quasi-Philisophical question on limit to human intellegence

[BrownTown]

OK, so this is something I was sorta thinking about today which on the surface might seem kind of silly or even prejudiced but I think raises a good point. So my sister has Down's Syndrome and alot of her friends do to, and I was just sort of thinking how the advance of technology would be different in a world where EVERYONE suffered from some sort of learning disability such as this. In our current world an average IQ is ~100, and of course technology advances at a decent pace and all and steadily over time civilization has increased its knowledge of understanding of the world around us. However, lets say the average human intelligence were instead an IQ ~50, how do you think this would affect technology? My first though was simply that it would likely take alot LONGER for technology to develop, but eventually given enough time it could even reach the point it is at today. However on the other hand it seems almost silly to me to expect a person of ~50 IQ to EVER be able to think abstractly enough to develop something like a modern computer system, so maybe if the average IQ were ~50 there would be a limit beyond which technology could not advance due to the limitation of a disabled persons mind. Of course where the philosophical part comes in is imagining where humans as we are today are certainly not infinitely smart, so perhaps like a person with ~50 IQ who may never understand a computer we might NEVER be able to understand certain other things that are simply too complicated for a human to ever grasp even if they devoted their entire lives to that pursuit. So I guess the question is do you think there is a limit to human understanding beyond which would could NEVER advance, or given enough time could humans really unravel all of the mysteries of the universe?

On one hand it seems to me like people SHOULD be able to understand everything given enough time to advance technology and our understanding of the universe, on the other I look at my sister and she cannot understand even how to add 2 digit numbers after years of trying, how could she ever learn or conceive of calculus and in turn how could humans ever learn or conceive of some even more complicated mathematical representation for our universe which is vital to explaining it?

 

[lyssword]

First of all, there are a lot of outliers (in IQ), secondly since we seem to be making good progress in biotech humans would eventually boost their iq biologically so it wouldn't be a problem. Or artifical intelligence would interpret highly complex stuff to humans to understand. Or both working together.. third option: humans will continue to evolve higher IQ brains or something like that

 

[PowerEngineer]

Ignoring the possibility of evolving higher intelligence, I suspect that the innate level of human intelligence (even taking into account the natural variation and "outliers") does impose a limit on what humankind can comprehend. I'd also suggest that the limit might be tied to human life span (i.e. the length of time we have to think at our peak level). I'd argue that we'll break through that limit by developing increasingly powerful computers (and maybe other technologies) to leverage or supplement our own intelligence (rather than mutate ourselves to higher intelligence). But I could be completely wrong too...

 

[PolymerTim]

That's an interesting question. I've spent a lot of time thinking about intelligence and how people learn, but never thougt about this particular question. I have a few thoughts on the matter.

First, of course, is to say that there are many different kinds of intelligence and no single number can sum them all up. There are plenty of people out there that can write a computer program to control industrial equipment in very complicated ways, but can't effectively manage a group of workers. You can find more examples of this on wikipedia under Multiple Intelligences.

I think you also have to consider the distribution of intelligence and not just the average (as others say the outliers, since 99% of the population do not contribute to technological advancement). But simplifying the problem to assume an accurate measure of intelligence and a similar distribution with a lower average, I think you have an interesting point about its effects on technological growth. I think persistence would keep us going to some extent, but that certain things would stay out of reach. For instance, an elegant and simple solution may remain out of reach, but that does not prevent a less efficient solution that may require more effort but less intelligence.

That being said, I do believe that for any given intelligence level, there are certain problems whose solutions will remain out of reach. Reducing the average intelligence of a population, including its outliers, will significantly reduce its chance accomplish certain technologies.

On a similar note, I find it interesting to see how technology develops. In general, it seems to me that it begins with an innovation to a new technology by a single person or a small group that is then developed by a much larger group of people. Over time the process is refined and improved upon in smaller steps. From talking to successful industrial managers, I've learned that some people are very good at innovation and some people are very good at development/refinement. People who specialize in one are often very poor at the other and the job of the manager is to identify workers strengths and put them in the right job.

 

[CycloWizard]

I think that human intellect is limited in that no one person could ever understand everything in the universe. However, I believe that it is feasible that the sum of all humanity's understanding might eventually encompass everything in the universe. If you take a look at the history of great scientists, this is definitely the direction that we are heading.

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: lyssword
First of all, there are a lot of outliers (in IQ), secondly since we seem to be making good progress in biotech humans would eventually boost their iq biologically so it wouldn't be a problem. Or artifical intelligence would interpret highly complex stuff to humans to understand. Or both working together.. third option: humans will continue to evolve higher IQ brains or something like that

While the outliers are a good point (and, indeed, pretty much all of the greatest advances in science are made by people with IQs significantly above the average), but you can't assume that a civilization with a much lower overall IQ would somehow be able to develop biotech, or artificial intelligence, to make up for it. Even WE haven't managed to do that, and I doubt the reason is simply that we're happy with our current levels of intelligence and see no need to develop improvements.

As for evolution, intelligence is not NECESSARILY selected for.

OP, I think that there IS an upper limit, it's not simply a question of "more time to make the same discoveries".

Originally posted by: CycloWizard
However, I believe that it is feasible that the sum of all humanity's understanding might eventually encompass everything in the universe.

That's impossible, since humans are contained within the universe. It's a philosophical contradiction.

 

[NanoStuff]

how could humans ever learn or conceive of some even more complicated mathematical representation for our universe which is vital to explaining it?

Time, that's how. Mathematics 1000 years ago were FAR simpler, yet from their perspective it was no easier, and that's just because no higher bound was known to them. They had the same challenges of overcoming the unknown, just on a different level.

 

[lyssword]

Originally posted by: NanoStuff

how could humans ever learn or conceive of some even more complicated mathematical representation for our universe which is vital to explaining it?

Time, that's how. Mathematics 1000 years ago were FAR simpler, yet from their perspective it was no easier, and that's just because no higher bound was known to them. They had the same challenges of overcoming the unknown, just on a different level.

Yeah, I think so too, there could be a limit on intelligence, but humans keep accumulating knowledge by recording their findings. Time is very important, provided that people have some way of passing on the knowledge to the next generation.

In my opinion humans are only beginning to use highly abstract intelligence effectively. For thousands of years most had no chance to develop higher level of thinking because they had to focus on the most basic survival, like food, shelter, tribal war and other things. It's not like humans 10 thousand years ago were any dumber. It's just they had no opportunity and no previous knowledge to build upon.

Another important point, not every human has to understand everything learned at any one point. Provided the civilization can distribute workload, knowledge will keep advancing. Humans already specialize in certain areas, and I would assume people would keep splitting more difficult parts into chunks.

And like I said, highly specialized people will interpret their knowledge to be understandable at simpler level. I don't need to know all the code of Youtube website or Windows OS in order to use it effectively, for example.

It may sound like I'm beating around the bush but that's the best I could come up with

 

[NanoStuff]

Originally posted by: lyssword
It's not like humans 10 thousand years ago were any dumber. It's just they had no opportunity and no previous knowledge to build upon.

Actually they were. Even 2000 years ago human brains were substantially smaller. This is certainly an assisting factor, but I doubt it's enough to explain the relative differences in technology.

Evolution will be assisting us no further, but that's fine, we won't be needing it.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: jagec
That's impossible, since humans are contained within the universe. It's a philosophical contradiction.

I don't think so. The goal of modern physics is to develop a unified theory of everything, which would tell us how everything in the universe interacts on a fundamental level. This does not imply that we know the state of everything in the universe or that everything is then predictable, only that we understand the basic forces driving events. Since we cannot know the exact state of the universe at any time, we cannot know exactly what will happen, but we can understand how it will happen.

In other words, we cannot know everything about the universe but we can understand it.

 

[Gannon]

Originally posted by: BrownTown
In our current world an average IQ is ~100, and of course technology advances at a decent pace and all and steadily over time civilization has increased its knowledge of understanding of the world around us. However, lets say the average human intelligence were instead an IQ ~50, how do you think this would affect technology?

** Let me state that I don't believe humans know very much about intelligence and the way they live their lives and treat each other is much evidence to their lack of it.

First off, you're talking hypotheticals, next, you assume IQ is worth more then it is, IQ is a very crude scientific tool, it tells us nothing of the physics or biology and distribution of neurons and what their primary function is, and more importantly what went wrong/right. It's got more in common with phrenology then it does with molecular biology or biophysics. Technology acts as a lense to increase our ability to focus or bring into focus what we couldn't percieve or perceive accurately with enough resolution before.

IQ tests a skill set of academic functions that most people value in society. Your question puts a spotlight on just how dim ALL human beings really are. Next IQ has a lot of questionable data about "outcomes" that never considers, nor questions the culture itself, it's values, it's way of life, etc. Most of western culture is pretty primitive compared to past cultures in their way of life, and what kinds of personal relationsihps they have with each other and respect for their environment... do most westerners think 6 generations ahead when, do they even know in any rigorous detail their impact of their lifestyles on the environment for instance? I bet even most smart people have only the faintest of ideas of what their impact is on resources and the earth is... not exactly genius's are we?

Take a person who has a genius IQ, if he 'doesn't use his potential' this is considered by many in the IQ community as a 'failure', Williams James Sidis, one of histories most prodigous children was smart but took on menial jobs and spent most of his time doing what he loved: thinking and writing.

Next too many in the IQ community assume that intelligence or superiority is GLOBAL instead of more like alphabet soup, (pockets of genius, normal, and atrocious functioning, all in the same person) and that there is only 'one way' to be smart and not many ways.

For instance, someone with an IQ of 130+ can still be amazingly bone-headed in other areas of their life. Consider a lot of the geniuses who died poor or who had no interest in making money. Consider Tesla for example.

Many smart people get expoited by others because of their lack of social intelligence to know when they are going to be manipulated, etc. If anything the internet shows us, it's that human minds are very, very, very small and we know much too little other then in terms of gross functioning and general "successful outcomes".

There is too much information (infinite) and not enough time. Next with enough time you could aid other people less fortunate and heal their intelligence "defects".

 

[firewolfsm]

I'd think it's obvious. The average human can't comprehend the idea of infinity, extra dimensions, most of theoretical physics actually. We rely on the exceptions to move humanity forward. I think the gap between the average human and someone with down syndrome is much smaller than the gap between the average human and Einstein, Hawking, or Newton.

Hawking said the major limitation in human intellect is the head size that can fit through the birth canal, raising embryos outside the mother could move us forward.

 

[NanoStuff]

Originally posted by: firewolfsm
raising embryos outside the mother could move us forward.

That's very amusing. Let's lab-grow children so that one day they may evolve bigger brains

 

[PolymerTim]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: jagec
That's impossible, since humans are contained within the universe. It's a philosophical contradiction.

I don't think so. The goal of modern physics is to develop a unified theory of everything, which would tell us how everything in the universe interacts on a fundamental level. This does not imply that we know the state of everything in the universe or that everything is then predictable, only that we understand the basic forces driving events. Since we cannot know the exact state of the universe at any time, we cannot know exactly what will happen, but we can understand how it will happen.

In other words, we cannot know everything about the universe but we can understand it.

Hmmm, semantics problem maybe. I would say that too understand something, you should be able to predict it. I think you're taking it one level lower and saying that if it fits with current theories then we understood it before we observed it. Either way, I believe the ability to predict everything in the universe is unrealistic.

Originally posted by: NanoStuff

Originally posted by: lyssword
It's not like humans 10 thousand years ago were any dumber. It's just they had no opportunity and no previous knowledge to build upon.

Actually they were. Even 2000 years ago human brains were substantially smaller. This is certainly an assisting factor, but I doubt it's enough to explain the relative differences in technology.

Evolution will be assisting us no further, but that's fine, we won't be needing it.

You have to be careful when equating brain size to intelligence; they are often not related within a species. I think it has much more to do with how the brain is wired than how big it is. Its kind of like saying one CPU is better than another because it operates at a faster frequency. If you don't consider the architecture you are missing a big piece of the puzzle.

Originally posted by: Gannon
** Let me state that I don't believe humans know very much about intelligence and the way they live their lives and treat each other is much evidence to their lack of it.

I agree that intelligence is a very complicated thing and IQ is a poor measure of it. I think for the purposes of this debate, you really have to over simplify the question to one concerning intelligence related to the progress of technology or understanding of how the world works. Incorporating the ethics of how we use that understanding makes this a whole new beast altogether.

Originally posted by: firewolfsm
Hawking said the major limitation in human intellect is the head size that can fit through the birth canal, raising embryos outside the mother could move us forward.

That's an interesting point. It is interesting to contemplate our growth on an evolutionary timescale, but I think it is all really pure speculation. Evolution is typically seen only as a driving force for change when it affects mortality up to birthing age. But when you think about it, there are a lot of changes occuring in the human species that I have never heard a good reason for. For instance, it seems that our jaws are getting smaller and many of us no longer have room for our wisdom teeth; and some people are being born with fewer than four or even no wisdom teeth. Now, maybe you can argue that we no longer need them, but I still see no evolutionary drive for them to disapear. Basically I'm getting at the fact that we still don't understand all the factors that drive change on an evolutionary time scale. If we somehow create our own driving force for increased intellect through our use of it, and if this increased intellect requires larger heads, who is to say that the average size of a birthing canal won't simply increase as well, owing to the fact that the heads are getting slowly bigger. Of course, with almost one-third of Americans being delivered by Cesarian section, it seems there is plenty of room for larger heads. It may be riskier than traditional birth, but it sounds a heck of a lot simpler than growing babies in an artificial womb!

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: PolymerTim
Hmmm, semantics problem maybe. I would say that too understand something, you should be able to predict it. I think you're taking it one level lower and saying that if it fits with current theories then we understood it before we observed it. Either way, I believe the ability to predict everything in the universe is unrealistic.

We already know that the uncertainty principle limits our ability to deterministically model the universe (that is, if it is really an inviolable law of nature rather than simply something Heisenberg's thesis committee rejected ). Thus, we can only "understand" the universe within the limitations of the uncertainty principle. "Understanding" beyond this level is impossible, since we can neither observe nor predict to a higher precision than this.

 

[RideFree]

PolymerTim is correct...

You have to be careful when equating brain size to intelligence; they are often not related within a species. I think it has much more to do with how the brain is wired than how big it is. Its kind of like saying one CPU is better than another because it operates at a faster frequency. If you don't consider the architecture you are missing a big piece of the puzzle.

It was said that Einstein's brain exhibited an unusual number of synaptic connections and was not unusual in size...

 

[PolymerTim]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: PolymerTim
Hmmm, semantics problem maybe. I would say that too understand something, you should be able to predict it. I think you're taking it one level lower and saying that if it fits with current theories then we understood it before we observed it. Either way, I believe the ability to predict everything in the universe is unrealistic.

We already know that the uncertainty principle limits our ability to deterministically model the universe (that is, if it is really an inviolable law of nature rather than simply something Heisenberg's thesis committee rejected ). Thus, we can only "understand" the universe within the limitations of the uncertainty principle. "Understanding" beyond this level is impossible, since we can neither observe nor predict to a higher precision than this.

That's an interesting point and I guess it just shows how difficult it can be to really know anything. I'm no physicist, but I did a quick review of the uncertainty principle. From my understanding, it seems to imply only a limit in the precision of certain measurements. Knowing what the distribution is and a general acceptance that it is not possible to narrow it would, in my mind, constitute complete knowledge and understanding of the measurement. I realize that statement will not agree with everyone, but it seems good enough for me. After all, we call them theories for a reason.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: PolymerTim
That's an interesting point and I guess it just shows how difficult it can be to really know anything. I'm no physicist, but I did a quick review of the uncertainty principle. From my understanding, it seems to imply only a limit in the precision of certain measurements. Knowing what the distribution is and a general acceptance that it is not possible to narrow it would, in my mind, constitute complete knowledge and understanding of the measurement. I realize that statement will not agree with everyone, but it seems good enough for me. After all, we call them theories for a reason.

Right. So, while we can never predict everything with 100% certainty (again, assuming the uncertainty principle is true), we can still understand what's going on. Sort of convoluted, but that seems to be the way of things.

 

[konceptz]

Interestin prose, didn't have time to read all the reply's but to speak directly on your question:

It's not the ~100 IQ people that developed the concepts for our modern computers/reality/perceptions, it's the rare 150's or 200's.

So I'm guessing in the ~50 IQ world, there would be some 100's or 150's that would make those leaps and bounds.

I would imagine a longer development process would take place.

 

[piasabird]

I could conceive of the possibility of a computer or some diagnostic machinery being complex enough to map our the DNA of any human body at some time in the future. Ot it could be something simple like an army of nanobots that can control colesterol and clean out our arteries. These kind of advancements tend to come from people researching in a narrower field of vision.

Look at areas like Jet Engines and you can see often there are rather short periods of advancement in science in certain areas. Either that or someone has an idea and they work on it but there is no application developed to use the technology. So the idea sits dormant for a while written up in a paper, till someone working on something else looks at it and combines it with something else and we have a better light bulb.

Technologies learned have been lost like the ability to harden copper to make it stronger than steel, and just how did they build the Pyramid? It is likely there were records at one time and some grave diggers or some invading hordes destroyed the records . Modern man is vain and wants to beleive that older races were more primitive. Some times this belief allows people to destroy valuable knowledge about the past.

How did they make Greek Fire?

 

[firewolfsm]

Originally posted by: RideFree
PolymerTim is correct...

You have to be careful when equating brain size to intelligence; they are often not related within a species. I think it has much more to do with how the brain is wired than how big it is. Its kind of like saying one CPU is better than another because it operates at a faster frequency. If you don't consider the architecture you are missing a big piece of the puzzle.

It was said that Einstein's brain exhibited an unusual number of synaptic connections and was not unusual in size...

I read that once, he had a lot of glial (fat) cells in his brain which is a factor of intelligence, or at least creative thinking.

edit: piasabird, you're kinda...clueless, no offense. We can build a fucking 4000 foot building, pyramids aren't much. We can do everything other civilizations did before us.

 

[PolymerTim]

Originally posted by: piasabird
I could conceive of the possibility of a computer or some diagnostic machinery being complex enough to map our the DNA of any human body at some time in the future. Ot it could be something simple like an army of nanobots that can control colesterol and clean out our arteries. These kind of advancements tend to come from people researching in a narrower field of vision.

Look at areas like Jet Engines and you can see often there are rather short periods of advancement in science in certain areas. Either that or someone has an idea and they work on it but there is no application developed to use the technology. So the idea sits dormant for a while written up in a paper, till someone working on something else looks at it and combines it with something else and we have a better light bulb.

Technologies learned have been lost like the ability to harden copper to make it stronger than steel, and just how did they build the Pyramid? It is likely there were records at one time and some grave diggers or some invading hordes destroyed the records . Modern man is vain and wants to beleive that older races were more primitive. Some times this belief allows people to destroy valuable knowledge about the past.

How did they make Greek Fire?

Hmmm, actually, mapping of the human genome was completed quite a while ago (at least 99% of it). And since then, I believe they have mapped a few different people as well as a slew of other species for comparison. Now if you mean the ability to quickly map a persons genes to aid in treatment, that is still in progress, but I think we will see it in our lifetime.

Just because we don't know exactly what Greek fire was, doesn't mean we don't have multiple options available today that perfectly fit all the descriptions. In this case, information may have been lost, but I believe the technology has since been rediscovered.

The builders of the pyramids were amazingly intelligent. We still do not know all of their techniques, but we know many of them and have plausible ideas about the rest. I think my favorite technique was their use of water in trenches to level the foundation across 48000 square meters of rock. Ingenious. But in my opinion, the builders of Stonehenge had just as great a feat to accomplish than the pyramids and we still don't know how they pulled that one off (or even much about who they were). Some stones weighed up to 50 tons and others appear to have been transported over 250km, unless a recent theory of a glacier transporting the rocks is true.

Copper as hard as steel? Pretty much rediscovered.
"The copper-beryllium alloys, or beryllium coppers, have exceptional strength and hardness, in some cases approaching the levels attained in heat-treated steels."

I do think you make a good point that technology in some cases has been forgotten. Sometimes it, or something similar is rediscovered, but it often takes a long time. I think the difficulty was that several thousand years ago, written records were not as predominant and so technology was passed verbally. Additionally, the world was a bigger place and it was difficult for information to travel very far. I think you could argue today that we have turned that problem upside down and now the challenge is finding the information you want in the mass of recorded info available to us (anyone heard of data mining technology?).

 

[Gannon]

Originally posted by: Gannon
Let me state that I don't believe humans know very much about intelligence and the way they live their lives and treat each other is much evidence to their lack of it.

I agree that intelligence is a very complicated thing and IQ is a poor measure of it. I think for the purposes of this debate, you really have to over simplify the question to one concerning intelligence related to the progress of technology or understanding of how the world works. Incorporating the ethics of how we use that understanding makes this a whole new beast altogether.

The point I should have made is: IQ is quite irrelevant, human beings were once pre--amoeba like cells and less (if you go ALL the way back) and so was every other life form. In other words: Your sister is a lot smarter then you think she is, and also note that in an older world would she have survived or would her parents have left/abandoned/killed her? You have to remember the culture in which we live: We live in abundance with science and technology, many of the ancients did not have such luxury.

So if we take evolution at face value, IQ is quite irrelevant to technological discovery and invention. We can consider that evolution is in fact: "The theory of invention and engineering", life reinventing itself slowly overtime. Life or the universe at it's core must have some sort of self-feedback mechanism in order to allow it to navigate, replicate, detect (i.e. "see") and survive.

As for 'knowing everything', our knowledge keeps expanding, when we expand deeper into the cosmos or find new technologies they open up new universes and new questions, there may be infinite many universes, with infinitely many levels of complexity, which might make such a task near impossible. Like I said, you're dealing with hypotheticals and you're asking a question from your own primitive perspective as well: Remember to a genetically engineered child in the future, you're pretty stupid.


Even simple life is very sophisticated technology if you've ever studied it even on the so called "simple" level.

This is what goes on inside every human being:

The Inner Life of the Cell

http://aimediaserver.com/studi...f&width=640&height=520

youtube version (lower res)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxSLw1LMvgk

 

[videogames101]

IQ isn't everything. I mean, I know this from experience. I have takes several IQ tests with scores ranging from 149-155, But let me tell you, I generate fewer new ideas then most people of average intelligence. People know me to be smart, but they'd probably never take me to score at "genius" levels. The fact is, People who have high IQs might not necessarily come up with new things, but rather discover why these things work, which in turn helps fire up new ideas again.

 

[NanoStuff]

Originally posted by: PolymerTim
Now if you mean the ability to quickly map a persons genes to aid in treatment, that is still in progress, but I think we will see it in our lifetime.

Cracks me up every time, people running the 'in our lifetime' line for technology that already exists.