My - What big eyes you have

[MyUserName]

When did we need to stick to facts in general?

I remember a bloke on the telly who'd basically wiped out one hemisphere of his brain in an explosion or shooting or something, and the other side compensated for it. I'm sure they said that our brains were under utilised.

Fascinating! How close was he to how he was before the incident?

Anyway, does that mean that if you go blind, all that brain that was used for processing visual data could be redeployed?

No idea - I would not have thought so though.

[EternalOptimist]

When did we need to stick to facts in general?

I remember a bloke on the telly who'd basically wiped out one hemisphere of his brain in an explosion or shooting or something, and the other side compensated for it. I'm sure they said that our brains were under utilised.

Anyway, does that mean that if you go blind, all that brain that was used for processing visual data could be redeployed?

good point. well made.

Also, if intelligence is proportional to the distance between the eyes, that means a cyclops is dumb. But a cyclops has less eye-real estate, therefore it is smart.

this is known as a logical fallacy, or contradiction

[original PM]

my 'one eyed' brain seems to work welll.....

[OwlHoot]

Interesting idea, but I'd have thought pigs with their piggy little eyes are a lot smarter than horses or cows, and weasels are smarter than lemurs. So it doesn't necessarily follow.

Seems more plausible that the Neanderthals were wiped out primarily by diseases caught from homo sapiens, especially as the latter being a bit smarter had larger "monkey spheres" (circles of acquaintances) on average so that diseases and thus better resistance to these would have spread through their communities faster.

Also, I read somewhere that Neanderthals were close quarter hunters, in dense forest for example, and may even have been good enough mimics to draw forest animals towards them by sound. But when the forests disappeared before the last ice age, their stumpy legs and heavy spears were much less suited for open air hunting than fast running modern humans with light throwing spears and bows and arrows.

Added to which, Neanderthals needed to eat more than hom sap anyway, which would have put them at an extra disadvantage when food was scarce, in winter for example.

[mudskipper]

Fascinating! How close was he to how he was before the incident?

I think he had a few headaches. But apart from that was pretty normal.

Google man with half a brain - can't find 'my' one, but there's a reasonable selection to pick from.

[mudskipper]

article here about hemispherectomy - seems if you whip out half the brain from a child, they develop pretty much as normal. So that would suggest that we're carting round a lot of redundant brainage.

[MyUserName]

article here about hemispherectomy - seems if you whip out half the brain from a child, they develop pretty much as normal. So that would suggest that we're carting round a lot of redundant brainage.

Awesome!

[xoggoth]

I remember a bloke on the telly who'd basically wiped out one hemisphere of his brain in an explosion or shooting or something

There was also a chap whose only brain was a thin layer round the inside of his skull but he functioned quite well apparently. He was a civil servant I think.

[EternalOptimist]

There was also a chap whose only brain was a thin layer round the inside of his skull but he functioned quite well apparently. He was a civil servant I think.

I once heard of a guru, worked on SAS I believe, who had a little pea balanced on the end of his spinal cord.
Apparently, on a quiet night, you could hear it rattle around.

[xoggoth]

Did it say cretin a lot?