Brain Size

In response to Patrick (full post here)

Hey, I think it's interesting that you mentioned the sizes of brains as a reason to believe that we are more intelligent than other species. I wasn't aware that people still held that opinion; I thought it died like 40 years ago, still I would not be horribly surprised if I heard some person saying it on the street.

Obviously, as you pointed out, believing that brain size has anything to do with intelligence is largely unfounded. From our studies of animals, the closest science is to this view, is the view, which may actually be truthful, that intelligence is more closely related to the ratio of body-size to brain-size. We can see evidence of this in the animal kingdom, even excluding humans. Many parrots have small brains, while horses have larger brains. Still, the parrot brain is larger compared to the size of the body; the parrot is also more intelligent.

It's also interesting because the majority of the most intelligent animals on the planet are around middle-sized. It seems like, starting from the smallest organisms, increase in size generally coincides with increase of intelligence, but at a certain point of size, the increase of size starts to coincide with decreased intelligence. This is not a rule by any means (as there are many exceptions), but it might be more than coincidence.

Linguistic or Behavioural

Question: In the case of Mary, which evidence is more compelling – linguistic or behavioural?

In the case of Mary, I am convinced that behavioral evidence is more compelling, especially if it contradicts the linguistic evidence. We mentioned deception in class and, though I am not necessarily convinced that consciousness started as a means to deceive, it's true that humans have such an ability. It's also true that the behavioural response, as it exists on a more primitive level, is more difficult to fully control to sync up with linguistic deception. If a person says that they are not in pain, yet they scream, contort their faces, and grit their teeth, it is probably safe to assume that they are indeed in some sort of distress. This, I suppose would not be the case, if they proceeded to tell you that they had a number of disorders that caused them to do all of those things even when they are not in pain. 

It seems to me that descriptive and explanatory linguistic accounts may be more compelling, in many cases, than behavioural actions. Still, a simple linguistic account may not suffice to explain away behavioural actions. I do not know where one would have to draw the line; I suppose this would highly depend on each individual case.