What’s so intelligent about the human brain?

The human brain is a work of staggering complexity, containing around 86 billion neurons (specialised brain cells), each of which can make connections with other neurons. This has been estimated to result in a neural network with trillions of potential connections, and all learning and plasticity in the brain results from changes in these synaptic connections, as existing connections are strengthened, and new connections are made. In this talk I will explore the specialised nature of human intelligence that arises from our remarkable brains, and I will argue that this arises from both the ways that our brains interact with our bodies (e.g. our high degree of voluntary motor control over our hands), some rare cognitive abilities (e.g. our ability to read the intentions of others), our ability to maintain large social networks, and how our brains are shaped by development and culture. Intelligence in this talk will be both an embodied phenomenon and one that should be viewed in a cultural and an evolutionary context: arguably human intelligence gets its power from the ways it allows humans to work together.