Re: Brain Speed

From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Fri Aug 15 1997 - 06:26:26 MDT

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John K Clark wrote:
>
> On Wed, 13 Aug 1997 Anders Sandberg <nv91-asa@nada.kth.se> Wrote:
>
> >otherwise it would have made more evolutionary sense to have no
> >myelin in the white matter and shrink the brain a lot
>
> Evolution almost never picks the best move, it doesn't need to, it just
> needs to be better than the competition.

I believe brains evolved from an unmyelinated state to a myelinated state.
Since this did involve an additional investment of biological energy, myelin
is almost certainly an evolutionary advantage.

-- 
         sentience@pobox.com      Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
          http://tezcat.com/~eliezer/singularity.html
           http://tezcat.com/~eliezer/algernon.html
Disclaimer:  Unless otherwise specified, I'm not telling you
everything I think I know.

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