Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!usc!bbn!apple!voder!berlioz!andrew
From: andrew@berlioz (Lord Snooty @ The Giant Poisoned Electric Head )
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: evolution of intelligence
Summary: a sideways angle
Message-ID: <591@berlioz.nsc.com>
Date: 5 Aug 89 23:33:20 GMT
References: <2153@hub.UUCP> <19229@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU>
Organization: National Semiconductor, Santa Clara
Lines: 23


It's been pointed out that size of brain does not "correlate well" with
intelligence. It's also trivially obvious that if you offered me two
neural networks for intelligence emulation, I would choose the one with
richer connectivity (assuming I'd know what to do with it).

This raises therefore the issue of accelerating brain "potential".
Perhaps in some distant(?) time, we'll have evolved techniques for
either surgical brain enhancements, or a more direct man/machine
interface. After all, technology is based on the synergy of collective
effort on a shared and accumulated knowledge base, albeit at a much
coarser-grained level than that which I had in mind. Science fiction?
Maybe.

If we can develop these techniques, however, the "inheritance of intelligence"
issue will become a dodo. In one particular political scenario, you are
intelligent in direct proportion to your personal wealth - how much of
the stuff you can afford!
-- 
...........................................................................
Andrew Palfreyman	There's a good time coming, be it ever so far away,
andrew@berlioz.nsc.com	That's what I says to myself, says I, 
time sucks					   jolly good luck, hooray!