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In writing that, I thought it was pretty self evident. I ask this in seriousness, not snark: have you spent a lot of time around toddlers? My kid is currently a

In writing that, I thought it was pretty self evident. I ask this in seriousness, not snark: have you spent a lot of time around toddlers? My kid is currently a toddler, and while the intelligence curve she's rapidly climbing is impressive, she is unintelligent relative to an adult. I don't think I've come across any evidence suggesting that the human brain has changed the last 2000 years. After all, the Great Pyramid of Giza was built 4600 years ago. That construction required fairly advanced engineering. That's sort of beside the point though. To go back to my original comment, there is some distinction to be made between knowledge and intelligence. Even those should probably be decomposed into further salient attributes. And modern LLMs seem to capture some of those attributes, but do not yet strike me as "intelligent" in the way the average human is intelligent, but the average dog is not. I don't know, maybe I am conflating sentience or consciousness or embodiment or something else with intelligence.

taeric 2y ago
Yes, I have spent time with toddlers. And the problem solving skills of different toddlers can be remarkably different. Not even getting in to how much nutrition impacts developmental abilities. Or the fact that the vast majority of children used to not survive into adulthood. And, I get it, most kids that are "gifted" at super young age all somewhat converge with where others were going to get in a few years time. But I don't think we fully appreciate just how early we are able to get our kids reading across the board. Do we have evidence that you could get a mediocre teacher to prehistoric classrooms and have them get kids reading as well as we do on the regular today? And, quickly, as I say in sibling posts, I was taking "2000" to be a shorthand for absurdly old. My general question, there, is do you not think we are getting smarter? I realize this is a hazard of discussions, as most people seem to think this somehow logically leads to every terrible take it could. I don't agree with those. I do fully think that my children will net be smarter and stronger than me in most every way. I'd expect that my grandchildren will continue that trend. It seems to me that thinking otherwise is to either think that evolution has stopped with us, or that we have stagnated for other reasons?

taeric 2y ago

Yes, I have spent time with toddlers. And the problem solving skills of different toddlers can be remarkably different. Not even getting in to how much nutrition impacts developmental abilities. Or the fact that the vast majority of children used to not survive into adulthood. And, I get it, most kids that are "gifted" at super young age all somewhat converge with where others were going to get in a few years time. But I don't think we fully appreciate just how early we are able to get our kids reading across the board. Do we have evidence that you could get a mediocre teacher to prehistoric classrooms and have them get kids reading as well as we do on the regular today? And, quickly, as I say in sibling posts, I was taking "2000" to be a shorthand for absurdly old. My general question, there, is do you not think we are getting smarter? I realize this is a hazard of discussions, as most people seem to think this somehow logically leads to every terrible take it could. I don't agree with those. I do fully think that my children will net be smarter and stronger than me in most every way. I'd expect that my grandchildren will continue that trend. It seems to me that thinking otherwise is to either think that evolution has stopped with us, or that we have stagnated for other reasons?