Xref: utzoo comp.ai:8324 sci.bio:4233 sci.psychology:3976 alt.cyberpunk:5522 Path: utzoo!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!lll-winken!ncis.tis.llnl.gov!lance.tis.llnl.gov!turner From: turner@lance.tis.llnl.gov (Michael Turner) Newsgroups: comp.ai,sci.bio,sci.psychology,alt.cyberpunk Subject: Re: The Bandwidth of the Brain Message-ID: <1217@ncis.tis.llnl.gov> Date: 4 Jan 91 00:25:11 GMT References: <1990Dec24.202254.2832@ddsw1.MCS.COM> <22398@well.sf.ca.us> Sender: news@ncis.tis.llnl.gov Organization: University of California, Berkeley Lines: 78 In article <22398@well.sf.ca.us> moritz@well.sf.ca.us (Elan Moritz) writes: > > TRANS_SAPIENS and TRANS_CULTURE > *** > REQUEST FOR COMMENTS > ------------------------------------- > > > In an earlier paper [Memetic Science: I - General > Introduction; Journal of Ideas, Vol. 1, #1, 3-22, 1990] I > postulated the emergence of a descendent of homo sapiens. > This descendent will be primarily differentiated from h. > sapiens by having * substantially greater cognitive > abilities *. > > [the relevant section of the paper is included below]. > [[...much deleted...]] > Homo trans-sapiens is the [postulated] next step in > evolution of homo sapiens. There is no reason to expect or > require that Homo sapiens will not undergo further > evolution. The bio-historical trend indicates that the > major evolutionary development in Homo is in the > cortico-neural arena (i.e. increasingly more complex > organization of the nervous system and the brain). > Specifically it is the higher level cognitive - Knowledge > Information Processing functions that set H. Sapiens apart. > It is asserted here (and to be discussed in a future paper) > that H. trans-sapiens is a logical consequence of > evolution, and that the milieu and adaptive epigenetic > landscape for H. trans-sapiens is already present in the > form of trans-culture. It is indeed possible that the basic > mutations are in place and trans-sapiens already exists or > will appear in the biologically-near time frame. A problem with this is that, while the fossil record is pretty unambiguous on the question of increasing mental capacity over the last few million years, it is rather ambiguous about any increases over the last 50,000 or so. In fact, there's some evidence to the contrary. The advance of civilization doesn't necessarily depend on increases in average intelligence. In fact, some civilizations might have thrived by reducing it. Much of the Inca empire consisted of populations whose diets were iodine-deficient, hence mildly retarded--and much more pliable. (This retardation didn't necessarily extend to the elite surrounding the emperor, who could afford to have seafood run by courier from the coast up to the mountain peaks, and who might have been a gene pool unto themselves. Perhaps *they* were the forerunners of "trans-sapiens"? If so, it's not a pleasant thought.) Civilization might in fact be one big trade-off of loss of average individual capability for increased average physical security. The percentage of smarter people can decline without loss to the civilization at large if the fruits of their efforts are increasingly guaranteed wide distribution by the infrastructure made possible by civilization. "Trends" without recognition of driving mechanisms are useless predictors. You have to have a model for why people are getting smarter, and test to see if people, in fact, ARE getting smarter. (Innately, not just because of universal education.) If the paradigmatic "trans-cultural" artifacts are the Hubble, the Shuttle, and Chernobyl [mentioned in deleted portions], I'm really at a loss to see how the people responsible for either causing or avoiding such catastrophes are going to get laid significantly more often. Even if they did breed more prolifically, what kind of childhoods would their children have if their parents are off fighting technological firestorms all the time? They'd be soured on having an technical career in no time. The 80's wrote the epitaph on superbrains as a human eschatology: I read it as "Keep It Simple, Stupid." Large hierarchies, and the products of large hierarchies, are failing all around us as we speak, some of them taking down whole races and ecosystems in the process. The smarter monkeys might climb the mast of the sinking ship, but there's no place to breed at the top. --- Michael Turner turner@tis.llnl.gov