Huck Turner  wrote or quoted:
> Tim Tyler  wrote in message
news:...
> > Huck Turner  wrote or quoted:
> > > Tim Tyler  wrote in message
news:...

> > Who will have more long-term genetic success - the east european prince
> > who has three kids and gives them the best education money can buy - or
> > an indian peasant, who has ten kids, loses two at birth, has two more die 
> > in childhood accidents, and then dies of a medical problem [...]
> 
> What is surprising about this example is that although the prince has
> the means to raise far more children than the peasant, he doesn't. If
> they both had the same number of children (regardless of whether that
> number was low or high), it should be the case that more of the
> prince's children would survive to maturity on average.

This is an example plucked from the air, so it's hard to speculate
meaningfully.  Sometimes the rich and powerful men do have lots
of tracable kids.  Chinese emperors are particularly notorious
in that regard I understand.  Our east-european prince may be
constrained in his actions by marriage customs that limit his
publicly-visible reproductive success to that of his wife.  Or
he may be experiencing greater riches than most of his ancestors
ever dreamed of - and thus his genes are not giving him reliable
signals about what to do with his resources.  Or he could believe
strongly in the power of K-selection.  Or any one of a dozen
other things could be going on ;-)

> [snip]
> > > It is quite conceivable that there is an optimal level of intelligence
> > > above which the costs of improvements outweigh the gains. This would
> > > stop humans evolving towards infinite intelligence levels.
> > 
> > Brain size is certainly under strong selection pressure to decrease 
> > in most organisms - since brain tissue is metabolically expensive to 
> > maintain and support.
> > 
> > However - as the growth of the internet demonstrates - large information
> > processing networks are definitely in demand and on the rise.
> 
> Not a convincing analogy to me.

It wasn't intended to convince you that the human brain would continue
its growth.

> > In the short term, human brain size is likely to be subject to divergent 
> > selection - with some individuals winding up with significantly smaller 
> > brains, and other ones with much larger brains.  The result will happen
> > as a result of increasing phenotypic plasticity - and perhaps through the 
> > use of genetic modifications.
> 
> Perhaps you've discussed this elsewhere and I've missed it. I'm not
> sure why you think these two strategies would emerge.

Not /just/ those two strategies.  Humans will diversify into the
available niches.  These include roles requiring lots of brain
power (teachers, doctors, technitions, designers, etc) and those
requiring relatively little.

Two analogies might help explain why this is likely to happen:
it happens with every large successful species - and it happened
to other organisms that became social - such as the ants and bees.

I have written material about this issue in the past - see:

http://alife.co.uk/essays/specialised_humans/

> > However in the long term it does seem likely that technological 
> > information-processing networks are likely to grow faster than
> > the human brain can manage.  Despite our multi-billion year head
> > start, engineered intelligences seem destined to surpass human
> > ones in about every way you can imagine in a relatively short
> > space of time.
> 
> I've heard that before! But yeah, it seems inevitable that it will
> happen eventually. Moore's Law is due to break down in around ten
> years as computer miniaturisation reaches its physical limits. We'll
> have ridiculously fast computers but we might have to wait much longer
> for smart ones.

It may well be size where the machines have a significant advantage.  
Their brains don't have to fit into skulls in the way ours currently
do.  Visit the NSA, and computers there already fill whole rooms - and
are routinely engaged in tasks it would be impossible for any human to do.

> > That seems bound to create a significant selection pressure
> > for sucking the human brain out of its natural home between
> > our ears - and onto exogenous substrates.
> 
> Do you mean the physical brain or the structure of the brain (perhaps
> represented in some new medium like a silicon chip)?

A mean the bit of man's extended phenotype responsible for processing
sensory data, and converting them into motor functions.

> > In order to compete effectively at the high end, means of creating 
> > physically large biological brains would be needed.
> 
> You are assuming that the most intelligent beings will have (or
> continue to have) the most offspring. Otherwise there would be no
> competitive advantage of having a larger (~more powerful) brain.

Not exactly.  But I am assuming that the role for large-brained organisms
will continue to exist for a long time to come.  I do rather take it
for granted that future organisms will literally have brains the size
of planets, and think we are clearly heading in that direction at some
considerable speed right now.

> > The cesarian section operation has lifted the main develpmental limit on 
> > the size of the human skull at birth - it's now free to explode upwards.
> 
> Except that a woman who has had a caesar damages her uterus by doing
> so and thus increases risks associated with later pregnancies [...]

A temporary technical problem.  Making sure all her other
babies are delivered by cesarian section operations as well
should deal with the issue.  Maybe the surgeons can build
in some sort of "zip" during the first operation, so that
any subsequent births go more smoothly.

> > More likely machine intelligence will rocket upwards, the human brain 
> > won't change that much in the interim, and fairly soon
"wet" brains
> > and biological bodies will be outflanked in practically every area by 
> > their machine cousins - who will then be in a good position to take
> > most of the available jobs.
> 
> But that wouldn't necessarily matter because we wouldn't need to have
> an economy based on labour any more. The only things that would have
> any value in economic terms would be natural resources.

I can't see that ever happening.  Folks will always get hired for
their abilities to do perform tasks.

Big powerful machine minds and big powerful robot bodies would
represent a real threat for organic lifeforms.  Not necessarily
through direct competiton - but the options for living organisms
to migrate into the new phenotype hardware would probably start
looking *very* attractive.

Direct competition should not be ruled out either:

Today's machines do use many of the same elements used to build human 
bodies with - Chromium, Copper, Iron, Carbon and Oxygen.  As in the past 
and the present, there is likely to be competiton for resources in the 
future.

The world can't be covered both with trees *and* with solar cells - and
it seems likely that whoever has the best technology will win out in
this sort of competition.
-- 
__________
 |im |yler  http://timtyler.org/  tim{at}tt1lock.org  Remove lock to reply.
---
þ RIMEGate(tm)/RGXPost V1.14 at BBSWORLD * Info{at}bbsworld.com

---
 * RIMEGate(tm)V10.2áÿ* RelayNet(tm) NNTP Gateway * MoonDog BBS
 * RgateImp.MoonDog.BBS at 7/29/04 12:58:44 PM