Well, this thread has taken quite an Adlerian turn! (
@Constance might appreciate the linked website.)
Alfred Adler’s Concept of “Social Interest” | Phenomenological Psychology
One of Adler’s key concepts is that of social interest. “Social interest” in German is “Gemeinschaftsgefuhl,” which translates as “community feeling,” as opposed to one’s private interests or concerns. One’s “style of life” is the set of construals and personal narratives one has devised in order to cope with being-in-the-world. If one has social interest then one evidences or enacts a “useful” style of life. If one does not have social interest then one is self-absorbed and is concerned only with one’s self. Such a style of life is “useless.” ...
Like his more popular contemporaries, Freud and Jung, some of Adler's ideas seem to have been right in the money, while others not so much. According to Adler, an individuals level of mental wellness can be measured via their level of social interest. An interesting notion.
Anyhow, in the interest in representing the reductive side of the discussion, I was thinking about the brain and "smartness."
I recently read an article about a 40 year old, employed, father of two who, it turns out, is operating with roughly 75% of his brain mass missing. It's quite astonishing.
Here is a man with a brain 25% the size of the general populace, and he's getting by just fine.
However, that's not to say there are not consequences. His IQ is apparently 75, with the average IQ being 100. Someone considered "gifted" would be in the 130 range.
So some of the man's mental functioning is definitely impacted. (If we assume the lower IQ is due to his brain size, which is not proven.)
Anyhow, we know the brain is remarkable plastic and that important functions/abilities have multiple pathways — brain regions and networks responsible for performing them.
My thought is that via the evolution and adaption paradigm, the core mental functions for survival will be very, very robust and redundant. These mental functions will be very ancient and represented amongst many species of life. Different types of species may have different core mental functions: tree dwelling species, water dwelling species, social species, non-social, predator type, prey type, etc.
Yet for various reasons, there may always be emerging, novel mental functions. However, these newer mental functions will not be as robust and will not have (as many) multiple pathways/brain networks supporting them.
So for example, the ability to recognize and feel disgust for rotten food is a very robust and universal mental and behavioral ability, but the ability to, say, write a (good) novel will be a very specialized and easily-disrupted-via-brain-trauma ability.
I'm treading on thin ice here, but we all grew up with kids or know people who get by "just fine" but definitely have a "quirkiness" to them. Social intelligence (social skills) — at least on the level required in modern human culture — seem to me to be a relatively recent ability. And a very fragile one; one that brain trauma can easily and sadly disrupt. Im not suggesting that such individuals cant enjoy life nor that theyre unintelligent. Just that their ability to socially function at a high level has been compromised.
On the other hand, maybe these mental abilities arent fragile because theyre novel and lack support from multiple pathways... Maybe its simply because some mental abilities require so much of the brain to be performed. Thus, as these abilities require a large portion of the brain, any damage to the brain will surely disrupt these multi-brain region reliant abilities.
What I'm getting at is that while most humans are smart — brilliant really — compared to most other animal species — some humans appear capable, a la Oppenheimer and others, of operating at another level. Do they just have a
greater capacity to do things the average Joe can do, or do they have
novel abilities the avergae Joe does not? And can some of it (but not all of it) be due to the structure of their physical brain?
