Re: Universality of Human Intelligence

From: Eugen Leitl (eugen@leitl.org)
Date: Fri Oct 04 2002 - 03:13:57 MDT


On Fri, 4 Oct 2002, Lee Corbin wrote:

> I will call an entity universally intelligent if it
> is possible for that entity to understand *anything*
> if provided enough time.

I disagree, of course. Will a dog running for a billion years invent
quantum physics? Absolutely not. Will a monkey? Nope. The current state of
human agents isn't at all special, the hardware has barely changed on a 50
kYear scale. It is being driven harder, way out of specs, but most of the
changes occur at a higher level, and nowadays outside of people's heads
and the reach of primate paws.

Things *would* change if we all would have become immortal overnight, but
merely because the deep time perspective would gradually change your
outlook. People would start interacting more constructively, and realize
that the current level of development will eventually allow them to ascend
to loftier places by incremental patches and redesign of their substrate.

Life is neat, and all, but hanging around verbatim for a billion years?
Seem to get awfully stale after a few kYears, if everything else stays as
is.



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