From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Wed Jun 19 2002 - 10:14:57 MDT
Mark Walker wrote:
>
> I am not sure I understand this. Is the idea basically that we should reason
> that if there were really that easy changes to the brain's factory settings
> then they would in all probability already be manifest in the gene pool and
> expressed in our phenotype? Take an example: suppose that a single homeobox
> mutation would create a human being with a much larger neocortex. I can see
> reasoning that this mutation is not likely to increase evolutionary fitness,
> even a few hundred years ago, but I am not sure that we can conclude that it
> is not an easy means to increase intelligence. One possible explanation why
> this mutation does not manifest itself is an evolutionary bottleneck not
> directly linked with intelligence, namely, the size of a woman's pelvis.
> That is, we might imagine that this mutation creates babies with heads too
> large for the natural means of birth. Of course, a c-section might get
> around this problem.
Yes, this sounds like valid reasoning to me.
-- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
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