Every other species has a limit to intelligence and humans are no different. So there won't ever be a quantum theory of gravity or unification of all forces. Simply because we aren't smart enough.
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Anonymous2010-07-04 13:50
Although the thing is, no one knows how much capacity our brains hold; so.... yeah. There will eventually be a quantum theory of gravity or unification of all forces. Simply because YOU aren't smart enough to understand that.
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Anonymous2010-07-04 15:24
Limitations are only such until they are surpassed by using them to and beyond their potential extents. It's all in the learning and application.
Just like muscles...they can grow.
>>1
When you talk about "intelligence" do you mean our ingenuity or our ability to retain information?
Current hypothesis suggests the size and complexity of the brain creates the limitations for both; but, the former is a configuration limitation - has trouble thinking A when configured for B but could still think B with time - while the latter is a hard limit.
A counter argument can be made by identifying those few individuals who can remember everything with minute-by-minute picture-perfect detail. They tend to get famous and appear on TV as doing what they do normally - remembering everything that's happened to them since time X. I would like to make a rebuke to that you almost never hear anyone talk about what the deterioration of their mental capacity is like.
The intelligence of a single human is limited. But humans the unique(as far as we know) ability to transmit knowledge form one generation to the next. So out collective intelligence and our knowledge grows incrementally with each generation. therefore i think we will eventually find out the answers to those questions.
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Anonymous2010-07-07 2:04
>>10
As soon as I decode your english-algorithm...I will eventually find out what you just said.
>>10 But humans [have] the unique (as far as we know) ability to transmit knowledge form one generation to the next.
As far as you know, maybe. A lot of animals teach their children.
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Anonymous2010-07-07 2:24
>>12
Yes, but his argument was that most animals, those that formally teach their young, at least, teach each other how to resemble each other regardless of how many generations pass. Think about what human civilization looked like a thousand years ago; now, think about what it looks like today.
If you looked up the habits of birds or ants or any social non-human animal put into record a thousand years ago, they would probably look very much like what they do today.
>>13
Tell that to tits who now teach each other how to open milk bottles, or to the remaining uncivilised tribes who teach their kids the same things their ancestors have taught for generations.
The observation that what is being taught is pretty consistent over generations is a comment on how quickly environments change, not on fundamental differences in teaching habits. It's very obvious humans also teach their children to be just like them; possibly to even greater extents than most other animals, due to memetic reinforcement.
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Anonymous2010-07-07 10:44
>>14
It was his argument that it was "unique," not mine. And that still doesn't change the fact that most species who have had the privilege of not becoming a beast of burden or a food source, and some that have, still mostly live the same way they had many years ago. You can have birds teaching each other to remove the lids on jugs of milk back to the Roman days but they still live in nests and migrate with the season. A thousand years after humans have gone and former civilization has become indistinguishable, if there are "birds" still around, they'll probably still be making nests out of twigs and mud and migrating with the weather patterns.
Anthropologically-speaking if there is anything unique about the human animal it would be how we have cornered the market in our ability to transmit and retain both old and new information. Writing has made it such that things can be recorded then untouched for any number of years before someone uncovers it again; the existence of human information has gained a degree of independence from humans themselves and that is a powerful asset.
>>15 And that still doesn't change the fact that most species ... (blather)
So fucking what? Animals, non-human or otherwise, adapt to niches and then try to stay in them, preferring stability to change for its own merit, because that's how you survive. This is not some deep insight or a comment on either birds or humans.
Anthropologically-speaking ... (more blather)
Stop trying to use words you don't understand.
>>16
Don't be silly; I never used the word "blather."
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Carl Sagan2010-07-08 22:06
Discovery only takes....time...
and imagination....fffffuhhhh.....if you gaze upon the stars youll notice...fuhhhhh.....theyre limitless....billions and billions of stars all out there just like our capabilities.
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Anonymous2010-07-08 22:39
Who's to say intelligence capacity is unbounded?
Who's to say that we aren't at the top?
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Anonymous2010-07-09 1:58
>>19
Who's to intelligence capacity is bounded?
Who's to say that we are at the top?
What happens when math and the scientific method are no longer required in order to obtain a clear and accurate result?
When you invalidate the obscure analytical constructs and begin providing adequate and seemingly magical/miraculous intuitive conclusions you will find that science can only provide a "cookie-cutter" version of reality. Intuition is based upon sub-conscious and opposing shadow-realities which could only have come into existence within the mind via the perceivable reality. Then you need only extract your own self-interest and you have objectivity.
It doesn't matter how you go about attaining information within this realm of reality or the realm of your own mind, you still require a construct in order to disseminate and distinguish what the information is, how it can be used, and when you've used it, why should/n't it be used.
You can take the subjectivity out of decisions for objectivity, but you can't take the subjectivity out of Man.
>>23
Even imageboard faggots use 100% of their brain. Stop repeating urban myths.
A brain is terribly expensive to build and maintain; if we could get away with reducing it because parts of it aren't being used, we would.
yes, there will.
just like totally unintelligent molecules can combine to form bacteria which form plants which form simpler animals which form humans, gradually increasing intelligence, humans can develop more intelligent beings.
Sure, I may not discover the next greatest thing, but I can make a robot that can make a robot that can make a robot of sufficient advanced thinking capability to do it for me.
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Anonymous2010-07-10 8:03
>>27
lol, how can unintelligent molecules combine to form an intellectual being?
Your theory doesn't hold water.
It would then mean that at the relative microcosmic level, there is an intelligence. We are the geometric accumulation of that intelligence. Or at least that would make more sense than something from nothing miracles.
:/
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Anonymous2010-07-10 21:10
>>28
troll?
anyhow, we're made of molecules.
all of them are unintelligent.
all of them combined at some point to form us.
thus, unintelligent molecules can combine to form an intelligent being.
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Anonymous2010-07-11 4:55
>>29
are you trying to tell me that molecules that can and DO combine have absolutely no inherent, nor natural innate intelligence even at such a small level?
Are you for real? Next thing you'll tell me is that the universe is a machine and everything operates mechanically just as Descartes (03/31/1596 – 02/11/1650) did. Let me be the first or at the very least another person to tell you that I am not an over-glorified calculator like your computer...I am human...ignore that at your own leisure.
:/
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Anonymous2010-07-12 21:11
>>30
ok, well, maybe you are more than just a buncha molecules (assuming that is something to be depressed about anyway, like a bunch of molecules can't be something very great).
but the point is, whatever else we are, we are intelligent beings made from less intelligent stuff, and there is no reason to think the process cannot be repeated by us to form something even more intellgent.
One way to accomplish this might be to produce a being slightly more intelligent than us, and have that being produce something of more intelligence, etc., until we can solve any problem we need to because we do have the resources in terms of intelligence.
>>31 we are intelligent beings made from less intelligent stuff, and there is no reason to think the process cannot be repeated by us to form something even more intellgent.
The analog wouldn't be an AI, it would be a community/civilization.
you have to take into account your brain specialization as well, an as such, there are already people who are capable to think of something others can't, there's only one problem with them, since they are too focused on "being smart", they have practically none social capabilities, and are refused by society as total idiots. So it's only a mater of time before either they are recognized, or human's brain develops enough to allow them to gain some social capabilities without getting more "stupid", but then there would again be another humans who would turn that social capabilities to be "smarter"
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Anonymous2010-07-23 23:53
>>37
If they were really smart they would have learned to adapt and figured out that everyone else is right and they just have to deal with that hand that they were dealt instead of trying to lie, cheat, and steal other people out of their cards in order to prove a point in principle. When it comes to social capabilities you are dealing with people not information. When you are dealing with science, math, etc, you are dealing with information. We have two brain hemispheres with which to use in either case. Both are necessary. It's up to the user to discover the uses for each. Use it or lose it. That's evolution right there.
:/
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Anonymous2010-07-24 4:51
has everybody seen the new Google Image search? My default for the search "French Riviera" returns 14 pages of images with an average count of 35 images per. How about your wetgear? When I say "French Rivera" do you get 14x35 images in .37 sec?
To look at this "intelligence" upper boundary we have to ask some more basic questions - What is intelligence? Is it an innate property of matter, does it require quantum tunneling? A Final Algorithm? Whut, heh?
Wat?
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Anonymous2010-07-24 6:22
You guys are always looking for the extreme top...what you fail to grasp is what that should mean to you as an individual...
if you are striving towards something, your origin is contradistinctive to your destination.
You can also tell where you are by where you are not or where you want to go or what you want. Every desire is the presence of this taking place. Every fear of this is the attachment you have to your origin. To go after your destination is to sever the ties that bind you to what you wish not to be.
Knowing this isn't enough. Doing this isn't enough. When it's done...then it's enough...maybe?