From: Emlyn O'regan (oregan.emlyn@healthsolve.com.au)
Date: Thu Jul 24 2003 - 17:44:51 MDT
> At 12:40 PM 7/24/2003 +0930, Emlyn O'regan wrote:
> > > >nobody today has 20 kids although ... feasible to do so ...
> > >
> > > I agree that we don't, and it seems that you agree this
> is a temporary
> > > evolutionary aberration due slow adaptation of DNA coded behavior.
> >
> >Busting into the middle of other peoples' conversation...
> >
> >"a temporary evolutionary aberration due slow adaptation of DNA coded
> >behavior."
> >
> >Does anyone really think that our modern (last thousand years or so?)
> >behaviours are temporary aberations to which DNA will
> eventually catch up?
> >It seems clear to me that DNA for humans has done its dash. ...
> >Belief systems, ideologies, ideas, these are driving our
> world now I think.
> >Not some quirky little quarternary tape machine.
>
Robin wrote:
> The aberration is temporary because DNA will soon be replaced by other
> faster-changing forms of genes, including those you mention.
If you mean other faster-changing replicators (like memes), then I'd agree
with you, although that's maybe redundant (we were talking about memes
already I thought).
If you mean that we'll put something in place to functionally replace genes,
I'd be extremely surprised. Right now, we are running fine on general
intelligence. Each individual need only be healthy and minimally able to
act, and to be able to manage general intelligence.
Increasing intelligence is likely to increase an individuals fitness (maybe
- unless we get some really nasty memtic viruses which require very high
intelligence to understand; maybe fermi's paradox is explained in something
like that?), but that's hardly likely to be done via natural selection. We
are far more likely to purposely design better mental hardware, than have it
crop up through natural selection (note of course that using genetic
algorithms to design a better brain is not natural selection, it's design).
In summary, I think the hardware will improve, but will keep to far more
general architectures for intelligence. All the interesting stuff happens in
software from here on out.
Emlyn
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