[extropy-chat] Not necessary smarter, just faster?

[Robert Bradbury]

On 5/11/06, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:

> You can compensate a lot by hard work. Up to a point. Vide supra: the
> eternal canine on fast-forward won't produce much than lots of happy
> barking, virtually gnawn bones, and tail-chasing.


The problem with the "fast" canine example may be that the canine brain may
not have either the (a) the capacity; or (b) the proper internal neural
sub-nets to ever perform the function Einstein's brain did (recognition of
some rather unusual laws of physics).  They might however have the internal
subnets to extract information from smell data which humans completely
lack.  (Say for example the "claimed" ability to be able to identify people
who have cancer (or some types of cancer) based on smell.)

Running a neural network faster doesn't make it "better" at least for some
things... A human brain on fast forward may still have a problem doing what
some precisely adapted neural nets (an octopus or squid with highly precise
sensory system processing and precision control of multiple arms) are
capable of.  At the same time I don't believe those neural networks aren't
particularly good at algebraic (symbolic) manipulation no matter how fast
you run them.

Einstein's brain may have had a unique neural structure so that it was able
to make connections or recognize patterns that other brains simply could not
(at least very easily).  Having (a) more memory capacity (human vs. a dog
for example) or (b) better spatial manipulation capabilities (e.g. those
brains which can solve a Rubik's Cube [1] very quickly) or (c) better
language sequencing capabilities (William Falkner comes to mind) may be
things where faster does not equal more creative.  Though my general take on
much "intelligence" right now is that similar brains (with ~ equal capacity
and structure) can deal with almost anything given enough information,
training and time.  Raw "speed" may help in getting from point A to point Z
faster.  It is interesting to consider whether raw capacity (as compared to
raw speed) is essential for solving the Professor's Cube [2].  This brings
to mind space vs. speed trade offs in computer systems.

It raises the interesting question as to whether Einstein would have been
able to deduce a "Theory of Everything" had his brain not been aging (over
time brains do lose neurons) and/or had he been given another hundred or two
hundred years to work on the problem?

Robert
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubik%27s_Cube<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubik%2527s_Cube>
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor%27s_Cube<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor%2527s_Cube>
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