https://aeon.co/essays/ten-questions-abo...telligence
INTRO (David H. Wolpert): Despite his many intellectual achievements, I suspect there are some concepts my dog cannot conceive of, or even contemplate. He can sit on command and fetch a ball, but I suspect that he cannot imagine that the metal can containing his food is made from processed rocks. I suspect he cannot imagine that the slowly lengthening white lines in the sky are produced by machines also made from rocks like his cans of dog food. I suspect he cannot imagine that these flying repurposed dog food cans in the sky look so small only because they are so high up.
And I wonder: is there any way that my dog could know that these ideas even exist? It doesn’t take long for this question to spread elsewhere. Soon I start to wonder about concepts that I don’t know exist: concepts whose existence I can never even suspect, let alone contemplate. What can I ever know about that which lies beyond the limits of what I can even imagine?
Attempting to answer this question only leads us to more questions. In this essay, I’m going to run through a sequence of 10 queries that provide insight into how we might begin conceiving of what’s at stake in such a question and how to answer it – and there is much at stake. The question of what we can know of that which lies beyond the limits of our imagination is partially about the biological function of intelligence, and partially about our greatest cognitive prostheses, particularly human language and mathematics.
It’s also about the possibility of a physical reality that far exceeds our own, or endless simulated realities running in the computers of advanced nonhuman lifeforms. And it’s about our technological progeny, those ‘children’ who will one day cognitively eclipse us.
From the perspective of my 10 queries, human exceptionalism becomes very shaky. Perhaps we are more like dogs (or single-celled paramecia) than we’d care to admit. Though human history is filled with rhapsodic testimony to human ingenuity and intelligence, this sequence of questions paints a different picture: I want to emphasise how horribly, and perhaps horrifyingly, limited and limiting our achievements are – our language, science, and mathematics.
And so, the first question in the sequence is simple... (MORE - details)
COVERED:
1. On some ill-defined objective scale, are we smart or are we stupid?
2. Why does there appear to be a major chasm between the cognitive capabilities of our hominin ancestors and the cognitive capabilities of modern scientists, artists and philosophers?
3. Even aided by our extended minds, can we ever create entirely new forms of science and mathematics that could access aspects of physical reality beyond our conception, or are we forever limited to merely developing the forms we already have?
4. Is it possible for an entity that exists only in a computer simulation to run an accurate computer simulation of the ‘higher’ entity that simulated them?
5. Does the form, rather than the content, of our science and mathematics suggest that the cognitive abilities of humans are also severely constrained?
6. Are these finite strings of symbol sequences – the form of our mathematics and languages – necessary features of physical reality, or do they instead reflect the limits of our ability to formalise aspects of reality?
7. How would our perception of reality change if human mathematics were expanded to include infinite strings of symbol sequences?
8. Is it a lucky coincidence that mathematical and physical reality can be formulated in terms of our current cognitive abilities, or is it just that, tautologically, we cannot conceive of any aspects of mathematical and physical reality that cannot be formulated in terms of our cognitive capabilities?
9. Just as the notion of a question is forever beyond a paramecium, are there cognitive constructs that are necessary for understanding physical reality, but that remain unimaginable due to the limitations of our brains?
10. Is there any way that we could imagine testing whether our future science and mathematics can fully capture physical reality?
INTRO (David H. Wolpert): Despite his many intellectual achievements, I suspect there are some concepts my dog cannot conceive of, or even contemplate. He can sit on command and fetch a ball, but I suspect that he cannot imagine that the metal can containing his food is made from processed rocks. I suspect he cannot imagine that the slowly lengthening white lines in the sky are produced by machines also made from rocks like his cans of dog food. I suspect he cannot imagine that these flying repurposed dog food cans in the sky look so small only because they are so high up.
And I wonder: is there any way that my dog could know that these ideas even exist? It doesn’t take long for this question to spread elsewhere. Soon I start to wonder about concepts that I don’t know exist: concepts whose existence I can never even suspect, let alone contemplate. What can I ever know about that which lies beyond the limits of what I can even imagine?
Attempting to answer this question only leads us to more questions. In this essay, I’m going to run through a sequence of 10 queries that provide insight into how we might begin conceiving of what’s at stake in such a question and how to answer it – and there is much at stake. The question of what we can know of that which lies beyond the limits of our imagination is partially about the biological function of intelligence, and partially about our greatest cognitive prostheses, particularly human language and mathematics.
It’s also about the possibility of a physical reality that far exceeds our own, or endless simulated realities running in the computers of advanced nonhuman lifeforms. And it’s about our technological progeny, those ‘children’ who will one day cognitively eclipse us.
From the perspective of my 10 queries, human exceptionalism becomes very shaky. Perhaps we are more like dogs (or single-celled paramecia) than we’d care to admit. Though human history is filled with rhapsodic testimony to human ingenuity and intelligence, this sequence of questions paints a different picture: I want to emphasise how horribly, and perhaps horrifyingly, limited and limiting our achievements are – our language, science, and mathematics.
And so, the first question in the sequence is simple... (MORE - details)
COVERED:
1. On some ill-defined objective scale, are we smart or are we stupid?
2. Why does there appear to be a major chasm between the cognitive capabilities of our hominin ancestors and the cognitive capabilities of modern scientists, artists and philosophers?
3. Even aided by our extended minds, can we ever create entirely new forms of science and mathematics that could access aspects of physical reality beyond our conception, or are we forever limited to merely developing the forms we already have?
4. Is it possible for an entity that exists only in a computer simulation to run an accurate computer simulation of the ‘higher’ entity that simulated them?
5. Does the form, rather than the content, of our science and mathematics suggest that the cognitive abilities of humans are also severely constrained?
6. Are these finite strings of symbol sequences – the form of our mathematics and languages – necessary features of physical reality, or do they instead reflect the limits of our ability to formalise aspects of reality?
7. How would our perception of reality change if human mathematics were expanded to include infinite strings of symbol sequences?
8. Is it a lucky coincidence that mathematical and physical reality can be formulated in terms of our current cognitive abilities, or is it just that, tautologically, we cannot conceive of any aspects of mathematical and physical reality that cannot be formulated in terms of our cognitive capabilities?
9. Just as the notion of a question is forever beyond a paramecium, are there cognitive constructs that are necessary for understanding physical reality, but that remain unimaginable due to the limitations of our brains?
10. Is there any way that we could imagine testing whether our future science and mathematics can fully capture physical reality?