The Long Dark Night

...with no air conditioning. I just finished up a CQ shift- CQ standing for Charge of Quarters. It was one of the less eventful nights, which is fine. I guess everyone had somewhere else to be. I also learned it's entirely possible to read a 600-page book in a day and a night. I'd say I picked a good book to read, both because I enjoyed it very much and because I finished it in a shift. The book was A Discovery of Witches, written by Deborah Harkness. It's similar in many ways to the Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. The book takes place in a world where there are four types of beings- first, the witches, who are, well, witches. Apparently you need a genetic predisposition to be able to perform witchcraft, at least on the level of these witches. There are vampires, pretty self-explanatory there. But apart from heightened senses and requiring blood to survive, they're pretty much average joes. There are also daemons, which I found the most interesting, perhaps because they're the least defined characters of the book. Daemons, (not demons) are somewhere between humans and witches in this world- they apparently are geniuses, having an exceptional knack for art and music. What distinguishes a human from a daemon seems to be the way the brain works- daemons have much more brain activity. The three groups are constantly at odds, and long-standing prejudices exist. One witch, who doesn't want to be a witch, as she blames the other witches for the death of her parents, falls in love with a vampire, and manages to uncover a secret book of alchemy, containing all kinds of useful information. All three groups want this book (humans are kind of oblivious to all this), and a long involved romance and power struggle ensues. It's just as good as it sounds- very engaging, very well-written and not your usual good-vs-evil tale. It does raise some interesting questions about human potential, too- the main character has really bizarre DNA, which to the best of my knowledge does not occur in real life- she has the identified markers (in the book) for all kinds of cool powers- commanding the elements, flight, precognition, all that good stuff. Witches in this world are kind of like superheroes, usually with one or two areas of specialty. As far as I know, elements in the 'real' world don't really like to be commanded, but will work with you if you ask them extra nicely. But back to my point- the daemons got me thinking, some people are actually like that! When we're born, our brains are incredibly dense with neural connections- more than we could possibly ever use. As time goes on, and we learn to speak, walk, coordinate muscle movement, these neural connections get weeded out. The ones that remain active are left in place, the ones that are never used get shut down. Now this isn't to say let's try to save the entire net- that's impossible, and the weeding out is a natural part of human development. But here's the funny part- our neural nets never stop, absent disease or disorder. As we continue to learn, connections re-form, connections are strengthened, and some grow weaker from lack of use. It's said this is why we sometimes have trouble remembering things from a long time ago, or that we don't usually need to remember- the connections are either weak or have to take a roundabout route.

The brain, as you probably know, is composed of neurons- neurons are fun little electrically-driven cells that transmit signals. Most of our thoughts and memories are located on the cortex- the wrinkly gray part of the brain. It's wrinkled because the cortex is kind of a big sheet of neurons- wad up a piece of paper into a ball, and it takes up less space than when it's flat and spread out. Thus, wrinkles in the cortex allow more neural cells in less area. It's also said that we use only about 10 percent of the brain- this isn't quite accurate- everything there is there for a reason; it's actually a question of efficiency. We can increase the efficiency and speed of thought and information processing and retrieval through these mental exercises that used to be all the rage- but there isn't a vast area of the brain just sitting there doing nothing. So it's interesting to think- perhaps people who would be called daemons in this book are really just precocious kids who develop a little faster than the rest of us. I've found that experience plays a big role- working on a certain set of problems, or a certain set of subjects, gets your brain ticking over in new ways- new connections develop, and you begin to formulate new ideas. So the way to improve your brain, it would seem, isn't rote memorization of facts. Clearly, learning is something more than that.

So I'm left wondering- are some people actually smarter than others? I know I've been identified as not exactly a genius, but extremely bright. Mad as a march hare, others have said. Perhaps both labels fit. Add to this the fact that there are so many different types of intelligence, and different types of understanding, and another level of complexity gets added. But the conclusion I can draw from this is that first, some people may be born with a few advantages- but ultimately what we do and how we do it determines what we become intelligence-wise. And second, that you should never underestimate the power of imagination. Every great idea started as imagination, as a what-if. So did this post, but that's not as much of a great idea as just a more run-of-the gray cells idea.