From: Anders Sandberg (nv91-asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Thu Sep 26 1996 - 05:56:09 MDT
On Wed, 25 Sep 1996, Michael Butler wrote:
> Heck, I have trouble just imagining what life would be like if I
> could break through the "seven-plus-or-minus-two" barrier. :)
I think that would be a great breakthrough; we would suddenly be able to
handle many more aspects of the same thing at once. Hmm, this sounds
almost like a limitation of/on intelligence: a simpleminded being can
only keep one thing in its head at the time, while more advanced beings
become exponentially more able as the number increases. A mind able to
handle 10 things at once might be a genius by our standards, and 100
things at once is clearly posthuman.
So, how do we get there? And is the limit due to the rest of our brains
(which cannot handle the load of more than 7+-2 things at once) or bad
design (there has so far not been any need for more than 7 things at
once). If the latter, then increased intelligence may be within reach.
(Of course, this is just one aspect of intelligence. We might get
paralyzed by all the possibilities too if we are not careful).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension!
nv91-asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~nv91-asa/main.html
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