The limits of human intelligence

Sinophile · 2010-09-30T04:03:57+00:00

Humans are limited by their bodies. A dog can smell certain chemicals, and hear very high pitched sounds, but a human can’t, because they don’t have the nose or ears to do it. Meanwhile, dogs cannot build civilisations or create machines because they don’t have the brain power to do so. This thought won’t occur to you while you go about your daily lives, but the human brain is also limited. This limit has massive implications for us, since surely we will, or already have, come to a point where we can’t solve certain problems. How can we be sure that the answers to Goldbach’s Conjecture or world peace or the meaning of life or whatever are not freaking bloody obvious? So long as we have limited intelligence, and hence limited capacity to figure out solutions or even notice them, I have a feeling these sorts of really difficult questions will continue to cause problems for us. Only extremely intelligent and knowledgeable people have made advances in answering these really tough questions, and many of them have died without ever seeing the answer. How can we fix this limited intelligence? Create an even greater intelligence. What do I mean by this? Take for example, the use of computers. Computers have, in a way, allowed us to overcome certain limitations of the human brain and enhance our knowledge and comprehension of things. Computers can calculate things very quickly, accurately and don’t need to rest. With computers, humans have been able to solve certain problems which were previously impossible or difficult to solve, like finding really good approximations to irrational roots. The combination of a computer and a human’s brain is a greater intellect that a humans brain alone. How do we go about doing this? Well, I can envision two methods this can be done. One way would be to continue enhancing computers, and possibly one day connect computers and brains together to create intelligent cyborgs. A second way would be to genetically engineer humans. We can breed horses for speed, so why can’t we breed humans for intelligence? We can change the genome of a plant so they make more fruit, so why can’t we change the genome of humans so their brain is the size of an elephant?

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Reaper_69

15 years ago

I'm starting to wonder..Is the human brain really made to know everything..originally if we didn't evolve into the humans we are today we would live like animals and not really use our brains that much...Yes there are limits to our intelligence..Cause of things like emotions,bonds, etc..Not to mention that this "Intelligence" we speak off will be the DEATH of us all one day

Tachyon

15 years ago

Kalistean wrote...

A computer cannot go beyond the limits of our intelligence. It can only accomplish tasks we are capable of accomplishing, just faster.

According to Thurstone's multiple-factor-theory, intelligence consists of:

- spatial sense,
- calculating capacity, understanding of language,
- verbal fluency,
- memory,
- speed of perception,
- logical thinking.

So intelligence is nothing "magical", nor the way it came into existence - evolution. And therefore it is very well possible, with the progress of research on the aspects of neuronal intelligence, and the technical advance, to create at least something as intelligent as the human, and give it the resources to eventually develop even beyond human intelligence.

Quadratic

15 years ago

Really, our intelligence is limited because our brain likes it that way.
It sets up barriers, that prevent abstract thought, because if they weren't there, then we'd most likely not exist. And those barriers suck.

Until you get drunk/high, then the barriers are gone! And that's exactly why we have some of the knowledge we have today. We wouldn't know about DNA if Francis Crick didn't take a nice big helping of LSD to destroy the barrier put on our brain. And etcetera.

Source.

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