Even our brain is a small world network
I still follow stuff about small world networks and power laws… and look, here they pop up again. Your neurons have 13 degrees of separation!
That isn’t really what the article is about, of course; it’s more about the way in which this sort of organizational structure allows the brain to live at the very edge of chaos, tipping between stability and chaos as we think — and that in fact, the chaos maybe what drives the classic definition of intelligence.
The balance between phase-locking and instability within the brain has also been linked to intelligence – at least, to IQ. Last year, Robert Thatcher from the University of South Florida in Tampa made EEG measurements of 17 children, aged between 5 and 17 years, who also performed an IQ test.
He found that the length of time the children’s brains spent in both the stable phase-locked states and the unstable phase-shifting states correlated with their IQ scores. For example, phase shifts typically last 55 milliseconds, but an additional 1 millisecond seemed to add as many as 20 points to the child’s IQ. A shorter time in the stable phase-locked state also corresponded with greater intelligence – with a difference of 1 millisecond adding 4.6 IQ points to a child’s score.
— Disorderly genius: How chaos drives the brain – life – 29 June 2009 – New Scientist.
Now, of course we know this isn’t the only sort of intelligence. Nonetheless, it’s a fascinating result, and the article also ties it to research on autism and schizophrenia.
16 Responses to “Even our brain is a small world network”
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We?
Are you one of those Singularity nutters, too, Raph?
What is it you hope to say by clipping this magazine? What is is about the theory that interested you?
This sort of parsing of people’s brain activity and intelligence even of the classical brainy kind is about 16 m2 away from eugenics, it seems to me.
Because lurking underneath it is some meme that says “People who are anarchists or are unstable aren’t as smart as people who are conservatives and set in their ways and never take risks” blah blah.
And it’s the sort of awful stuff we saw in the Times recently with Nicholas Kristof, who really should have known better, implying that liberals’ brains were under better control so that they were not hostages to various neurological wirings than conservatives, who sere putting their heads in the sand about global warming because they couldn’t see the thing in order to induce the fight or flight response. He was making it seem as if Congressional decisions about political matters were deterministic neurological wirings.
Honestly, this stuff is for the birds.
Right now my brain is phase-locking on a T-bone sizzling nicely on the grill. But I’ll soon be going into a period of unstable resynchronization, followed by a power-law distribution of said steak.
You know, unstable flight has been a subject of research for years, since the idea is that unstable aircraft would be more maneuverable. There seems to be an analogy here, in that unstable brains are capable of managing more change, which in the case of the brain, corresponds to ideas, solutions, and learning.
Absolutely fascinating article, thanks for the link.
First Prok, understanding is often an end in itself, and secondly, IQ isn’t static to begin with, so I dunno how this can be seen as going anywhere near eugenics. A correlative relationship in no way demonstrates causality, especially not in this case. Hell, some neuroplasticity studies have demonstrated the ability to train the brain to respond with more speed and accuracy with regard to sensory stimulus, to the point that processing time itself is sped up, so the differences may simply be a result in there being a lack of proper training for the sorts of activity that the IQ tests look at. Or something else entirely. The article never presumes to know the answer to that question.
(And btw, it’s saying increased periods of instability and lower periods of stability are what’s correlating with increased intelligence, so it’d be more that the conservative that’s set in their ways and never takes risks would be at the worse end of that stick, assuming that “meme” had any actual bearing on what was being said. It really doesn’t though. It’s talking about neuron firings and electrical pulses, not behaviors or even methods of thinking. The concept of stability or instability in terms of personality doesn’t map even remotely.)
The article itself talks about this potentially leading to advancements in understanding (and thus dealing with) autism, epilepsy, and schizophrenia. So there’s usefulness even outside the singularity minded folks.
I think my brain just had a cascade failure trying to see a link between neurology and eugenics. That’s just…. wow.
Chaos is the engine of evolution. A hot pot makes a tasty stew.
Remember, it isn’t about chaotic results, but the number of choices a system can sustain/differentiate as unpredictability rises.
What is interesting it to study how mental disciplines and exercises affect choice making in hidden order environments (appear chaotic but patterns are ‘realizable’).
In Shogun, do you remember how the English sailor handled the men who came to take his sponsor by behaving in such a way that none of the social protocol that would have allowed them to take him could be executed?
I do remember that, len, but you just dated the both of us. 😉
Eolin,
Why would the dynamic nature of IQ somehow keep eugenics at bay? There really is a eugenics already at work with the singularity theory itself, however much it concedes plasticity.
I am laying down a marker in this discussion. Increasingly I find these “brain” discussions are in fact creating correlations that don’t add up.
A key way the singularity cult sells itself, for example, is by referencing all the “good work” it will do for children, the disabled, etc. Kurzweil’s reader for the blind is constantly cited as a way to emotionally blackmail people into never criticizing something that plans to nihilistically do away with the physical world and dispense with much of humanity, too.
The concept of stability/instability *shouldn’t* map, and that was my point. “Correlative relationship in no way demonstrates causality” is exactly my point, so I don’t why you are reciting it back to me.
It’s ok, Raph. I’m an Arlo Guthrie fan. I’ve dated everyone. 😉
Prok: The models of chaotic/complex systems down to quantum effects are increasingly looking like useful models how intelligence is realized. As in all science, it isn’t the truth or falsity of the model at question because no model is ‘true’ or ‘false’. The question is does it inspire tests of values which can be repeated and for which the values have a measure of predictability. IQ is not necessarily a predictor of success anyway.
What I guess you may object to is processes by which some attempt to use these tests to differentiate classes of test subjects seeing these as socially divisive. They in fact can be. Do you remember the genetic work that seem to demonstrate that in fact some statistical samples of black populations show a genetic deficiency for a trait required for pre-frontal growth? Before the work could be checked, the researchers were run to ground with such objections. At that point, society began to witch hunt the researcher because of social ethics which themselves begin to appear to be unethical. Now it is a case of not only not knowing but clearly establishing not wanting to know. Good science; bad ethics.
I agree with the notion of the ‘singularity cult’ but they don’t bother me any more than a cult of wooden shoe cloggers. They are noisy but they only hurt their own insoles.
Arlos ok. but Woody was the man;)
The issue is the rise of the technologist and the demise of the scientist in our culture.
Knowledge is not its own reward.
Not when you can be on American Idol;)
I know a few hundred BlunderNation folks who’ll argue and agree, Cube, but Arlo is still slinging and actually improving in a way not visible unless you catch him live. I just sent friends my homebrew DVD of an Arlo show edited with photos, effects and all the other tricks for covering up bad shakey video with good sound. I learned the songs on banjo (gotta take the challenge) and enjoyed every minute of it. Live is better than Memorex because a shakie is the proof. The Folkslinger is a venerable master now. Dylan? What’s he done lately? 🙂
The point about technologist over scientist is well-taken and concise. That’s a theme worthy of elaboration, c3.
i do like Arlo too:)
Happy to send you the Arlo DVD, Cube. Send a snail mail address to my home at cbullard at hiwaay.net. I’ll send you one too, Raph, if you want one. My postage, my mailer, no ‘natch.
Ya know, it is possible to enjoy and respect BOTH Arlo and Dylan. I’m just sayin’…
Nah. Mortal nemeses. Got to get with the creative conflict. Take sides. This is important stuff. You can’t root for Auburn AND Alabama.
thnks.. ill do that.:)
btw- does arlo have an arlo jr?…seems hed be just in time to loop back to his grandads adventures and journey the great depression of 2030.:)ish.
nature cycles, thus mans machine’s are like nature.. not the other way around…:)