How the human brain differs from the animal brain

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

It seems to us that man is the crown of creation and is superior to animals in everything. BBC journalist David Robson decided to deal with common prejudices about human intelligence. Lifehacker publishes a translation of his article.

In one experiment, it was found that bees, after a little training, can develop an artistic taste and distinguish between paintings by Monet and Picasso. And this is not their only achievement. They can count to four, recognize complex signs, learn from their observations and transmit messages to each other using a secret code - the so-called wagging dance of bees. When foraging, they estimate the distance between different flowers and plan challenging routes to collect more nectar with the least effort. And the personal duties of bees inside a swarm can include cleaning and even thermoregulation: in hot weather, bees collect water and moisten the combs.

There are 100,000 times more neurons in the human brain than in a bee, nevertheless, the beginnings of many of our habits can be seen in the vigorous activity of a bee swarm. So why do we need all this gray matter? And how does it differentiate us from other animals?

Does our brain just take up space?

About one-fifth of everything we eat is spent maintaining connections between 100 billion neurons. If brain size didn't give us any advantage, we would indeed be wasting a huge amount of energy.

But there are still advantages. At the very least, our big brains help us to be more efficient. When bees explore the area in search of food, they consider each object separately, while large animals already have enough intelligence to assess the whole situation.

That is, thanks to the big brain, the notorious multitasking is available to us.

In addition, a large brain increases our memory capacity. A bee can keep in mind only a few signals indicating the presence of food, but a pigeon can already learn to recognize more than 1,800 patterns. And still it is nothing in comparison with human capabilities. Think, for example, of the participants in memory championships, who can reproduce tens of thousands of decimal places in Pi.

Okay, we remember more. And what else?

If you look at human civilization and all its achievements, you will probably find some abilities that are characteristic only of humans, you say. Culture, technology, altruism - these are generally considered signs of human greatness. But the closer you look, the shorter the list becomes.

For example, it has long been known that macaques break nuts with stones, and make peculiar hooks from broken branches in order to get insects from under the bark. Both are examples of the elementary use of tools. Even invertebrates keep up: reef octopuses collect empty coconuts and use them as houses.

Researchers have discovered in the animal kingdom a manifestation of cultural expression. For example, one chimpanzee in Zambia, for no apparent reason, began to walk with a bunch of grass in its ear. Soon, many of the chimpanzees in his group began to do this as well. After long-term observations, scientists came to the conclusion that the first chimpanzee was just fashionable, using grass for decoration, and all the other monkeys picked up this trend.

Many animals have an innate sense of justice and may even have empathy. For example, a case has been seen where the humpback whale seals, protecting it from the attack of the killer whale.

Well, conscious thinking is available only to humans

Of all the qualities that can be responsible for a person's uniqueness, self-awareness is the most difficult to test. Usually, a mirror test is carried out for this: the animal is painted with a small mark, and then placed in front of the mirror. If an animal notices a mark and tries to erase it, we can assume that it recognizes itself in the mirror, which means that it has some degree of self-awareness.

In humans, this ability develops in about a year and a half. And among the representatives of the animal world who recognize themselves in the mirror are chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas, dolphins, killer whales, magpies and even ants.

So we are no different?

Not certainly in that way. Certain mental faculties do differentiate us from other species. To make it easier to understand, imagine a family conversation at the dinner table.

The first thing that catches your eye is that we can talk at all. Whatever our thoughts and feelings during the day, we can find words to describe them. No other living entity can communicate with the same freedom. With the help of its dance, the bee can explain the location of the flower and even warn its relatives about the presence of dangerous insects, but this dance will never convey everything that happened to the bee on the way to the flower.

Human language has no such limitations. With the help of endless combinations of words, we can tell about our feelings or explain the laws of physics. And if we do not have enough of a term, we will simply invent a new one.

Even more surprising is that our conversations are not limited to the present, but can revolve around events from the past or the future, which is associated with another ability unique to humans. This is an opportunity to mentally relive past events, relying on the sensations of different senses.

And most importantly, the ability to remember the past allows us to predict the future and plan our actions. No other living creatures have such detailed memories of themselves, much less the ability to plan entire chains of actions in advance.

Through language and thought time travel, we share experiences with others and build knowledge bases that grow from generation to generation. And without them there would be no science, architecture, technology, writing - in general, everything that allowed you to read this article.