If it is applied to human mind, then the secret of intelligence not in the brains, but in the dataset that was presented to it.
It’s both. You cannot give the same dataset to a lizard and expect it to compete with humans. Culture is the magic, but a brain biologically capable of having culture is an important ingredient of that magic.
And it’s not enough that a proper dataset exists; someone also needs an incentive to apply it on the next generation. For example, the Polgárs most likely spent more time and energy on bringing up their daughters than an average neighbor. Even assuming they really found the right way… will other people use it? Or will they all say something like “meh, too difficult”?
Cultures persist when their members have incentives to apply the culture to the next generation. Well, the school system is a clever invention when a lot of those costs is outsourced to professionals. But the Polgár method brings those costs back to parents.
I would add that our culture system is partly installable on animals. Dogs could understand up to 500 words and bonobo − 3000. But children, grown by animals, are never able to speak human language.
So installing our culture on animals is like installing Windows XP on 386.
It’s both. You cannot give the same dataset to a lizard and expect it to compete with humans. Culture is the magic, but a brain biologically capable of having culture is an important ingredient of that magic.
And it’s not enough that a proper dataset exists; someone also needs an incentive to apply it on the next generation. For example, the Polgárs most likely spent more time and energy on bringing up their daughters than an average neighbor. Even assuming they really found the right way… will other people use it? Or will they all say something like “meh, too difficult”?
Cultures persist when their members have incentives to apply the culture to the next generation. Well, the school system is a clever invention when a lot of those costs is outsourced to professionals. But the Polgár method brings those costs back to parents.
I would add that our culture system is partly installable on animals. Dogs could understand up to 500 words and bonobo − 3000. But children, grown by animals, are never able to speak human language.
So installing our culture on animals is like installing Windows XP on 386.