FWIW, I’ve been wondering about how cortex size and capability vary across common mammals. So, I had a short chat session which produced this:
Realizing that I was using terminology a bit too loosely, I went back to the chat session and asked for information on the neocortex, as well. No huge surprises, but see:
Very interesting.
While I think focusing on neocortical functioning alone is fine enough for something like Monty, or ML more broadly, I would caution against relying on it solely for determining biological intelligence. There are many, many forms of life out there that are impressively intelligent, albiet lack such cortex.
Also, another interesting fun fact about cortex size is that, generally, the higher the cortical count, the slower the time to maturity, oftentimes leading to fewer offspring.
Another interesting thing worth looking into is how those different animals you’d mentioned network with one another. Social insect networking is also worth looking into. The book, Sociobiology, is a great source of info on all this!
Out of curiousity, what was the driver behind your looking into this?
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For sure. The most interesting of these forms of life, to me, is the octopus (because its “brain structure” is vastly different from, say, mammals). However, I concentrated on the (neo)cortex because TBP’s approach is based on cortical columns. Dunno how well it would map onto other brain regions…
Good question! In another thread, I mentioned the notion of modeling the behavior of kittens. I then generalized the question: what animal behaviors should Monty try to model on its way to full-on human intelligence?