Brain Power

October 3, 2007

Can we actually conceive something smarter than ourselves?

As so often happens, one of Noah's posts, " Nothing's ever Cut and Dry" and the comments it elicited have inspired me. Basically, it's about the tendency many people have to bemoan the younger generation's lack of interest in memorizing things. Frankly, my reaction to this particular post was a simple “Snap!� because it’s somewhat unusual for Noah to write more of a rant than a thoughtful exploration :) I deeply admire his commitment to thinking out loud and keeping an open mind, but I confess to a strong propensity for having and expressing a reasonable degree of contempt for the hash we’ve made of this world. More often than not, my negativity can be traced back to the failure of our educational system, (as was Steven Kalifowitz’s comment on this post of Noah’s.)

Thus, when Noah called the morning after I read this post, we had a great conversation about the convergence of technology (which is a fine substitute for memorization for many of us), brain science, and believe it or not, Abraham’s covenant with God. (See Sidebar, below.) I posited a little theory to Noah that day; I suggested that things are changing so much more trapidly now that we are probably approaching a point in human evolution at which we will actually begin using more of our brains than was ever thought possible. I based this thesis on the connections Noah has long made about the internet as a metaphor for how the brain works (http://www.noahbrier.com/archives/2005/03/i_used_to_think.php) and my own understanding of how new neural pathways are formed, which I learned by reading a wonderful book called "A Celebration of Neurons" by Robert Sylwester.

Of course, I was feeling very proud of myself for all this, when Noah asked me if I knew anything about 'Singularity'. I didn’t. It turns out that there are folks who think that we are indeed on the cusp of far greater intelligence. The tricky part is that they seem to think that humans will create this using technology, but that ultimately, it will be a technologically-enhanced human that will be “smarter.� I couldn’t possibly synthesize what I’ve read about this at this point, so let me just say it’s as fascinating as anything I have ever read. And it manages to tie up a lot of loose ends. Check the link. It’s a little ‘out there’ but there are some pretty smart people and organizations that are taking this very seriously. Yet another thing they’re not teaching you in school, kids!

Sidebar: Back in my magazine-writing days, this would have been a small box story – very useful for handling my not infrequent tangents. I think I may need to revise this site accordingly. Anyway …. my very simplistic understanding of Abraham’s covenant with God goes like this: God got tired of having to destroy the world and start over every time we humans screwed up. By the time Abraham came along, he was ready to cut a deal. Basically, the deal went like this: If you (Abraham) promise that you and yours will keep trying not to screw up, I (God) will promise not to scrap this project again. I believe this ‘connection’ exists in my brain based on the ‘humans screwing things up’ part.
Credit where it’s due: I learn a lot from my kids! I've had no religious education whatsoever. Leah took a course in Judaism a couple of years ago and wrote a great paper about the covenant. I’d be very interested in knowing what that professor thought of singularity.

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#1 Steven Kalifowitz
said . . .

October 4, 2007

It's remarkable how many people I meet who struggle with the Singularity. So the simple answer to your question above, for the most part is, no. From my general observations & conversations, the struggle isn't a generational thing. I've discussed this theory with people from end to end of the spectrum (age, race, gender, income, country, etc...).

Part of me has to believe that the issue many people have with the Singularity is how all-encompassing it is. Kind of like the concept of infinity, or the essence of Nirvana.

Not too long ago someone was writing about the Singularity & described it like this: consider a pre-hominid fashioning a flint 10k years ago. They had no CAPACITY to conceive how their invention would be used 6k years later; or that it could travel beyond their hunting grounds!

The rate of technologically-enabled change (I won't use the word progress, as that's debateable) is exponential, so even though we're more highly developed animals than our ancestors were 10k years ago, our true potential for envisioning the future is probably lower than our ancestors' was.

That said, I'll leave you with the simplest explanation of the Singularity that I've heard (and fully embrace as our future):

First, think of a person who has a prosthetic hand, and can move the plastic fingers with their mind, because the nerve endings in their arm were in-tact and could be attached to the prosthetic limb. Now think of someone with a cochlear implant. Same principle, only the connection is a lot closer to the brain (a bit scary).

Now think of yourself. Imagine that you could hear perfectly well, but your doctor told you she could replace your ear drum with a device that could expand your range of hearing from the low of the sounds an elephant makes, to the high of a bat's echolocation squeeks. And what's better - the sounds will be modulated so that nothing will ever sound too loud! Would you get it? (I would).

That is where we are going, in the next 50 years. Beyond that, you need to abstract a bit more.

Consider that as people, we are two things: a body and a mind (Buddhism would teach you otherwise, and I agree with that philosophy to a degree).

When you die, it's usually because your physical body stopped working. What if we could replace every piece of your physical body with a prosthetic limb that worked better than the one you were born with? And if we enhanced your brain to work faster and better (by expanding the bottle-necks? eg: processing power, memory location, etc...) You'd probably never die, and in essence what you would become is your mind! Since everything else can be replaced.

At that point the concept of "the purpose of life" really begins to get a bit whacky - and that's were most people get lost. You wouldn't need food, you wouldn't need sleep, you wouldn't need anything. So what would we be doing here?

And that's where I stop... because when I reached this point, I started studying Buddhism. The forseable future of the Singularity looked a lot like Nirvana - only without the bliss. I'm still exploring, or as friends would say, "preparing" for the future!

Good luck!

#2 barbara
said . . .

October 4, 2007

Steven -- Thank you for your very thoughtful comment and explanation of the Singularity. You've given me so much to think about! I haven't really thought about the mind/body separation since my college days (in the late 60's we were big on that sort of thing :) but I find it fascinating that this whole train of thought led you to Buddhism. Looks like I've got yet another learning tangent to follow!
Seriously, I can't tell you how much I appreciate your taking the time to respond like this.
B

#3 XRumerTest
said . . .

May 4, 2009

Hello. And Bye.