[extropy-chat] Singularity Drugs

[Russell Wallace]

On 4/15/06, John K Clark <jonkc at att.net> wrote:
>
> Not necessarily because an entire galaxy of solutions are unavailable to
> evolution, but not to intelligence. Every large change evolution makes
> consists of lots of small changes, and every single one of those small
> changes must confer an IMMEDIATE advantage to the organism; evolution just
> doesn't understand the concept of one step backward two steps forward.
> Imagine if you had to turn a prop airplane engine into a jet with a
> million
> tiny changes and ever change must improve the performance of the engine,
> and
> you had to make the changes while the engine was running. It just couldn't
> be done. That's probably why evolution was never able to come up with some
> apparently simple things, like a macroscopic body part that could move in
> 360 degrees.
>

That's why I said "simple chemical tweak". I'm sure the current system isn't
a global optimum, and there are improvements to be had if you can make the
sort of _big_ jumps something like mature nanotech might make possible. But
the sort of little tweaks that could be effected by taking a simple drug,
are also the sort that usually are within reach of evolution.
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