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There's reason to think that we're maxed out on intelligence. Our heads are about as big as could fit through the birth canal. A brain as big as a planet couldn

There's reason to think that we're maxed out on intelligence. Our heads are about as big as could fit through the birth canal. A brain as big as a planet couldn't possibly work, and if it had the energy of a star, it would be made of plasma at millions of degrees Kelvin.

Houshalter 13y ago
We are actually only on the cusp of intelligence. The very first things to emerge from evolution capable of building a technological civilization. If it were possible for chimpanzee brains to build a technological civilization, we would be having this conversation at an even lower level of intelligence. The brain was designed by evolution, a very stupid and slow process. We are the result of iteratively improving what worked good at controlling locomotion in fish. Certainly we can make improvements, certainly we can do better. The fact that the human brain is limited to fitting through the birth canal is a great example. With c-sections that isn't particularly relevant, and computers/AI aren't limited in size or energy requirements at all (or at least not anywhere near the same constraints that humans have.) So imagine if brains that constraint was removed and you made brains dozens, hundreds, or even millions of times larger. You could build a computer the size of a planet, though it would require a ridiculous amount of technological ability. The energy of a star doesn't mean literally as hot as a star, but something like thousands of solar panels to efficiently collect as much of the energy as possible for powering the enormous computer. It was just an example of what the limits of technology might be.
- mtdewcmu 13y ago
  > The fact that the human brain is limited to fitting through the birth canal is a great example. With c-sections that isn't particularly relevant A bright future for mankind, but less great for womankind. We may need to figure out how to use elephants as surrogate mothers.
  - Houshalter 13y ago
    Or test tube babies, or completely artificial brains.
  - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
    Or, if we get really good at bioengineering, we could figure out how to fit more brainpower into less space, and thus allow the skull to shrink a little bit.
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  A) Our cognitive structure is not actually that stupid. Note that many-layered neural networks are at the forefront of modern Machine Learning, a discipline carried out by educated, technology-using sapients who will immediately switch to some better technique the instant they find one. Indeed, there is active research into better learning techniques. Neural networks may not be the peak, but they're Pretty Good enough that they didn't evolve "by mistake" in nature. B) We are still evolving. The big overwhelming FACT of civilization didn't halt our evolution, it just changed the nature of the selection pressures. Whereas raw, physical survivability was once the prime selection factor, civilization has made reproductive desirability, social cooperation, and parenting ability (all inter-related but nonidentical) the larger selection pressures on human genomes. C) The big new adaptation that made us humans what we are was only maybe intelligence. It was probably extelligence: the ability to store knowledge in the social group rather than the individual. That way, you can build your collective knowledge over time. D) You would have to be a stupidly, suicidally cancerous civilization to go around converting whole planets into tools.
  - Houshalter 13y ago
    Artificial neural networks are only one method among many, and they are only vaguely similar to biological ones. Neural nets are only good at exactly what biological ones are good at; pattern recognition. They can't do any optimization at all. They aren't going to be rewriting their own code any time soon. Modern computers are millions of times faster than the human brain, and can in theory be made much more energy efficient and compact and probably cheaper. Yes we are still evolving, though at a ridiculously slow pace. And the traits that are currently spreading aren't exactly good. The genes responsible for sociopathy are becoming more frequent since we don't live in small communities anymore. Intelligence is being strongly selected against at the moment as counter-intuitive as that seems. Less intelligent individuals tend to reproduce far more frequently for whatever reason. "Extelligence" doesn't really explain much. Sure a mind on it's own might not accomplish much, but we still have to explain what it is about human minds that allow them to think and learn in the first place. Can apes be taught language? If they were would they gain higher level intelligence or does it take more than that? I bet it isn't that simple. >You would have to be a stupidly, suicidally cancerous civilization to go around converting whole planets into tools. I don't know where your preference comes from but I would love to see the planets get converted into giant computers and minds. We should optimize the universe for our values, rather than preserving the random state it was put in by nature.
- mtdewcmu 13y ago
  I don't think you could have as much energy as a star in an amount of mass no more than a star without being as hot as one.
  - Houshalter 13y ago
    Probably not but that's not what I'm suggesting at all. Think of something like surrounding the star with giant solar panels.
    - mtdewcmu 13y ago
      Maybe I misread you. Did you mean a mind that has the energy of a star at its command? Still, that's more energy than you could possibly use. Consider that the sun has far more mass than the rest of the solar system put together, and all of it is extremely hot.

Houshalter 13y ago

We are actually only on the cusp of intelligence. The very first things to emerge from evolution capable of building a technological civilization. If it were possible for chimpanzee brains to build a technological civilization, we would be having this conversation at an even lower level of intelligence. The brain was designed by evolution, a very stupid and slow process. We are the result of iteratively improving what worked good at controlling locomotion in fish. Certainly we can make improvements, certainly we can do better. The fact that the human brain is limited to fitting through the birth canal is a great example. With c-sections that isn't particularly relevant, and computers/AI aren't limited in size or energy requirements at all (or at least not anywhere near the same constraints that humans have.) So imagine if brains that constraint was removed and you made brains dozens, hundreds, or even millions of times larger. You could build a computer the size of a planet, though it would require a ridiculous amount of technological ability. The energy of a star doesn't mean literally as hot as a star, but something like thousands of solar panels to efficiently collect as much of the energy as possible for powering the enormous computer. It was just an example of what the limits of technology might be.

mtdewcmu 13y ago
> The fact that the human brain is limited to fitting through the birth canal is a great example. With c-sections that isn't particularly relevant A bright future for mankind, but less great for womankind. We may need to figure out how to use elephants as surrogate mothers.
- Houshalter 13y ago
  Or test tube babies, or completely artificial brains.
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  Or, if we get really good at bioengineering, we could figure out how to fit more brainpower into less space, and thus allow the skull to shrink a little bit.
eli_gottlieb 13y ago
A) Our cognitive structure is not actually that stupid. Note that many-layered neural networks are at the forefront of modern Machine Learning, a discipline carried out by educated, technology-using sapients who will immediately switch to some better technique the instant they find one. Indeed, there is active research into better learning techniques. Neural networks may not be the peak, but they're Pretty Good enough that they didn't evolve "by mistake" in nature. B) We are still evolving. The big overwhelming FACT of civilization didn't halt our evolution, it just changed the nature of the selection pressures. Whereas raw, physical survivability was once the prime selection factor, civilization has made reproductive desirability, social cooperation, and parenting ability (all inter-related but nonidentical) the larger selection pressures on human genomes. C) The big new adaptation that made us humans what we are was only maybe intelligence. It was probably extelligence: the ability to store knowledge in the social group rather than the individual. That way, you can build your collective knowledge over time. D) You would have to be a stupidly, suicidally cancerous civilization to go around converting whole planets into tools.
- Houshalter 13y ago
  Artificial neural networks are only one method among many, and they are only vaguely similar to biological ones. Neural nets are only good at exactly what biological ones are good at; pattern recognition. They can't do any optimization at all. They aren't going to be rewriting their own code any time soon. Modern computers are millions of times faster than the human brain, and can in theory be made much more energy efficient and compact and probably cheaper. Yes we are still evolving, though at a ridiculously slow pace. And the traits that are currently spreading aren't exactly good. The genes responsible for sociopathy are becoming more frequent since we don't live in small communities anymore. Intelligence is being strongly selected against at the moment as counter-intuitive as that seems. Less intelligent individuals tend to reproduce far more frequently for whatever reason. "Extelligence" doesn't really explain much. Sure a mind on it's own might not accomplish much, but we still have to explain what it is about human minds that allow them to think and learn in the first place. Can apes be taught language? If they were would they gain higher level intelligence or does it take more than that? I bet it isn't that simple. >You would have to be a stupidly, suicidally cancerous civilization to go around converting whole planets into tools. I don't know where your preference comes from but I would love to see the planets get converted into giant computers and minds. We should optimize the universe for our values, rather than preserving the random state it was put in by nature.
mtdewcmu 13y ago
I don't think you could have as much energy as a star in an amount of mass no more than a star without being as hot as one.
- Houshalter 13y ago
  Probably not but that's not what I'm suggesting at all. Think of something like surrounding the star with giant solar panels.
  - mtdewcmu 13y ago
    Maybe I misread you. Did you mean a mind that has the energy of a star at its command? Still, that's more energy than you could possibly use. Consider that the sun has far more mass than the rest of the solar system put together, and all of it is extremely hot.