Everyone is made up of the same matter; most humans have the same anatomy – 2 hands, 2 legs, 1 head, etc. Layouts are roughly the same. But, the more you zoom in, the more differences you find.
We have differently sized palms, we have different eyebrows, lips, noses, etc.
So why are we unique if we have the same brain and body?
The answer lies in how much you are willing to zoom-in into the brain or someone’s mental capacity to draw comparisons.
While it is true that most of us have roughly the same brain structure, there is a whole lotta difference at the finer level of neural connections and neural density.
We, individuals, have many differences. 80 billion neurons – each with 100s of 1000s of connections to other neurons. The way these neurons are connected changes how the brain functions. Due to minute changes in how our genes organize the cells in our bodies, the ever-changing environment, and differences in our experiences, these 80 billion neurons have small differences in how they connect to each other. These individual differences exist.
It is also very easy to say we are similar to chimps and yet we have the internet and they don’t. It’s about how detailed a picture you are looking at to see the differences. Humans and chimps have about a 95% similarity in genetic coding. Humans on average, from any race and place, are 99.9% similar. You can read more about genetic variation here.
But that ain’t the main thing. Humans are plastic and developmental beings. That means we change over our lifespan. Many of our traits and capacities are ephemeral. We change how we think, how well we think, how our brain is organized, etc.
Neural connections change based on what we learn. There are massive differences between some regions for musicians and non-musicians, professional taxi drivers and direction-void people like me.
Neural changes have a 2-way channel with mental capacities. Just like mental capacities have a 2-way channel with neural changes. One affects the other in both directions.
Some cultures have different ways to conceptualize ideas and have different words for it. The Kuuk Thaayorre people from Pormpuraaw (west of Cape York) don’t have words for left and right. They always speak in terms of north, south, east, and west. They even locate objects based on these directions. For example, they can point to a rock and say it is northwest of me. This cultural quirk has positively affected their direction orientation and spatial reasoning, making them better than us – we, the traditional ‘left-right’ people.
Another example of a debated phenomenon is the extensive vocabulary the Inuits have for snow. Turns out they have many different words and this may be due to the dominance of snow in their area which has conditioned their senses to perceive subtle differences. Here is a detailed account of it. Most of us from non-snowy regions call all things white, soft and falling from the sky snow.
These differences further affect ones readiness to assess something ‘intelligently.’ One isn’t stupid if they can’t differentiate between multiple types of snow. The context matters. Similarly, one isn’t more intelligent because they can recognize everyone’s voices perfectly. Such differences are abundant and there are transfer effects (such a sensitivity helping in a different domain) in noticing changes that could contribute to higher or lower IQ via some regimented practice.
These factors contribute to what we call intelligence. Now IQ is not intelligence. What people often misunderstand is that IQ is a number that correlates with many abilities that predict intelligence – verbal ability, attention span, memory, etc.
IQs are roughly stable but one cannot say that IQ is hardcoded in us. Early experiences that help build memory or train your attention span can affect IQ in the future. So human experiences and their biology, both contribute to IQ.
IQs follow the normal distribution where the human average is an IQ of 100 (by design). 99.9
Now, how someone uses their cognitive capacity to function in life is further affected by their motivation to do so – by their readiness to do well, their confidence in their own ability, etc. This may not guarantee neural changes over a short-term but it can affect the IQ score.
This is a crazy opportunity for individual differences to arise.
Do you see why it is so easy for people to have different IQs, different personalities, different skills, etc. even though we all roughly have the same brain structure?
A lot of it depends on your choices while you are alive. You are uniquely intelligent. That’s probably the best way I can put it and that isn’t political correctness.
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Thanks for your insights.
I think this explains perfectly what was going on:
“Then they just become templates of thinking (mental models) which can be used in any other area. Transfer effects and mental models end up positively influencing the fundamentals that go into IQs – think short term memory, pattern matching, attention & working memory, etc.”
I really like this post and would like to add a bit my perspective (which supports 100% this point of view.
1. When I was young, my parents, friends, and teachers were all telling me that I was intelligent. To the extent that it made my inferiority complex worse “I’m good at nothing except for being intelligent”.
Yet, when I took an IQ test, I always failed badly.
The reason why is that when I took them, I was worried I’ll fail in the only thing I had “intelligence”.
I think elements such as fear of failure can affect an IQ test as much as the person’s intelligence itself.
2. Related to the cultures part: If something that remotely looks like a crocodile is spotted miles away from my country’s shores, it will be all over the news, and people won’t go swimming anywhere for months – just in case the crock comes back.
In Somalia, people just go swimming in crocodile-infested rivers after passing through a riverside infested with rattlesnakes.
The reason they still go swimming, I’ve come to know, is that they know all the nuances of both rattlesnakes and crocodiles. They know not only if there is a crocodile in the vicinity or not, but can predict the crocodile’s every move.
While once in a while a person does get eaten by a crocodile, it’s not common because they have developed the finer skills to deal with it.
3. I believe intelligence can be increased at will. I’m a musician and there was a point in my life, where I was practicing so heavily (and with full motivation) that I started noticing changes in my brain.
It’s hard to explain it but if I had to put it in words, I would say dots were being connected. I started seeing patterns in everything – life, politics, a flower, music – whatever.
Do you have any knowledge of this process? I would love to know more about it and though I can’t exactly explain how it happened, I know it happened and I know it happened because of the practicing, not because I was growing up or anything.
Hey Robert, thanks for sharing your story and the kind words! It’s honestly surprising how IQ scores rarely account for motivation and anxiety. The 3rd point you made is striking because that is a significant contributor to what we call intelligence. We are looking at something called the transfer of learning. Being a musician involves a lot of things like understanding patterns, non-linear thinking (harmonies), sequences, etc. One keeps honing these cognitive skills and internalizes them. Then they just become templates of thinking (mental models) which can be used in any other area. Transfer effects and mental models end up positively influencing the fundamentals that go into IQs – think short term memory, pattern matching, attention & working memory, etc.
Regarding point 2, yeah I find this is a common cultural nuance. It’s almost like certain aspects of intelligence is embedded in culture. In India, it is so common to know 3 languages fluently that one may overvalue this as a sign of intelligence in single language cultures. Then there is the 3rd world trait of finding odd solutions to basic life problems (life hacks??) with random resources present in the house. This certainly ends up helping with problem solving skills. That’s an interesting example you’ve shared! Nuances matter a lot.
Regarding point 1, yeah, I know the feeling. The anxiety of failing at the one thing you are supposed to be good at can be hard to deal with. You are right in pointing out that fear of failure can matter just as much. If you are interested you can look at research on test anxiety & motivational factors in testing. There is quite a lot of research. Here is one to begin with.