine. Sorry.
  • I have nothing but sympathy for people who are unable to forget anything. I read stories about savants who can remember every fact they ever read, and the date/time/full context when they read it, and I think "You poor bastard." I can't imagine what it would be like to live inside a brain in which every learned fact was shiny, new, and ever-present. I imagine it being like standing in a room filled with television screens playing every movie you've ever watched, all at once, at the same volume. Ai!
  • I would guess that they only have increased recall ability. The memories aren't flooding their thoughts 24/7...they're just accessible when they want to retreive them. We generally don't think of our brains as being super-capable, but they most-certainly are...and not just for savants. It takes significant math skills and calculating ability to track an object in 3D space as it arcs through gravity's pull, but our brains (even children's) do it effortlessly every time we catch a ball.
  • It takes significant math skills and calculating ability to track an object in 3D space as it arcs through gravity's pull, but our brains (even children's) do it effortlessly every time we catch a ball. I had a super-powerful ball magnet put into my glove when I was in junior high. People even called me "The Ball Magnet." This nickname was not quite as useful when I attended that Pet Shop Boys concert.
  • ........................Oh, hmmmm, yeah. What you said.
  • Hard to believe you could have 'super powers' without sacificing something else. It would be weird if evolution had provided us with all sorts of fantastic abilities and just left the switch on 'off'.
  • Remember the story on how the guy who figured out the shape of the benzine molecule came up with the discovery?
  • The brain is like a box of chocolates... when you open it up, you never know what you're going to get. I once spent a day touring the various Smithsonian museums in D.C. under the influence of a pretty impressive chemical. All day long, I was able to access virtually every shred of information I'd ever read, seen, or heard. It was astonishing. Several times I turned away from a display case, the contents of which I was (accurately) discussing with a sibling, to find groups of people gathered, assuming I was a tourguide. I even had people from the museums asking me why I knew so much about their exhibits, none of which I'd seen before. Names, dates, stories were all right there for me to pluck out as needed. It was an amazing day which I look back upon with extreme wistfulness. The experience did teach me that even though we think we've lost memories, sometimes they're just really buried, waiting for a little help to pry them loose. I've not been chemically enhanced in quite the same way since; such substances are no longer available to me and I'm not sure I'd use them if I could. These days, I'm lucky if I can find my car keys, and am generally grateful that the scenario spelled out by mechagrue does not apply. Now, what was this thread about again? *slips quietly back into the shadows*
  • Plegmund wrote: "It would be weird if evolution had provided us with all sorts of fantastic abilities and just left the switch on 'off'." Of course it would. The amazing ability of the brain is that it is highly adaptable based on experience. This is an evolutionary advantage. If it were advantageous for us to be able to do the things savants do, we'd all be able to do it more or less. There's definitely a tradeoff here, a price to be paid to unlock these "super powers". For example, notice that many of these abilities are associated with damage to the brain or missing capabilities elsewhere? Only by deactivating parts we already use can we get other parts to try and step up to fill in the gaps. The replacement bits don't work the same way as the originals, so we get strange results, like sudden inability to forget things. The really neat bit about the transcranial stimulation is that it shows us these changes are basically instantaneous (and in these experimental cases, thankfully also reversible). I'm thinking it's damn cool that the brain can compensate that quickly. So, yeah. Coincidentally, off to go play with more brains myself now. Rat brains. Tasty, tasty rat brains...
  • I see it like a super smart kid in the back of the class who knows all the answers but there's also this sorta-smart kid who's quicker to put up his hand. It's a strong evolutionary advantage that the fast-hand-raising kid get's called on most of the time but the super-smart kid is always there too because he knows how to fix the projector when it breaks down. It's only when the hand-raising kid gets his raisin' arm injured that the smart kid gets to answer any questions.
  • OK frogs - just do not create rat brains with super powers, OK? OK, rats that can work out the day of the week for any given date, maybe OK. But nothing else.
  • Super Brain Rat - catch brain fever this fall on FOX! Premieres after Hans Holbein's Gay Tea Time Gala.
  • *sigh*
  • Sorry, Dad.
  • benzene, people.
  • And why is there no promo shot for SBR?